Ok, I have a few questions.
1. What does offset mean? I'm pretty sure its the index of the particular image or piece of code in the entire block of code that makes up the ROM, but I could use some clarification.
2. What is hex?
3. How do I edit dialogue and text in-game?
4. How do I find the offsets for certain events and sprites?
5. Are there any good tutorials on how to work with hex?
6. Is there any possible way to add the physical/special split from Generation IV to Generation III ROMS?
1. An offset is a specific address of hex code in the ROM. There are FFFFFF (16777215) 16-byte lines of hex in a Pokemon ROM, and each 6-character hex offset refers to a specific point in that hex code.
2. Hex is a type of programming language, in a way. Hex consists of 16 characters, starting at 0 and ending at F. It gets confusing to convert numbers in your head because A=10, B=11, etc, and then 10= 16. A 2-character piece of hex is called a byte, and (I think) each byte is made up of 8 binary digits (0s and 1s).
3. You can either do it the lazy, easy way and use the program AdvanceText, the moderate way and make new scripts with a program like XSE, or if you're posessed to do it the hard way, make new text and pointers in the hex code.
4. Open AdvanceMap and click a sprite and its offset is given on the tab on the right side. You can open that offset in a scripting program to look at/edit its script. If you looked at a sprite's offset in a hex editor though, you'd have a hard time making sense of it, as it's a compressed image. You basically need a program to edit sprites themselves.
5. I don't recall any tutorials on hex editing itself, but I managed to teach myself pretty easily. Just start with other things, and quite a few tutorials for the finer points of hacking will make you do a little bit of hex editing. Once you've done a bit of repointing and things of that nature, you'll start to understand how hex works and it'll become pretty easy.
6. I'm not sure (as no move editor ever works on my computer =( ) but I THINK a lot of move-editing programs let you choose if a move is physical or special. I've never had the need to edit moves, so I haven't looked into it in hex or anything like that.
How do I add new moves to a Sapphire hack? For example, I want to add the 4thGen move Flash Cannon. How is it possible? If I can't create a new animation I'll use Doom Desire's animation.
If you learn hex editing, you might be able to repoint the entire table of attacks to add new ones in, but I'm really not sure. I have no idea how that would affect stuff like attack numbers and editing movesets.
