Help Thread: Quick Questions & Answers

[Gokuchu]

Hey all! So here's the thing: I'm gonna be attempting to make a rom hack using either fire red or emerald, as recommended countless times in various posts here and elsewhere, and these are the programs I've gotten so far: A-starter, A-tack, YAPE, SG(which is SXE and something else..), AdvanceMap, and GenIIISuite. I've also bookmarked various guides/tutorials to get started with once I'm ready(tools tutorial, rom hacking general guide, and a script editing tutorial, all from this site), but there are a few small differences regarding which tools to use, so I figured I'd relate a bit of info regarding what I want to get from my hack, in the hopes to get a few more specific recommendations for the tools I'd need. I even have a bookmark showing which programs were used in the making of Pokemon Resolute(great hack btw and a decent sequel with better grammar than Victory Fire~which was epic too :D ~) which uses an emerald rom base.. Anyways:

First up, fairy types and ALL AVAILABLE mega evolutions(tried researching megas a bit with no results, which is the biggest reason for this post, really) are a requirement of life and should be the main point of my version. Next, I would have 2 or 2.5 or so regions, first region being accessed via cave entrance, and final region being reached via repeatable pkmn event/teleport type move/animation from a fixed overworld location. Also, expanding the pokedex to potentially include all currently released pokemon would be nice but not necessary(expansion is quite needed though).

So I guess here's the real questions of this post:

1.) Would it be better to use Fire Red as my base(if so, which programs do I replace/use?), or should I just spam the programs used for Pokemon Resolute and use emerald?

2.) Where can I get everything I need(data-wise) to inject the fae types and megas?

 

[destinedjagold]

1.) Would it be better to use Fire Red as my base(if so, which programs do I replace/use?), or should I just spam the programs used for Pokemon Resolute and use emerald?

2.) Where can I get everything I need(data-wise) to inject the fae types and megas?

I suggest you use FireRed as your base, since it already has built-in multi "region maps". I believe you can edit the Sevii Island 'region map' into another region.

Inserting the Fairy type is quite easy though. There are tutorials available for that. (Emerald Tutorial | FireRed Tutorial)
As for Mega Evolution, I believe that there is no proper implementation of it yet for the 3rd gen. Last I heard, it was difficult to implement how it'll work during a battle, and then revert back to normal after a battle. :/
There are other workarounds however, like creating a 'MegaStone' evolution stone, but yeah...

I want a guy to be blocking his garden in Viridian City, and will only move if you have a certain amount of something, say badges. How would I do this?

You'll need to check and set some flags for that, and inserting that script in Advance Map's Map script.

 

[Gokuchu]

There are other workarounds however, like creating a 'MegaStone' evolution stone, but yeah...

So I'm guessing that the mega stone would be the easy bit with the item program.. I've only seen a couple roms with megas included so i'm also guessing that none of the current map/pokemon editors already include finalized megas(sprite/stats/moveset/cry/ability etc) to inject?

 

[Christos]

So I'm guessing that the mega stone would be the easy bit with the item program.. I've only seen a couple roms with megas included so i'm also guessing that none of the current map/pokemon editors already include finalized megas(sprite/stats/moveset/cry/ability etc) to inject?

A lot of hacks don't have mega evolution since no one has actually properly implemented it (or if they have they haven't released it) yet. Some hacks just use "permanent" mega evolutions which works just like normal evolution stones, which is pretty easy to do actually, but I'm not a fan of that approach. Adding the mega pokémon data in the game is actually very easy to do with a pokémon data editing tool, including stats, abilities etc.

 

[PokéMew1]

Hey everyone, quick question here... There used to be a video on this but it was taken down for whatever reason, therefore I don't remember. Anyway, I'm trying to edit the intro sprites (i.e. Prof Oak, Red, and Blue's sprites) however I cannot find them in any of my programs anywhere. I looked all through unlzgba, I can't find it, also looked through the bookmarks of NSE 2.1 just in case it was there. If anyone knows where these sprites are located at please do say, thanks!

EDIT: I actually found the sprites in the NSE bookmarks, but their palette is zero (gray). All I really need to know is what would the correct palette be for them? ... THanks again.

 

[Joexv]

Hey everyone, quick question here... There used to be a video on this but it was taken down for whatever reason, therefore I don't remember. Anyway, I'm trying to edit the intro sprites (i.e. Prof Oak, Red, and Blue's sprites) however I cannot find them in any of my programs anywhere. I looked all through unlzgba, I can't find it, also looked through the bookmarks of NSE 2.1 just in case it was there. If anyone knows where these sprites are located at please do say, thanks!

EDIT: I actually found the sprites in the NSE bookmarks, but their palette is zero (gray). All I really need to know is what would the correct palette be for them? ... THanks again.

This tutorial will help you out quite a bit. https://www.pokecommunity.com/threads/165124

But if you just need the pallet here they are
Boy intro ------>0046161C
Rival Intro ---->004623B0
Prof intro ----->004623B4
Girl Intro ------>00460EF0

Also in order to get the sprite to show up with the correct pallet you will probably want to use gba graphics editor instead of unlz, as unlz doesnt support pallet by offset.

 

[PokéMew1]

This tutorial will help you out quite a bit. https://www.pokecommunity.com/threads/165124

But if you just need the pallet here they are
Boy intro ------>0046161C
Rival Intro ---->004623B0
Prof intro ----->004623B4
Girl Intro ------>00460EF0

Also in order to get the sprite to show up with the correct pallet you will probably want to use gba graphics editor instead of unlz, as unlz doesnt support pallet by offset.

why haven't I found that tutorial after hours of searching?? .. anyway, thanks so much, only prob is that every image in the tut says "click to discover imageshack." (yet it wont even let me click) I know this has gotten off topic, but how can I get rid of that message -_- I even made an account...

 

[DrFuji]

why haven't I found that tutorial after hours of searching?? .. anyway, thanks so much, only prob is that every image in the tut says "click to discover imageshack." (yet it wont even let me click) I know this has gotten off topic, but how can I get rid of that message -_- I even made an account...

The images have expired/ been deleted. Nothing you can do about that.

 

[Neko Mizu]

I suggest you use FireRed as your base, since it already has built-in multi "region maps". I believe you can edit the Sevii Island 'region map' into another region.

Inserting the Fairy type is quite easy though. There are tutorials available for that. (Emerald Tutorial | FireRed Tutorial)
As for Mega Evolution, I believe that there is no proper implementation of it yet for the 3rd gen. Last I heard, it was difficult to implement how it'll work during a battle, and then revert back to normal after a battle. :/
There are other workarounds however, like creating a 'MegaStone' evolution stone, but yeah...



You'll need to check and set some flags for that, and inserting that script in Advance Map's Map script.

Lel, can you explain how to do that? The most I have done so far were very basic like a guy giving you a Pokemon and a basic speech script.

 

[ShyRayq]

I want a guy to be blocking his garden in Viridian City, and will only move if you have a certain amount of something, say badges. How would I do this?

This would be better in the script help thread, but whatever..
Okay, lets say you want the guy to not let you pass without the..2nd badge say.

So in your script, you need to have the guy check for the badge, then branch to a 'No, you can't pass' if you don't have it, and branch to a 'Yes, you can pass' if you do have it. Alternatively, you can just make the guy disappear when you have the badge.

Approach no.1 is a simple checkflag script. Approach no.2 requires just a simple msg script, but placing the flag in the 'flag number' of the person in A-Map.

Sorry, if this is very confusing, this is an extremely rough explanation. Read diegoisawesome's XSE tutorial for more details on these kinds of scripts.

 

[Le pug]

Guyz i am having a HUGE problem with my scripting.
Its with the warp script, I am hacking emerald and i want to talk to someone who warps me to the inside entrance of Birch's lab.
I use this script

Spoiler:

warp 0x1 0x4 0x0 0x6 0x9

and in the game when i talk to that person, the warp song comes and the screen goes black and freezes :(
Please help! And also the script changes to this

Spoiler:

warp 0x56 0xFE 0x0 0x6 0x9

Well obviously the bottom one isn't going to work, did you try compiling a new script with the warp you want and seeing if it was just overwrritten data?

 

[Deokishisu]

I have three pretty specific questions, all for Firered.

Does anyone know how to change where text starts printing in the textbox? I plan on possibly shrinking the textbox considerably for a project I'm working on, so I don't want to have to manually count spaces to align every message.

Does anyone know where the raw for the textbox is as well? I've found the textbox's actual image, but I need to change the raw too to accomplish what I want to accomplish.

Finally, I was looking at this here post about editing Firered's font, but when I open up to that offset in TileMolester and adjust it to 2bpp like the guide says, the font is still a jumbled mess that I can't really interpret. Is there a trick to editing the font for Firered? Or perhaps an easier/more direct way?

 

[Shepeedy]

Sorry, no. 5-char limit is hardcoded. You're gonna have to shorten the names by removing some letters. Nothing else you can do beside recreating the hack on an English rom, which will be like 2000 times the work and time.

Thank you for your answer. I was wondering if I could do it since I read a post on another board (can't post the url since I've got less than 15 posts) in which there's an interesting part:

What's with all the shortened names?

There's no way to add more characters to a lot of things. Japanese is about half the length of English in terms of characters, which gave me five letters for Pokemon, seven for moves, etc. Although some sort of hacking that's only slightly beyond my grasp could fix it, it wouldn't give enough space on the screen for the letters themselves.

The only way is reprogramming the entire font engine to work the same as English Emerald, which is not only far beyond my understanding, but should be done as the very first thing, and it's way too late for that. Although someone could probably do it once the beta is open, they'd have to reformat every single line of text so that it wouldn't look stupid taking up only the left half of the text box. I doubt anyone has the patience.

What do you think about it?

 

[PokéMew1]

Another quick question here. So, how would I go about changing the Celadon Dept. F1, F2, etc names? Can't in a-map, only city names. Also tried changing it manually, with a hex editor, I couldn't find "Celadon Dept. F1" or any other floors names. So, any way to do this?

 

[ShyRayq]

Thank you for your answer. I was wondering if I could do it since I read a post on another board (can't post the url since I've got less than 15 posts) in which there's an interesting part:

What do you think about it?

Oh, that's from the Nuzlocke forums. Dr. akimbo is most likely correct, though I have no experience with this sort of hacking.

 

[DrFuji]

Another quick question here. So, how would I go about changing the Celadon Dept. F1, F2, etc names? Can't in a-map, only city names. Also tried changing it manually, with a hex editor, I couldn't find "Celadon Dept. F1" or any other floors names. So, any way to do this?

The dropdown name of the floor you're on is determined by a value in the map header, which you can view by pressing Ctrl+H in Advance Map's header tab. Here's a quick and dirty rundown on what the values mean:

Spoiler:

Pallet Town's Map header as an example: C0D42D08 A8A27108 00000000 6C273508 2C01 4E00 58 00 02 01 01 06 00 00

Bytes 1 - 4: Map footer offset (Pointer)
Bytes 5 - 8: Event offset (Pointer)
Bytes 9 - 12: Map Script Offset (Pointer)
Bytes 13 - 16: Connection Offset (Pointer)
Bytes 17 - 18: Default Music (Little endian)
Bytes 19 - 20: Map ID (Little endian)
Byte 21: Map Name
Byte 22: Cave type
Byte 23: Weather type
Byte 24: The battle lead-in animation (i.e this vs this). If Byte 28 is 00, this byte also controls the battle background.
Byte 25: If 00 the bike can't be used
Byte 26: 'Show name on entering', also connected to Running Shoes permission
Byte 27: Floor number
Byte 28: Battle Background number, closely related to Byte 24

The byte that you need to change if you want to add/ remove/ edit the floor number is byte 27, the second last byte in the header. For most maps the byte is set to 00 which disables the floor feature. Setting the byte to 01 will say you're on F1, 02 is F2, 03 is F3 etc. This pattern ends at 63 (F99) as the game is unable to display a three-digit number as a floor number. You can also use basement floors like in Team Rocket's Celedon hideout by setting the byte to FF which will say you're on B1F, FE will show B2F, FD will show B3F and so on. This continues until 9D (B99F) as once again, the game can't display a three-digit number here.

 

[Joexv]

Quick question. If I have a sprite w/frames inserted in my rom how would I edit the sprite table to use that image offset? emerald btw.

The image is uncompressed if that matters.

 

[TopoftheFlops]

Hey all I have a problem inserting images into unlz. I index my image and save it to the ROM successfully (I am using FireRed as my game base). but when I open the game and battle that person, the colors of the image are all in the wrong places and the background is showing. I am guessing that it has to do with the order of the colors on the palette, but I do not know if that is the problem or how to fix it.

 

[Christos]

Hey all I have a problem inserting images into unlz. I index my image and save it to the ROM successfully (I am using FireRed as my game base). but when I open the game and battle that person, the colors of the image are all in the wrong places and the background is showing. I am guessing that it has to do with the order of the colors on the palette, but I do not know if that is the problem or how to fix it.

The first colour in the palette is the background, and is what will appear transparent in the game. So if you've indexed a sprite manually with an image editor a different colour was set to be first so you can see the background and one of the other colours appears transparent. To fix this, just make a copy of your indexed sprite, open it in an image editor that can edit palettes, and switch the background colour with the colour that is first in the palette. The image's colours will also be swapped, so after you save, just paste the normal sprite on the fixed palette image.

 

[C me]

How do you change the map footer of a map so I can change how Mirage Island looks in Pokemon Emerald.

Thanks