Hacking Ruby Title Screen Completely Step By Step

[ADLFM14]

Introduction:
Hello every that's me ADLFM14 i bet that most of you guys don't know me yeah I'm new here and ill be making a tutorial for hacking ruby title screen step by step for beginner hackers and non beginner hackers.
NOTE:
This tutorial only works for Pokemon Ruby for fire red and the other roms need different steps
Note:
This tutorial only works with a clean Ruby rom sorry for that but the first thing you had to to do in your hack is to edit your title screen if you did it to a used rom the unlz numbers will be different
Tools Needed:
1)unLZ-GBA
2)APE(Advanced Palette Editor)
3)FSF(Free Space Finder)
4)MS Paint(It comes with windows)
Very Important note:
if you are a windows 7 or vista user you must download xp paint HERE this is only for non windows xp users.
5)NMTE(Namless Tile Map Editor)
6)VBA(Visual boy advance)
7)IrfanView
Simply ill make all in about 4 steps
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STEP 1:

Spoiler:

Open unLZ-GBA click Open file and choose your ruby rom after you opened it if this is your 1st time you use unLZ-GBA a message will appear for you telling you:
(Looking for LZ77 compressed data. this might take a while) press ok and wait about 10 seconds
type in the text box next to Goto button These numbers
For Editing:
1)The Word POKEMON or Pokemon logo go to this number "1637" and open in 256 color mode and click (+) button till it look like this:

click on save as and name it as you want.

2)"Press Start and game freak" go to this number "1636" and open in 16 color mode and check on "Use Black/white" and also save it.

3) in this tutorial we won't edit "RUBY VERSION" by the usual way we will make it in a tricky one so just export it and the number is "1638" in 256 color mode.
4) and the most important thing which is groudon goto that number(don't forget to uncheck "Use Black/white" box) "78" and save it.

if you want to put a pokemon in your title screen then you have to change the pic "78"(groudon pic) palette to the pokemon you want like this :

but if you want to put a big sprite like this

in the title screen it takes different steps.
so ill be using that arcanine pic.
5)dont forget to save the picture of the pokemon you want

STEP 2(Groudon Part)

Spoiler:

Ill start with groudon part some people say that this is the hardest part but i think it's really easy if you read what i say very well it will be easy for you too :D
after you have exported groudon pic for unLZ-GBA with the pokmon palette you want open it in MS Paint it looks really terrible so you have to erase groudon with his tail i recommend to use rubber to erase groudon you must erase him with a color from the image itself don't bring another color not included in the image some people may ask me why can't i use another color
because if you used another color the image color will mess up so you must choose a color from the pokemon you chose to be it's background so we will replace this:

to this:

now to put our pokemon into the the pic first you have to change the real pokemon background with the background you wanted so open the pokemon in paint and change his back ground with the title screen back ground you need to use color picker on the title screen pic and from colors tap in paint click on edit colors and copy the RBG colours to the pokemon pic like this:

and put it here:

and change his background with the color you imported to be like this:

and put it in the title screen like this:

and save it.
now goto to unLZ-GBA again and goto number 78 again click import and choose your title screen image and click "write to rom" and check those three boxes only:

if something like this:

appeared click on (Cancel) and open free space finder and load your rom and open windows calculator in programmer mode and type the compressed size that unlz gabe you which is in hex and we want to change to dec so in calculator click on hex and type the compressed size it gave you of course yours is differant than mine so type yours in calculator like this

and click on Dec and it should give you the Decimal form of this hex number like this

and type the number that in Dec form in free space finder you opened in needed bytes box and click on search from the beginning of the rom and click search like this:

an offset will appear to you like mine "6B09F8" also different offset will appear to you so just copy it and past it here:

This menu will come after you clicked cancel in compressed size menu and you click on write to rom again then click ok and this dialogue must come to you:

if it didn't come then you had done something wrong and click on ok now we had successfully entered groudon tile set or picture in the rom now for the title map for it.
NOTE1:
In pokemon ruby title screen some bubbles appear in it if you want to erase them you have to erase them from the image just erase them normally like this

NOTE2:
If you wanted to change the image after you inserted it and when you click write to rom compressed size menu appeared for you you can't make the steps you done with fsf before you have to bring another rom and put your new image that you edited and do fsf steps in it.
open NTME from file menu choose tileset and open your image now this part you will do it by your style which is making the title screen appear in your design dont forget to click from preset size menu on "R/S TS"

and draw whatever style you want at tile map box like this :

and click on palette map below and choose letter "E" which is covered in purple color and cover the whole image with it like this:

and from file menu choose save tile map and and name it as you want.
now goto unlz and load number "79" and from file menu in unlz click on load raw

and write to rom and if compressed size menu came do what you did previously if not just leave it.
now for the last thing in groudon part which is the palette open APE(Advance palette editor)
open your rom from file menu and type this offset: this"00393210" in offset(hex) box and click on load

open irfanview and load your Pokemon sprite and from image tap click on palette and export pall and save it anywhere

open APE and and click on this tiny button which is called "Import"

click on it a window will appear choose paint shop palette(Pal) to show the palettes you saved

and load you palette file you just saved and dont forget to click replace button.

And finally we are finished with groudon part if you want to test open VBA and test.

STEP 3 (POKEMON AND RUBY VERSION LOGO)

Spoiler:

Open this file that you exported from unlz-gba

if you want to keep the word pokmeon as it is just leave it without changing but in this tutorial ill change it so ill get my logo image and delete the old one and put it on it to be like this :

Now for the ruby version there is an image for ruby version alone but when you edit it you can't change it's palette so we will put the version name in the pokemon image so type it and it will be like this type any word:

It doesn't really look cool but it's not bad.
save it and open it in irfanview and from image tap click on "Decrease color depth" a dialogue will appear click on 256 8(BPP)

and export the palette as you did in step 1.
now open unlz-gba and goto number 1637 256 color and import you pokemon and version name if compressed menu came do what you did in step 1 with fsf and open APE and type this offset in Offset(hex)
box "00E9F624" click load and click on paint shop palette(Pal) as you did in step 1 and click replace and load.
last thing in pokemon logo is to delete to the old ruby version logo remember the image you loaded in step 1 which it's number was "1638"

to make it transparent open it in paint and and right click on the back space with the color picker tool and delete all the colors with the rubber until it become like this

and save it.
open unlz-gba and load this number "1638" and import your blank image and write to rom and as i always say if compressed size menu came to you do as you did in step 1 with fsf.

STEP 4 (PRESS START AND GAME FREAK)

Spoiler:

Open the image you saved from unlz-gba with the number "1636" this image in 16 color mode and black and white.

open it in paint keep "press start" as it is you just want to edit the year and "game freak" so write it or draw to be like this:

dont change the color or the size of the image and import the new one back in unlz in number 1636 and write tom rom and if compresses size menu came do what you did in step one with fsf. and now you are done let's text it with VBA

not bad it looks like this because i did it quickly if you done yours more carefully it would look great.
any thing you want to ask about feel free to post it and thnx for seeing my tutorial.

 

[projectREDRUM]

Do you know the numbers for emerald????

 

[blood red233]

better yet...i put it on my site for yu... haralkoleague.weebly.com/hacking-fail.html yeah i need help i followed your steps perfectly but i only did the groudon part.

OMFG i did it all over again and it still didnt work...its pink now
WTF!!!

Now its purple but still not perfect i hope ppl will still like the hack when i make it

 

[ADLFM14]

better yet...i put it on my site for yu... haralkoleague.weebly.com/hacking-fail.html yeah i need help i followed your steps perfectly but i only did the groudon part.

OMFG i did it all over again and it still didnt work...its pink now
WTF!!!

Now its purple but still not perfect i hope ppl will still like the hack when i make it

Did you palette edit right? anyway show me your titleset the one like this

For All guys having palette problem just before putting your Pokemon sprite in the background you have to decrease it's color depth to 256 color 8BPP then you export it's palette and follow the steps normally

 

[diskjock89]

I'm getting an "error: file is not indexed" when i try to import the background picture

 

[blood red233]

I will be back to edit this post when im done, it will have the link to the titlescreen screenshot and the tilemap picture for my next attempt. PS yea i just realized the "edit" button...


EDIT: The tileset from my earlier attempt linked to the screeny i posted: haralkoleague.weebly.com/tileset1.html

EDIT2: It has failed once again but i will wait to post links until i have tried a different pokemon. I think it is pink because mewtwo has pink in his palette on unLZ.gba (check palette #564).

EDIT3: Okay so i gave up getting help on this because i am satisfied with my metagross titlescreen atm. The colors are still odd but i dont think i will be fixing that because it looks cool either way. Thank you for your walkthrough btw.

 

[poke-hacker95]

Is there a way to alter the raw file or the palettes to allow for 256 colours rather than just 16?

 

[tajaros]

Is there a way to alter the raw file or the palettes to allow for 256 colours rather than just 16?

There might but, it would be quite hard to do... :)

 

[ShaQuL]

I followed all your instructions about 5 times already and this is what I try to
make:

and this is what I get:

What am I doing wrong? :c

 

[ADLFM14]

I followed all your instructions about 5 times already and this is what I try to
make:

and this is what I get:

What am I doing wrong? :c

I tested your tileset and it's fine and i checked it looked good :

any way i'll tell you what have i done exactly
1)Make a tilemap using ntme as i explained in the tut
2)insert them to unlz-gba
3)opened Ape and entered 00393210 this offset
4)opened my tileset with Irfanview and increase color depth to 256 8Bpp and export palette and DONT SAVE!
5)import the palette you exported in APE and click replace and then load
6)test your rom
if it still didnt work send me your tilemap maybe the problem is from it and i'll be glad to help

 

[ShaQuL]

Thanks for telling me c:
I'll do that tomorrow though, because
its late today. I'll tell you if it worked
tomorrow.

 

[SkyIsDarkBlue]

Help! When the image is too big I get 0x8 something something ):

 

[BLOOOD-La-ti-]

NO 256!

Thanks!This tutorial helped me a lot but only for the gamefreak, and titlescreen(with the groudon).After i finish my logo,i selected the decrease color depth and there's still no 256.If I'm doing something wrong tell me.
The colors are black,2 blues,and red.

 

[RedDog]

I seem to be having a similar problem to ShaQuL:

d2bm3ljpacyxu8.cloudfront.net/fit/1920x1920/rd93.webs.com/saveme.PNG

EDIT: Fixxed it. Messed up at inserting palette. Thanks for the awesome tut!

 

[Jcool]

Now can we do this with a background besides just those few colors I get with the groudon pallete?

 

[PokemonMasters]

is there any other way to edit the titlescreen without using a clean rom?

 

[Renegade]

This is for the groudon part: I followed the tutorial very well but when I loaded up my ROM, all of the title screen's colors were tinted pink and purple. Any solutions?

 

[Line3007]

Very helpful tutorial, thank you! :D

 

[Eren Jaeger]

Helpful tutorial! Can you make a high quality background and show me how? like with land and waters, forest.. etc.

 

[Randomlords]

Please can somebody help me? I tried asking for help on this from the Simple Questions thread, but I got no answer. I want to put the tilemap I attached into Ruby Version, but it keeps turning out wrong. I've followed the tutorial carefully, but I haven't had any luck in the past few weeks. Can somebody tell me what I'm doing wrong?