Simple Questions (PLEASE USE THE SEARCH BUTTON BEFORE ASKING)

[karatekid552]

Well, after the last Simple Questions thread hit 27,000 replies, we decided that it is probably about time to make a new one. So, very simply put, this is the place to ask all of your questions about rom hacking.

Da Rules:

1. Search before asking. With almost 28,000 replies on the last Simple Quesitons thread and 2,000+ replies on the one before it, I'm sure you can find something. So, before you ask, try THIS thread and then try THIS one.:)
2. Don't ask questions about a specific hack or how to play a hack. For questions pertaining to a hack itself, ask on that hack's thread. For how to play a hack, see HERE.
3. Do not ask for or link to ROMs. You will need to acquire those yourself, hopefully from games you already own.
4. Do NOT demand answers to your questions. The people here are not getting paid and are answering because they want to. If you are rude, your post will most likely be removed, and if it isn't, it is highly unlikely you will get a response.
5. When answering, quote the post with the question. This is here to simply keep organization. It is much easier to read the thread when you have both the question and the answer.

If you feel your question was ignored, you may ask it again, but only after 25 posts or 2 days have gone by.


I wish you all the best of luck in your hacking experience.:D


~karatekid552

 

[karatekid552]

These are the last three posts from the old thread with unanswered questions:

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Dinoweed:
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I have noticed that many of the hex codes for items I've find around online don't seem to work for certain items. For example I wanted to make a trainer in fire red give a leftover so I used "give item 0x0C8 0x1 0x0" but when I click on the trainer they never give the item.

Is there some list out there for functioning codes for items? Because the hex codes for many of the items don't seem to work.



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osg96:
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I am in Advanced Map, and cannot find the script for right after you walk out of the truck (in Emerald). I need to change this script, so does anyone know how I could find it?

I have noticed that many of the hex codes for items I've find around online don't seem to work for certain items. For example I wanted to make a trainer in fire red give a leftover so I used "give item 0x0C8 0x1 0x0" but when I click on the trainer they never give the item.

Is there some list out there for functioning codes for items? Because the hex codes for many of the items don't seem to work.

Are you using giveitem or give item? If there is a space, that might be the problem. Leftovers is C8 in fire red, so I don't think that is the problem.



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mahim:
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Hi! I am currently working on my own pokemon hack! I was wondering how to change where the character starts in the map...

 

[mahim]

Hi! I was making my hack in Firered and I was wondering if there was any way to change where the player starts after the Professor is finished talking at the beginning intro. screen.

 

[Telinc1]

Hi! I was making my hack in Firered and I was wondering if there was any way to change where the player starts after the Professor is finished talking at the beginning intro. screen.

You can use SMCA by HackMew to do it. Or, if you know how to use a Hex Editor, diegoisawesome posted this in his miscellaneous finds thread:

0x54A04 is the starting map. 0x54A06 is the starting map's bank.
0x54A08 is the starting X position. 0x54A00 is the starting Y position.
Have fun.

Anyway, I have a question of my own. My hack is de-capitalised except for one item - the Enigma Berry. In Item Manager it appears as "Enigma Berry". Searching for the bytes "BF C8 C3 C1 C7 BB" (ENIGMA) in HxD yielded one result, which I changed to "BF E2 DD DB E1 D5" (Enigma), but the item name still appears as "ENIGMA Berry" in-game. Does anybody know how to solve this?

 

[karatekid552]

Anyway, I have a question of my own. My hack is de-capitalised except for one item - the Enigma Berry. In Item Manager it appears as "Enigma Berry". Searching for the bytes "BF C8 C3 C1 C7 BB" (ENIGMA) in HxD yielded one result, which I changed to "BF E2 DD DB E1 D5" (Enigma), but the item name still appears as "ENIGMA Berry" in-game. Does anybody know how to solve this?

All items have their names stored in the item data itself. The only thing I can think of that would cause this is you loading the wrong rom in VBA. Trust me, it is very easy to do. Ummm, take that offset you found in HxD, tack "08" onto the front of it, open the memory viewer in VBA (tools->memory viewer) and go to that offset. Make sure that your change is actually there in the loaded rom.

 

[Telinc1]

All items have their names stored in the item data itself. The only thing I can think of that would cause this is you loading the wrong rom in VBA. Trust me, it is very easy to do. Ummm, take that offset you found in HxD, tack "08" onto the front of it, open the memory viewer in VBA (tools->memory viewer) and go to that offset. Make sure that your change is actually there in the loaded rom.

I just checked, it's the de-capitalised name. It's very weird. My only guess is the fact that the Enigma Berry is special in that it's a placeholder for the E-Reader berries, though they could be only downloaded to Ruby and Sapphire and couldn't be traded, so I see no reason for special coding (actually, scrap that, FireRed is a highly modified copy of Ruby). And beside that, if a text is displayed in the game, it must exist in the ROM. I'm no ASM genius, though and I might be wrong on that.

 

[karatekid552]

I just checked, it's the de-capitalised name. It's very weird. My only guess is the fact that the Enigma Berry is special in that it's a placeholder for the E-Reader berries, though they could be only downloaded to Ruby and Sapphire and couldn't be traded, so I see no reason for special coding (actually, scrap that, FireRed is a highly modified copy of Ruby). And beside that, if a text is displayed in the game, it must exist in the ROM. I'm no ASM genius, though and I might be wrong on that.

No, you're right in the sense that it must exist in the rom, though it might be mangled, with a random byte in the middle or something. Try editing the other berries. See if it is just that one.

 

[jirachi31]

Hello. I've tried to search the threads but haven't found a real answer to my question so please forgive me if it has indeed been answered. I'm trying to replace/edit the Pokemon party icons in Emerald with some custom ones using Advanced Pokemon Icon Editor however when I go import my file, the image itself is there but the palette is not what I had in my original image. Is there something I'm doing wrong here or does it just not accept custom icons? Any help will be appreciated, thank you.

 

[ThorhianTheUltimate]

Hey guys, I have seen other posts talking about using a DSTwo falshcart for specific Roms/ ROM hacks. However, I just wanted to see if anyone had a general answer for this: How is the compatibility with ROM hacks and the DSTwo's GBA emulator? Do most of them work? Would I get slowdown's compared to the original ROM?

 

[Telinc1]

No, you're right in the sense that it must exist in the rom, though it might be mangled, with a random byte in the middle or something. Try editing the other berries. See if it is just that one.

I suppose you mean item names and if I'm right, every single berry is edited and it is working, it is just the Enigma Berry that's causing issues. Oh well, if it can't be solved I will just take it out of the shop.

P.S.: Also, something I didn't mention earlier, the offset I found actually isn't just the Enigma Berry - go back some bytes and you have the names of all the other berries, capitalised, though only the item name is used. Huh.

 

[robinjea]

Hello. I've tried to search the threads but haven't found a real answer to my question so please forgive me if it has indeed been answered. I'm trying to replace/edit the Pokemon party icons in Emerald with some custom ones using Advanced Pokemon Icon Editor however when I go import my file, the image itself is there but the palette is not what I had in my original image. Is there something I'm doing wrong here or does it just not accept custom icons? Any help will be appreciated, thank you.

Well, from what I know, Pokemon ROMs uses preset palettes for those icons and you just got to choose the most accurate or closest to your colors. I think there are 3 choices (0, 1, 2), is that right?

And those palettes can be modified but take extra precaution because it takes a bit of drawback for you. It will change the colors of all the other icons too that uses the same palette.

Hope I made sense. :)

 

[jirachi31]

Well, from what I know, Pokemon ROMs uses preset palettes for those icons and you just got to choose the most accurate or closest to your colors. I think there are 3 choices (0, 1, 2), is that right?

And those palettes can be modified but take extra precaution because it takes a bit of drawback for you. It will change the colors of all the other icons too that uses the same palette.

Hope I made sense. :)

Yes, there were choices but they weren't really the colors I desired so I'm a little lost. Mind telling me how the palettes can be modified so I can have my original image's palette stay the same? Sorry, I'm not very experienced with hacking. ^^' Thank you for your time.

 

[karatekid552]

Hey guys, I have seen other posts talking about using a DSTwo falshcart for specific Roms/ ROM hacks. However, I just wanted to see if anyone had a general answer for this: How is the compatibility with ROM hacks and the DSTwo's GBA emulator? Do most of them work? Would I get slowdown's compared to the original ROM?

Hacks like Sienna, which require VBQ's BIOS file may have issues, but most hacks run perfectly fine.

 

[Le pug]

Yes, there were choices but they weren't really the colors I desired so I'm a little lost. Mind telling me how the palettes can be modified so I can have my original image's palette stay the same? Sorry, I'm not very experienced with hacking. ^^' Thank you for your time.

You don't mess with the palette IDs at all. Open your rom, go to whatever pokemon you want to change... I went to charmeleon which has palette ID 0 and is completely orange and red colors. I went to this site to get my squirtle image. I opened this image in paint:

and I pasted it below itself to give the correct size orientation of 32x64. Here is what my image looked like (I made pink the transparency color and auto-transparency in the program picks up on it):

From here just click import image (Ctrl + I) and insert it. Make sure the file extension of the image is .PNG also... you might have .BMP which could mess up the colors. Anyways, when inserted just click write to ROM and GG you're good to go.



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I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to change the animation of the pokemon in emerald? There's two animations to a pokemon... the actual sprite animation which is two images, and then there is an effect to that pokemon like flareon will light up red or lunatone will rock back and forth. Any program that works with this?

 

[ThorhianTheUltimate]

Hacks like Sienna, which require VBQ's BIOS file may have issues, but most hacks run perfectly fine.

Hmm, pretty new to the scene, people have made custom GBA BIOS files? Interesting. Thanks for the answer, I probably wont be using hacks such as that since I don't download BIOS files, I only rip from console.

 

[jirachi31]

You don't mess with the palette IDs at all. Open your rom, go to whatever pokemon you want to change... I went to charmeleon which has palette ID 0 and is completely orange and red colors. I went to this site to get my squirtle image. I opened this image in paint: and I pasted it below itself to give the correct size orientation of 32x64. Here is what my image looked like (I made pink the transparency color and auto-transparency in the program picks up on it):
From here just click import image (Ctrl + I) and insert it. Make sure the file extension of the image is .PNG also... you might have .BMP which could mess up the colors. Anyways, when inserted just click write to ROM and GG you're good to go.

Yeah, I think I understand what you're doing here and I've tried it with a Squirtle too and it has worked. (So I'm guessing I'm doing it correctly.) However, my problem starts when I want to replace a Pokemon's icon with a custom one (with a palette that I think doesn't exist in the actual game) and I'm wondering if it's possible to still insert it with it retaining its original colors. I hope I'm making sense. But thank you for that explanation, it has helped a lot.

 

[karatekid552]

Hmm, pretty new to the scene, people have made custom GBA BIOS files? Interesting. Thanks for the answer, I probably wont be using hacks such as that since I don't download BIOS files, I only rip from console.

The real BIOS is copyrighted. VBA made their own, but it can use the real one. It is ever so slightly different, causing issues.

 

[Danny0317]

I've been wondering for a while, someone told that you can replace the hero's sprite in the fly/region map in unlz. Does anybody know the number? (FR, by the way)

 

[jirachiwishmaker]

Is it possible to expand the amount of blocks from 512 to 1024 in Emerald? And how can do it?

 

[Eminence]

I've been using SMCA and AdvanceIntroEd recently, but could NEVER find a solution to a problem i've had. When I spawn in my room, there is a tile error which does not show on A-Map. Since I haven't posted 15 times, I cannot provide a screenshot. Essentially it is a door and carpet tile, which disappear after you leave the room and then come back in. I've tried deleting all level/map scripts but nothing seems to work.
Help is highly appreciated. :)