A blank Super Mario World baserom template that uses some PowerShell scripts to initialize a project and makes use of Lunar Magic's user toolbar functionality for building your project.
This resource is simply an organizational aide and doesn't teach you how to use custom resources or use the various tools within, nor any level design. It is just a folder structure with a handful of useful scripts and just exists to help you get better organized when creating a baserom for a Super Mario World hack or as a blank canvas for starting a new ROM hack project.
A "baserom" in hacking jargon is just a term for a specific collection of patches and custom assets that would get applied to Super Mario World repeated to serve as the "base" for making a ROM hack. For example, the Romhack Races community provides a baserom to creators wishing to make a race level, and it is tailored to their requirements so there is consistency across all levels.
First, make a copy of your (headered) Super Mario World ROM and put it in "workspace" folder of this baserom template. You can rename it to whatever you like, e.g. MyBaseRom.smc, since the build processes are agnostic to the file name. If your ROM has a file extension of .sfc rename it to .smc this prevents minor headaches elsewhere.
This resource comes with a first-run script !initialize_baserom.bat to setting up you project. It will download all common tools on demand if they aren't detected and set them up for your convenience in the "tools" folder.
Before getting started make any small change and save your ROM in Lunar Magic. When you do this, Lunar Magic will perform some small hijacks and setup its restore function.
Next, extract all Graphics and ExGraphics from your ROM using File > Graphics > Extract GFX from ROM and File > Graphics > Extract ExGFX from ROM this will populate the 'Graphics' and 'ExGraphics' folders in the workspace folder with SMW graphics files as well as install some more hijacks into the ROM.
It is also common to Expand your ROM to at least 2MB via File > Expand ROM > Expand ROM to 2MB to give yourself enough headroom to make changes and add things to your hack.
To make life easier for you as a hacker, this project template comes with a custom User Toolbar in Lunar Magic. It uses a script on the backend to automate the process of applying additional custom assets to your ROM right from Lunar Magic without the need for scripts or dragging your rom around.
The initialization script moves all the readmes and other documentation from the various tools to this folder, if they have any, for easy access.
This contains the resources used to initialize the project. This includes some template list files that replace the default tool list files, the User Toolbar files, and initialization PowerShell scripts.
Folder where all the baserom tools will be "installed" by the initialization script.
Your eventual project's root folder, will contain your ROM, any tool auxillary files and extracted graphics from your ROM.