Pokéball Hacking Guide
All credits for the original thread go to danills. It's thanks to him any of this is even possible. The following introduction is from him.
Some months ago, when I was still attempting my first hack, I was wondering whether it was possible to create a custom pokeball. The only thing I found was this post by JPAN. It wasn't complete, and I hadn't seen anyone using it, so I forgot about it.
Now, I am working full-time on Platinum Red&Blue with GoGoJJTech, and had to implement gen IV pokeballs into the hack. I have altered JPAN's asm code a bit, and included documentation on the throwing graphics for everybody to use. Enjoy!
Some months ago, when I was still attempting my first hack, I was wondering whether it was possible to create a custom pokeball. The only thing I found was this post by JPAN. It wasn't complete, and I hadn't seen anyone using it, so I forgot about it.
Now, I am working full-time on Platinum Red&Blue with GoGoJJTech, and had to implement gen IV pokeballs into the hack. I have altered JPAN's asm code a bit, and included documentation on the throwing graphics for everybody to use. Enjoy!
- A hex editor (I use HxD)
- A way to find free space in your rom; FSF recommended
- Images for your balls
- A way to insert those images (I use unLZ-GBA)
- Gen 3 Tools
- Basic hex editing/assembly knowledge. I do assume you know how to assemble a routine and place an inverted pointer +1 to it.
WARNING: This step will break any saves in progress!
This is the easiest part. As you can see here, the balls only get four bits of data, and 0 is unused, meaning you can add up to three balls. Since I don't think there are many people who have transferred pokemon from Colosseum or XD to a hack, it's safe to sacrifice the most significant bit used to determine the game of origin, leaving us space for 19 extra balls. If you need more, you will need a different workaround.You've got to change six bytes:
- At 080400B6, place 80
- At 080400B8, place 44
- At 080400BE, place 0B
- At 08040855, place FC
- At 0804085A, place 1F
- At 0804085E, place 89
- At 08040862, place 7C
And you're done! Move on to step 2.
JPAN has written a neat routine that replaces the regular check for pokeballs (see the link posted above). However, it requires you to perform a cmp for every ball index, and that's not very efficient and forces you to modify the routine every time you add a ball. Thus, I have modified it, so that it checks what pocket the selected item is in. Now, you only have to give the item the right pocket value and it becomes a ball. The routine:
Now, in the code you see "somevar". There you must place an address (or use this one I saw in JPAN's original routine) that will keep track of the current pokeball index. Other than in the routine, there are a few places you need to place a pointer to it:
(more information here)
Now you've done all that, it's time to assemble the routine. Insert in anywhere, and place a pointer to it at 08016494. Then at 08016460, type 00 00 00 00 0B 4A 97 46. Done! Move on to the next step to make your ball actually do something.
Spoiler:
- 0802D500
- 0802D544
- 0802D6A0
- 0802D71C
- 0802D7B8
- 080EF4B4
- 080EF4DC
- 080EF674
- 080EF9AC
- 080F0368
(more information here)
Now you've done all that, it's time to assemble the routine. Insert in anywhere, and place a pointer to it at 08016494. Then at 08016460, type 00 00 00 00 0B 4A 97 46. Done! Move on to the next step to make your ball actually do something.
The balls with a pokeball index (previously index number) higher than 5 each have their own catch rate calculation subroutine. We need to extend that. To do this, first change the byte at 0x802D52C to FF. Then, look at the table at 0x802D54C. It has a pointer to a routine for every pokeball starting from 6. At 0x802D548 you can see a pointer to the table; repoint it somewhere else (the table is 0x1C bytes long). Now, to give a ball a certain catch rate, you must write a routine to load it into r4, and exit to 0x802D7A2. Then place a pointer to that routine in the table.
Some example routines:
Quick ball:
Dusk ball:
Park ball; this one uses a modified safari ball routine, and will get another piece of code later:
Heal ball/Cherish ball (the heal ball will get another piece of code later)
These are special. They load the catch rate from the "Extra value" of the item (labeled as "Extra" in Gen3Tools). In the case of these balls it's 10, but you can easily change it without altering the code:
Moon Ball:
Sport Ball:
Dream Ball:
This is a hook from the Master Ball routine. This code DOES NOT go at the end of the catch routine table. Where a routine in the table would have gone for the Dream Ball, place 00 00 00 00. Despite it not having its own routine, the Dream Ball still receives a unique index like every other ball.
Beast Ball:
Here comes the part JPAN didn't document: animations. And be prepared, it's a long part.
Some example routines:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
These are special. They load the catch rate from the "Extra value" of the item (labeled as "Extra" in Gen3Tools). In the case of these balls it's 10, but you can easily change it without altering the code:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
This is a hook from the Master Ball routine. This code DOES NOT go at the end of the catch routine table. Where a routine in the table would have gone for the Dream Ball, place 00 00 00 00. Despite it not having its own routine, the Dream Ball still receives a unique index like every other ball.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Step four: Expanding the Throwing Graphics - Part 1
The conversion table
Now, if you've ever looked at the pokeballs in an item viewer and at the throwing graphics of them in an image viewer, you might have noticed they're in a different order. So, there is a routine somewhere that converts the index to the throwing graphics table (or tgt in short because I'm lazy) entry. That routine is located at 080EF52C. Due to the way it's written, there's enough space to replace it by a new routine and a table. First the routine:
Assemble this routine and insert it at 080ef52C. Now, the conversion from index to tgt entry will be done through throwtablepositionstable. By this, we freed up more than enough space at the specified offset, so I recommend you to put the table there. Now for the table, it will look like this:
It is the easiest if you insert the throwing graphics in the same order as your pokeballs, so just count up. For the five gen 4 balls, it would be
But be careful: while the pokeball index was one-indexed, the tgt is zero-indexed, which means that in the entry for ball x you will have to type x-1.
After inserting this, remove a limiter by typing 00 00 at 080EF972 and at 080F02D6, and continue to the next step.
Spoiler:
Code:
(unused zeroth entry) FF 04 03 01 00 02 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B (insert ongoing numbers for each of your balls here)
Code:
FF 04 03 01 00 02 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F 10After inserting this, remove a limiter by typing 00 00 at 080EF972 and at 080F02D6, and continue to the next step.
Step four: Expanding the Throwing Graphics - Part 2
The image and palette tables
Prepare your ball images. Example with gen 4 balls:
Made by Bela. Isn't he awesome? :D
Anyways, you must repoint and extend two tables in this step. First, the one for the images, located at 0826056C. 12 entries, each eight bytes: one word and two halfwords. Repoint it somewhere. Then, append your own balls as follows:
The second table is a lot like this one: it's for the palettes. Located at 082605CC, again 12*8 bytes long. Repoint somewhere, and extend this way:
We just started repointing, and we still have a long way to go.
Made by Bela. Isn't he awesome? :D
Anyways, you must repoint and extend two tables in this step. First, the one for the images, located at 0826056C. 12 entries, each eight bytes: one word and two halfwords. Repoint it somewhere. Then, append your own balls as follows:
Code:
word pointer to image
halfword decompressed size (180)
halfword tag of ball(I'm not sure which tags are free exactly, but I started with tag 0xFF00 for the first entry and counted up for the following balls/particles and it worked fine.)
Code:
word pointer to palette
halfword tag of ball
halfword filler (0000)Step four: Expanding the Throwing Graphics - Part 3
Repointing generic tables
Here comes a list of the tables:
After you have done this, you can finally assign particles and animations to your balls.
Spoiler:
Step four: Expanding the Throwing Graphics - Part 4
The particle and animation tables
As for now, I will only document the tables and their meanings, and how to assign existing animations/particles to new balls. Another part on custom animations may follow later.
The first table you need to repoint and extend is located at 0840C068. For every ball it tells which particle to use. 0=sticks, 1=stars, 2=bubbles, 3=hearts, 4=big green crosses, 5=small green crosses (last two strongly affected by the second table).
The second table is located at 0840C074. Each entry is a pointer to a routine+1 that describes how the particles should act. I can't really describe the effects, so just look at them.
And that's it! Congratulations, you've succesfully expanded the pokeballs! The next parts will describe how to apply some special effects.
The first table you need to repoint and extend is located at 0840C068. For every ball it tells which particle to use. 0=sticks, 1=stars, 2=bubbles, 3=hearts, 4=big green crosses, 5=small green crosses (last two strongly affected by the second table).
The second table is located at 0840C074. Each entry is a pointer to a routine+1 that describes how the particles should act. I can't really describe the effects, so just look at them.
And that's it! Congratulations, you've succesfully expanded the pokeballs! The next parts will describe how to apply some special effects.
Step Five: Expanding the Throwing Graphics - Part 5
Ball Opening Colour Table
There is one last table at 0x40C1C4:
Each half-word (2 bytes) in this table corresponds to the palette the Pokemon is faded when it comes out of that certain Poke Ball. For instance, the first entry, 0x7ADF (DF 7A reversed) is the pink colour a Pokemon fades from when it leaves a Poke Ball. To repoint this table, copy 0x18 bytes to another location, replace the pointers to C4 C1 40 08, and add new colours on to the end of your table in the same order as your Poke Balls. APE's colour picker can be used to calculate the hex codes of new colours in reversed format, ready to be added to the table.
Code:
DF 7A F0 7A D7 53 FF 3F 97 72 F5 67 2C 7B 7E 2B 1F 43 DD 7B 3F 2A 3F 29Step Six: Additional effects part 1
Healing pokemon after capture
This effect was written by danills for the Heal Ball:
In this code you must change the values at the ball index and somevar. Then assemble it and insert it anywhere. To activate it, place 00 4B 9F 46 XX XX XX XX at 08040B08, where XXXXXXXX is an inverted pointer to this routine.
Spoiler:
Step Six: Additional effects part 2
Retaining pokeballs
This effect was written by me for the Park Ball, and will work if the caught poke already has a pokeball, like with the Pal Park:
In this code you must only change the the ball index. Then assemble it and insert it anywhere. To activate it, place 40 4B 9F 46 12 F0 EB FD 13 F0 49 FA at 0802D6EE, and 70 BD XX XX XX XX at 0802D7EE where XXXXXXXX is an inverted pointer to this routine.
Spoiler:
Step Six: Additional effects part 3
The givepokemon hack
One of the gen 4 balls is the Cherish Ball, which has no effects other than being the standard ball for event pokes. To copy this effect, I wrote a piece of code to change the givepokemon command. Know how it has three unused parameters? Well, the last one, a byte, is now the pokeball the received pokemon will be in. If it's 0, it will be in a regular pokeball.
Anyways, the hack:
Congratulations! You are finished! If you write more ball effects, I'm sure everybody will gladly take a look at them!
Anyways, the hack:
Code:
Type A1 68 0A 79 00 2A 00 D1 04 22 05 31 at 0806c014. Activate the hack by typing 29 98 at 0803DC52.
- Implement custom particles
- Discover how to write custom animations
- Come up with a solution for the Heavy Ball
- Think of a way to create a ball that catches trainer's pokemon
- Finish the givepokemon hack to include the moveset
- JPAN, for the original research and his tutorial that actually got me into asm
- knizz, for his disassembly (if you haven't heard about it yet, it's a must-have for any asm hacker: link) and infinite amount of help, with finding tables, answering all my dumb questions, and even answering most of my advanced questions
- Danills for the original code
- GoGo, for pushing me to finish this
- Bela, for drawing the balls
- Jambo51, for the idea of the givepokemon hack
- Mat (bond697), for trying to help danills fix a major issue with this. Although the reason for the crash turned out to be something else, He appreciated his help and he learned something
- Kearnseyboy6, for code
- Ghoulslash, for code
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