zel's Home-made Tutorials

[Wuggles]

Originally Posted by xXscytherXx

If you could, it would be a great idea to make a tutorial on changing the world map. I hear people whining about it all the time [yes,even me!]

So just a suggestion.

Oh, that would be wonderful

[Scorched]

Could you edit the Big Sprites at the Oak Intro useing tile molester? Because The black and white colour thing is really hard but I was able to use tile tolester fairly easy. If you can could someone tell me the offset?

[martauros]

I think that u can make a script tutorial. Anyway where is this kind of tutorial?

[jonicito]

Originally Posted by martauros

I think that u can make a script tutorial. Anyway where is this kind of tutorial?

the same thing I was thinking because I'm not good with scripts but good with text.

[Wuggles]

He said he don't think it's necessary to post a script tutorial because Irish Witch and Christos already made one..

but I think it will be very helpfull for many people to make a change worldmap tutorial
but thats Zel's choise

[pokemon1.0]

rite...im new at this...i jus dwnloaded tile molester but i duno how to start it, there aint no .exe file or nething theres jus a lot of files but i duno which 1 to click on... cud sum1 plz help?

[D-Trogh]

Originally Posted by pokemon1.0

rite...im new at this...i jus dwnloaded tile molester but i duno how to start it, there aint no .exe file or nething theres jus a lot of files but i duno which 1 to click on... cud sum1 plz help?

You need to click the 'tm.jar'-file..

[zel 2.0]

Originally Posted by xXscytherXx

If you could, it would be a great idea to make a tutorial on changing the world map. I hear people whining about it all the time [yes,even me!]

So just a suggestion.

Well, I can't make tutorials on something that I still haven't learned. I remember Cyclone has some small tutorial that works if you use R/S/E.

Originally Posted by Scorched

Could you edit the Big Sprites at the Oak Intro useing tile molester? Because The black and white colour thing is really hard but I was able to use tile tolester fairly easy. If you can could someone tell me the offset?

Well, I searched but I didn't seem to find it (or perhaps I just overlooked at it). Still, I don't think the B&W method is THAT hard, you just need some practice and trial/error.

Originally Posted by martauros

I think that u can make a script tutorial. Anyway where is this kind of tutorial?

There are tutorials that cover the basics of scripting. If there is a need for a little more complicated script, then I'd try to write one. But for now, there is no such need.

Originally Posted by pokemon1.0

rite...im new at this...i jus dwnloaded tile molester but i duno how to start it, there aint no .exe file or nething theres jus a lot of files but i duno which 1 to click on... cud sum1 plz help?

And, don't forget you need Java installed for the tm.jar to work.

[once in a blue mew]

Hm... all the Tuts are really good, I think me and my friend may use the steps to make our game... But there is one thing I have a problem with, do you have a Tutorial for how to make over world sprites, or edit the ones in-game?

[Hedgehogger]

Originally Posted by once in a blue mew

Hm... all the Tuts are really good, I think me and my friend may use the steps to make our game... But there is one thing I have a problem with, do you have a Tutorial for how to make over world sprites, or edit the ones in-game?

That's real easy; just download OverWorld Editor English from the Toolbox thread; the tool itself is pretty easy to use. Just open a rom, and use the Import/Export button to put in new sprites or save originals to a file to edit them.

[once in a blue mew]

Originally Posted by Hedgehogger

That's real easy; just download OverWorld Editor English from the Toolbox thread; the tool itself is pretty easy to use. Just open a rom, and use the Import/Export button to put in new sprites or save originals to a file to edit them.

Thank you then. Do you know how to make scratch sprites? Or is it just erase and then make?

[Ultima Super]

okay my question is why does it have to be 256 color does that change anything? can it be 16color because this happended

[jack276]

zel could you post a short tutorial on how to stop replace the oak event at the begining, the one where he takes you to his lab after?

[Wuggles]

Zel, if I make a sprite(for big sprites at the intro) and then replace it for the original one, the grey colors 'merge' to just 2 or 3 grey colors..

do you know whats wrong?

[magnetflygon]

Originally Posted by Ultima Super

okay my question is why does it have to be 256 color does that change anything? can it be 16color because this happended

Make sure that the background colour is the one that counts as white for that pallette.

[kamikaze watermelon]

is there a way to change hms? because in my hack i'm gonna incorporate a new hm. thanks!:D

[zel 2.0]

Originally Posted by jack276

zel could you post a short tutorial on how to stop replace the oak event at the begining, the one where he takes you to his lab after?

If all you want is deleting that event, you could use Advance Map and move the Script Events somewhere where the player cannot reach. Editing currently existing scripts is not easy, and it usually gives a lot of problems. So if if you want to do a different event, you'll have to learn to script, and there are a few tutorials for that.

Originally Posted by Wuggles

Zel, if I make a sprite(for big sprites at the intro) and then replace it for the original one, the grey colors 'merge' to just 2 or 3 grey colors..

do you know whats wrong?

Well, first don't forget that, on B&W mode all the colours seem to be the same. The only way is to check on your images editor (mine is Paint Shop Pro) the values, and you'll notice they are not all the same.

Originally Posted by Ultima Super

okay my question is why does it have to be 256 color does that change anything? can it be 16color because this happended

For the trainers you should use the same procedure as in the "how to change pokemon sprites"

Originally Posted by kamikaze watermelon

is there a way to change hms? because in my hack i'm gonna incorporate a new hm. thanks!:D

It is the same way as with TMs, the HMs are just after the TMs when you are hex-editing.

[kamikaze watermelon]

ok, i did all that, but i don't know how to edit the code![/noobishness]

[<~F.M.P~>]

theres an easier way to hack the big hero sprites i'll make a tutorial and post a good tool that will help u accomplish this easily...as soon as i figure out how to start a thread. The tut will show how to get the colors u want and how to make ur big pics in fire red by the way i look for the pallette for the back pic of the male hero in hex workshop but cant seem to find it it says it cant find the string.

[alureon]

The other forum closed so the only way for me to post is this one. Um Pokemon shinygold tutorial is great it is intresting to see how you can edit to create useful games and other cool stuff.
My question in particular involves the game. Pirates are bad it is never a good idea to buy these fake games. I wanted to because I wanted to play your game on the GBA or the DS. I looked on the internet and it said a post saying for those that buy the game off of those pirates they get jiped badly. I did not do it. I read on a post that for those that buy it ends at the 4th badge. I never want to buy it, it was your work you deserve credit not those pirate jurks.

The problem is yo that you are not done with the game just up to the Kanto region and If you do finish I hope that there is an option that says download here to a blank gba cartiage cause I would love to play this game on a DS even if it is in GBA format. I cant play things on the comp much. Then the cool thing is when you have those patches you connect the gba or ds to the internet download the file and put it into your game. This way you get the legit fake version and not the fake pirated version. The only problem with this is that by doing this people might download the code and then sell it which makes me sad cause people are jurks and ripoffs. You are not you created the Johto region excellently and I knew it was fake but it was real to me because you put hard work into this just like any actual programer its those pirate people that I dont like.

If there is a way to get the download onto the ds in gba format that would be awesome I can play in my room have all 16 badges and be like yea this is a great game. It is complex but you know complexitys more than me.

[alureon]

Have to type this again since it timed out and somebody talked to me and forgot to backup this info into Microsoft Word in case it was deleated. I found a way to make the emulation go to the GBA on a DS or GBA/SP. USB 2.0 Cable connectes to the GBA or DS. With that ima get a 256 M GBA Flash Card Drive to put the game onto the DS. I only want to use it for my play puroses only since its annoying to play this on the comp.

The thing is I donwloaded the game from 4shared which had the rom.Do updates happen there cause if they do I can redownload the game onto the GBA from there when beta 5 is out and problem solved.

Or will I have to place the attchment for bug fixes/new beta from your Shinygold tread onto the Shinygold rom. Cause if I have to put the bug fixes/beta 5 as a seperate file to attach it to the rom onto the comp how will I attach it to the original game on the comp or onto the cartiadge so that on the Flash Card it plays it as 1 game and not 2 or so at least I got the update.
Cause with every download onto the Flash drive it counts as a different game thats why you can have 2 games on one flash cartidge. I hope that if I do this it will not be the update as a seperate file from the game when on the GBA cartidge which is why I made the anyology of 1 game or 2 games on the cartidge. 1 being shinygold and the other being the update that could not get attached.

If the option is Paragraph 2 then im lucky its easy. But if I have to do Paragraph 3 I dont know how to make it work. I hope that there is any sudgestion you can make or maybe you tested this yourself since you tested the tradeability with ShinyGold onto FireRed. I at least hope for that I can get the update already attached to the game as in Paragrah 2 cause if thats the case problem solved but I just dont know how this works since I never tried this before.

[elfin123]

thanks for the tuatorials they helped me out alot.

[daniofchaos]

Originally Posted by zel

Hi everyone! I'm starting this thread that will contain all my self-made guides I write while I'm hacking (usually for guiding myself at first, but perhaps some can be of any use to you)
Oh, and I also didn't want to start a thread for a every little thing, so I'm concentrating all the info in this thread. Don't worry, you know me, so I'll keep updating my first post. I'll use an index, so if I post a new guide I'll add a link to the post in the index.

By the way, if you would like to make suggestions for some other tutorial I could write, then go ahead, as long as: I have some time, I feel inspired and there's no other tutorial for that already.
Ah... Don't confuse this thread with the Simple Questions thread, only suggestions, questions related to the stuff I wrote, or fixes are accepted

Also, mods have my permission to lock this thread if it starts to get spammy. Neither Scizz or I like to see spammy threads. After all, if it gets locked, as soon as I have a new guide to write I'll reopen it.

OK... Now let's get started...!

The Index

Changing Graphics

Changing the Big Sprites at the Oak Intro (This Post!)
Changing the Battle Backsprites (This Post!)
Changing the Palettes of Anything Post #19

Scripting

As of now, I don't see a need for a guide... Christos and Irish Witch already are covering that quite well.

Hex-Editing

Trading Pokes (This Post!)
Changing the TMs Post #19

Other?

Hmmm... If it doesn't go with any other, it just goes to "Others". But, so far, I don't see anything relevant.

____________________________________________

Changing Graphics - Changing the Big Sprites at the Oak Intro

OK, First thing, make a backup of your rom...

After that, we open the UNLZ-GBA (included in the EliteMap package), and we open the rom. Now we need to find the sprites we want to modify (for this guide, the "big" sprites of the heroes, rival and Oak). However, we also need to select the option "256 Color Mode". Basically, in FR, the graphics are located at 339: Heroine, 340: Hero, 341: Oak, 342: Rival (But, keep in mind that they may not be exactly there, they may be close, so don't forget about the "Next" and "Previous" buttons to find them. They should be close to those values)

Once we find it, we should also select the option "Use Black/White" and work with the Black and White tones, but you could stick with one of the palettes UNLZ-GBA has. But if you want to skip some indexing problems, I suggest you using the B&W option.


Fig1. We found our sprite, don't forget to select the "256 Color Mode", and if you want, the "Use Black/White" option

Once we have a palette, or the B&W option, we hit "Save as...", and now we need our friendly Images Editor. I use Paint Shop Pro, but you can use whatever. For now, close the UNLZ-GBA, we will go back in a while.

Now we open the recently saved image, and we also open the rom in the emulator. That way we will determine the color equivalencies. It may be a little hard working on the B&W, so pay close attention to the values that your images editor say. Once we have learned the color equivalencies, we have to modify our image to be inserted in a way that it uses the B&W colors, but once it is inserted, the image will have the colors used in the emu.

With a little patience and practice, you will be able to modify your images colors. Once we finish, just copy the image, and paste it over the image we saved from UNLZ-GBA. Make sure the colors remain unchanged. Now we will save this image (bmp is preferred)


Fig2. Learning the color equivalencies

Fig3. Changing my sprite to respect the B&W palette, but knowing that once inserted, the image will have the colors I want

It's time to go back to UNLZ-GBA, we need to research for our sprite to be overwritten (once again, with the 256 Color Mode, and if we used it, the B&W option), this time we hit "Import", and we change the format to "all files", so we will be able to find our bmp. Our image should replace the old one. All we have to do is to select "Write to Rom", and it's preferred to avoid touching any other option in the next window, hit OK, and hope your image is not "too big" to be inserted.


Fig4. Your image inserted in UNLZ-GBA, just hit "Write to Rom"

Fig5. Just hit OK without changing anything, but... it may fail...

In case it fails...

We will need to open an hex-editor, and we will have to search for free space (a place with A LOT of "FF"), the hex-editor should say somewhere an address (offset), which is an Hex-Value, where free space begins. So let's go back to the UNLZ, and we unselect the "Auto Abort" option, and we write that Hex-Value in the Image Offset, then we hit OK, and the image will get inserted without any kind of problems (OF COURSE, IF YOU ARE NOT CONSCIOUS OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING WHEN DEALING WITH OFFSETS, YOU MAY BREAK YOUR ROM, SO BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL!)
And that's the last step, hopefully you will not need this extra last step.

All we have to do is seeing the results. Of course, results can be improved with Palette Changes, and a lot of practice. There's a lot of people that do this sprite changing stuff better than me...


Fig6. The results!

____________________________________________

Changing Graphics - Changing the Battle Backsprites

OK, even though some of you may use TLP to do this, I feel more comfortable with Tile Molester (however, I also have all that Java stuff involved, if you want to follow this guide, you'll have to figure out how to install the Java stuff. Anyway, I'll try to update the guide if it's needed)

First thing, as always, is to make a backup of your rom.

Now, let's open Tile Molester (the file tm.jar), and then we go to File->Open. We search for our rom to be modified, and after that the content of the rom shows up, along with all the options of Tile Molester.


Fig1. Tile Molester with a rom loaded

Now, we need to know what we want to modify. Once we know it, all we have to do is finding the location (the offset) of the sprites we want to modify. Since the guide (that works for FR, but with the correct offsets also would work for the other versions) only is dedicated to change the battle backpicks of the heroes, we only need that info. Anyway, the offset we are looking for is: E69F00 (Fire Red). With this info, all you have to do is go to Navigate->Goto, and we write that offset, making sure that "Hex" is selected.


Fig2. Go to E69F00, we find our trainer, but wtf happened to him?

Once we are in E69F00, we will notice the graphics a little messed up, first step to fix them is go to View->Blocksize->Custom, and writing an 8 in both Columns and Rows. After that, it's convenient to choose View->Blockgrid, so we can align the graphics (see Fig3). Finally, all we have to do is use the "divide", "plus", "less" and "big" (sorry if I made an English mistake) buttons to align it better (see Fig4)


Fig3. Better, but you need to use those 4 buttons to make it even better

Fig4. Now that's perfect, ain't it?

Whenever you want to go up or down, I suggest you using the arrows in your keyboard (you may need to press the arrows a few times so that the images align in the grids again)

The next step is working with the palettes Tile Molester already has loaded, what we need to do is learning the color equivalence between the palettes in the emu, and the palettes in Tile Molester (open the rom in your emu, and start comparing, as in Fig5). Once we learned the equivalencies, we need to take the image (loaded in an Images Editor, such as Paint) we want to insert, and modify its colors so that it uses the colors in the Palette in Tile Molester, but when we play it on the emulator it would have the colors we want it to have (this is the hard part of it, so patience and practice) Just remember one thing... The Canvas size set it to 64x64 pixels!


Fig5. Comparing an learning the color equivalencies

Fig6. The graphics are ready to be inserted, and they respect the colors in Tile Molester, so when I insert them, they will look as I want in the emu

The images look a bit creepy, don't they? Anyway, we just save every image as a png or bmp file, and we go back to Tile Molester, then we go to Edit->PasteFrom and we choose one of our modified images, then we just move it over the back we want to overwrite (right click after doing so)


Fig7. The inserted image overwriting the old back

And that concludes this tutorial... Of course, if we combine it with palette changing tutorials, the results can be improved a lot... You'd just need to find the sprite's palette, but... That's not something to be covered by this tutorial, so go look for it yourself... XD


Fig8. The final result!

____________________________________________

Hex Editing - Trading Pokes

First you need to hex-search for the name of the poke we receive in the trade originally (for example, in FR, we receive a "MIMIEN")


Fig1. Searching for MIMIEN with Thingy

Once you find it, we will notice the name followed by "FF" and then a bunch of "00" (which means free space for the name). Now you can change the name of the poke we'll receive with hex, as long as you respect that the name must still be finished with the "FF" (and at least make sure to leave a "00" as well, just in case)
After that free space comes inmediately XXXX, which should be the value of the ID of the poke we will get (as always it's swapped hex, so Bulbasaur which is 0001 becomes 0100) So just find the ID of the new poke, change it to hex (with Windows Calculator on Scientific Mode), and then swap it as I did in my example.
Next is seeing where the next recognizable name starts (in my MIMIEN case, there's a "REYLEY" close to it), that name is the name of the trainer, so to change it, you must do exactly the same as when you changed the poke's name.
After the trainer's name, and free space comes a "0A" (which most likely will be other thing), and after that comes another XXXX, which is the ID of the poke the trainer wants, once again it's swapped-hex, so do it the same way as before to change it.

And, you can even modify the hold item of the poke we'll receive (don't start putting Master Balls! ), to modify it just: look at the trainer's name again, then start going backwards, and we'll see either a "00" or "FF", and right after it (still going backwards), you'll find another XXXX, which is the ID of the Hold Item (and as you can imagine, it's swapped-hex, so you know how to modify it)


Fig2. All the info is close to MIMIEN. 1= MIMIEN, 2= Free Space as FF and then a bunch of 00, 3= Poke we will get in swapped hex, 4= MIMIEN's owner name, 5= Free Space again, 6= Poke we must have in swapped hex, 7= The hold item, to the left of the owner's name

zell I need your help once again so here it goes:
1- when I use UNLZ-GBA when im going to change the hero making import it says image not indexed. Can you help me?

2-Can you tell me which hex editor you use?

[needhexcodehacs]

hey zel i wanted to ask sumthing in shiny gold thread but it got closed and how come your not taking private messages??

anyway can u PM me caus i really want to ask you sumthing

[trevor813]

sorry zel about ur thread being dead and all but can u explain how to insert pokemon diamond hero sprites in pokemon fire red game?