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I'm interested in hacking!! Too late, huh? Oh well.. Hey, Silverlance, is it possible to edit events and scenes? Like for example, you could add a code that would move cyan three spaces down or add an extra quote, change graphic pose, etc.. Because it would be nice to have a mini game besides Collosseum..

Neo, RL doesn't have internet connection for awhile, as I said before, so he can't answer you.

Though I'm not RuneLancer, I know the answer to your question. The editing of events and scenes and such is very possible. In fact, it is probably the easiest non-statistic change you can make with a hex editor. There is a file out there with all the event script commands and such. The only tricky thing is finding out where the event you want to edit is located, but once you get the hang of it, even that isn't hard.

I'm a complete n00b at event hacking, but I did make a few event changes so far. It took all of 5 minutes to find the location of what I wanted to change, experiment with the commands, and get a desirable result. Not hard at all.

Hope this helped a little.

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Is PJ

thanks again caesar!

yes, you correctly interpreted my question and gave me exactly the answer i was looking for. i hope this will clear up my confusion !

Quote (Caesar @ 8th September 2005 20:36)

Neo, RL doesn't have internet connection for awhile, as I said before, so he can't answer you.

Though I'm not RuneLancer, I know the answer to your question. The editing of events and scenes and such is very possible. In fact, it is probably the easiest non-statistic change you can make with a hex editor. There is a file out there with all the event script commands and such. The only tricky thing is finding out where the event you want to edit is located, but once you get the hang of it, even that isn't hard.

I'm a complete n00b at event hacking, but I did make a few event changes so far. It took all of 5 minutes to find the location of what I wanted to change, experiment with the commands, and get a desirable result. Not hard at all.

Hope this helped a little.

Oh, sorry. I didn't read the posts about RuneLancer losing his internet connection for awhile.. I just went quick ASAP to reply

Hey guys, I came here because of this thread, and I have a question for whomever can answer this.

I know it isn't a Square game or a Final Fantasy game, but I have been messing around with Super Famicom Wars (it is the prequel to Advance Wars on the GBA). I have been scouring the ROM, but I can't seem to find any of the hiragana or katakana fonts it uses.

Could anyone help me with this search?

I can't personally go through the ROM and help you find what you're looking for, but I do have some advice. I don't know what you're using right now to look through it, but I suggest using a generic tile editor such as Tile Layer Pro, and looking through it several different bpps. A common bpp format for SNES fonts is 2 bpp. You could also try 4 bpp (which I assume is what you did by default), or even 3 bpp. If you still have no luck, then I don't know what to tell ya.

Good luck, and welcome to CoN!

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Is PJ

I have been using Tile Layer Pro, but I can't find a way to easily offset the tiles. I have also done searches at 2bpps, 3bpps, and 4 bpps. Meh. Maybe if you get bored you can take a gander.

I understand algorithms and can probably design them, but I don't know programming languages, including (of course) internal computer language (whatever it's called). I don't really feel too much like finding out anyways, and I have the sense that most ROM hacking projects simply end up as a bunch of nonsense or as some unfinished work swept into the corner of someone's virtual room.

Plus, I don't really have time.

Quote (Silverlance)

Not at all. I don't really know why I'm in this thread, frankly.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Hello world!

I'd love to answer questions, but I'm dealing with limited time here (at work) and I don't have any notes handy. Nor do I have time to post any new mini-tutorials.

However, I've recently begun work on my own hack. I was mainly holding back to decode certain undecoded parts of the ROM, and now that I've attained my goal I've begun working on this thing. At this point, the esper system has been scrapped in favor of a new one (partially implemented; all menu-related code, yeah code, not just text, has been altered), I've implanted a new battle command (missing animation scripts, but the rest works), and did a few minor cosmetic tweaks to allow characters to have classes displayed in the menu screen. Graphic-wise, I've created 8 new windowsets (including two non-rectangular ones and a transluscent one; the game doesn't like those too much though) and have 2/3rds of the character sprites created (2 of which are fully inserted into the game.) Ah, and I've created two animation commands (though haven't used them yet) in order to manage the new system I'm replacing espers with.

The part relevant to this thread is the detailled log I'm keeping of every change I've made, how I've made them, and how they work. Basically a tutorial for a very, very in-depth set of modifications to the ROM. Ranging from event hacks to new maps, battle animations to new battle commands, and a lot of changes to the game's system.

I've finished moving out and work on this full-time while at home. I don't have a working phone yet, much less any form of internet access, so avid ROM hackers looking forward to getting their hands on that log will have to play the waiting game for about a month or so. By then I suspect the hack will be mostly complete, along with the log.

See y'all in a month, and may your ROM hacks be free of corruption!

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Okay, here is a question.

I found the bottom part of a character: shi. It isn't the entire character, just the bottom half, and it is mixed with a bunch of other data. I modified the tile, and the shi was altered in game. Then, I altered the tile above it, and all the game text was ruined.

Is it common for the tiles for the text to be all broken up and spread throughout the ROM, mixed with the actual game code? Is there any easier way to find and alter the fonts?

I will post the bits where I found it when I get back to my room.

Data in a ROM is often stored here and there in an as-is-needed fashion. Generally, all data of the same type is grouped together: text with text, map sprites with map sprites, etc.

What you have to keep in mind is that data is not inserted into the ROM to be convinient to end-users. It's there to be convinient to the game itself and the code. If the game can just take the ID of the character to draw, multiply it by the size of a tile, grab the top part from that, then add the length of the "top part" chunk to that value and grab the bottom part, it saves the programmers the need to write up a lookup table that contains the address of every character's top and bottom halves, saving both CPU cycles and ROM space.

SNES graphics are generally 8x8 in size and of variable bitplane depth (2 and 4 are very common, though you may see 1bpp for really basic text.) It doesn't matter to the game how the tiles are stored, so long as it can pick up the necessary tiles to assemble together the sprite/character/image it needs to display. So the graphics are stored in an order that makes it more accessible for the game and sometimes appear jumbled and mixed up because of it. What you should always keep in mind is that NO ROM has EVER been designed with a ROM hacking tool in mind (except maybe homebrewed ROMs) and whatever manner a tool displays information is the tool's interpretation of things. If the game has 60-some kana, maybe having a row of 60-some tiles will cause them to align properly. Maybe not. The only way to know for sure is to ask the people who designed the game in the first place.

I can't provide any help with finding japanese text. English text is easy, as you can just do a relative search (most ROMs don't stray from the order our alphabet is in ) But with japanese text, that can be a little awkward. If all's your editing are graphics, though, finding one character means the rest should be nearby.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Is this (generally) the same technique to hack GB games? Pokemon for example? Cos i was gonna try that since i don't have a ROM.

The same techniques can apply to any form of file hacking. Even PC executables.

The only differences lie in the hardware and the processor's layout. If you're going to do assembly hacks, obviously you can't just hope to find the same instructions and registers in a game gear than you would in a PC. Also, different formats are an issue to expect (mainly graphics; most nintendo systems use the same format though, so GB and SNES would be similare in design.) Related to the processor layout is the way data may be stored for numbers greater than one byte: the SNES and a PC have a different byte order, such as that the SNES would load 0xFA80 if it wanted to point to offset 80FA, and a PC would load 0x80FA.

The theory, however, is exactly the same. Data is data no matter how you store it.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

so in order to change things as you did in the example earlier (Chimeras Hp and attack), it's the same technique but i have to find out what code it uses for the enemies?

Quote

You should change the name now considering it's lessons instead of a poll

This post has been edited by footbigmike on 14th September 2005 20:39

Ha. Turns out I finally got frustrated enough and decided to hack FFVI the way I want it to be, and some kindly fellow out there has begun a nice set of tutorials to get me started.

From the sound of things my objectives aren't as ambitious as your's. I may have to hang around to see what you turn out SilverLancer. Ideally, I just intend to tweak around the characters so they have some more identity. Drop everyone learning magic and make some slight tweaks to the esper system, largely around them teaching spells. Of course, if I happen to see some of your ideas in execution, I may end up digging up some more of those 'man, I really wish' thoughts I had back in the 90s when playing this game for the first time.

This post has been edited by Kiggles on 14th September 2005 20:38

Well, I'm interested, but since I have a Macintosh, I haven't been able to find any hacking programs. Not asking for any though, so don't attack me . But seriously, ROM hacking sounds like fun, is it?

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eh?

The 6th Lime has a Macintosh, too, and he is a very accomplished ROM hacker. He and I exclusively worked on the animation command script decoding until RuneLancer entered the scene.

I forgot which programs he used, but I believe XVI32 (hex editor) works on a Macintosh. There is another member of the ROM hacking community who goes by Corundum who was making Mac editors for FFVI. However, those projects are currently on hold.

Plus, what do you need a FFVI editor for when you have a hex editor? Kimahri, if XVI32 isn't working on a Mac, just do a google search for "macintosh hex editor".

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Is PJ

Hmm...It seems he had a regular Mac? I have a Mac OS X, and I can't use programs from the older versions. But the good news is, I'm going to get a Windows soon, so I'll be able to do all the Hex Editing I want! I couldn't find any editors for my version, so I guess I'll just have to wait.

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eh?

Get ResEdit.

I worked on a Mac before and ResEdit, a freeware program only a few hundred kilobytes in size, is your god. I started ROM hacking with it, and altered some BoF2 spells with it.

Beyond a hex editor AND a basic programming language that can work with binary files, you have absolutely everything you need.

My current work was done entirely with MSVC. I wrote a quick disassembler (which later became a 65816 emulator; fully working!) in C and had it dump the game's code. Then I just poked around in the code to find out what kind of data went where and made the necessary alterations.

Currently? I have replaced the esper system entirely by an affinity system. Equipping, for instance, a stone with Fire affinity will boost the power of fire spells. The menu has been 100% reprogrammed to display basic information on the Stone instead of the usual Esper screen. But that's not all! One of the characters' commands has been replaced by a set of element-based sword attacks, and having, for instance, a fire Stone equipped will boost the effect of a fire sword technique. In fact, the game displays a secondary animation when the right stone is equipped. These aren't ideas. They're the current state of the hack. Ie, this has been done.

Here's the catch: I did all of this in raw hex with MSVC's built-in hex editor. The only editor I used was to alter graphics (that's... a little hard in hex. )

To reiterate Caesar's statement, who the heck needs an editor anyways? Working with hex is hard at first, but as you start to learn you find that not only is it faster, you can do way, WAY more stuff than with an editor. In fact, no matter how powerful, there are some things editors will NEVER allow you to do. Assembly hacks are the most powerful alterations you can make, and no editor will ever be there to do those for you. And once you start making assembly hacks, you often need to create new data (for instance, the strings and pointers to these my affinity system uses) and, well, obviously enough no editor will be around to edit YOUR own data.

Of course, I have a few years of experience with ROM hacking. I'm talking about stuff most people starting out won't know about or be able to do. But getting used to hex editing alone early on will allow you to do these things in no time, whereas relying on someone else's program won't get you anywhere. If anything it'll help your creativity, and that's it.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

wow you're hack is starting to sound really sweet
i can't wait for it to be finished

muchos kudos para silverlance

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"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

Thanks

I don't have internet access currently in my appartment, but I'm working on a ROM hacking website. It features the hack in question (along with a slightly advanced tutorial covering the entire hack's creation) and pretty much every bit of ROM hacking knowhow I possess summed up in a series of articles, tutorials, and reference guides.

I think it'll be a good complement to this thread once it's up..

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Well, as promised, here's the site.

http://www.geocities.com/thefirstsaga/

There isn't much there yet. In fact, it's pretty empty. But in time I'll upload all that I know.

I dunno how it looks in Firefox yet, as I do not install that kind of filth on my PC. (Grain of salt, firefox fanboys ) But I'm pretty sure Firefox users may get display problems because I forgot to include a doctype. Slipped my mind. :/ But I don't quite do anything too screwy other than building the frames via javascript, so it shouldn't cause any serious display problems. If it does, I'll fix it as soon as I can.

The site will deal with ROM hacking in general, and will eventually have a number of tutorials and reference guides covering pretty much all that has been said in this thread...

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."