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So, surprisingly, there isn't many tutorials on XY rom hacking out there. So I decided to create this thread to write various tutorial about XY rom hacking.
[S-HIGHLIGHT]NO LINK REDIRECTING TO ILLEGAL STUFF (basically roms) WILL BE PROVIDED.[/S-HIGHLIGHT]
1: Extracting
Spoiler:
To extract a game, you will need 3 things
-A computer(Windows, sorry Mac users unless you are dual booting or using a VM)
-HackingToolKit3DS, you can find it easily by searching it on google (can't post links due to the 5 post rules). Download the V9 under the release tab
- A 3DS rom. You can have one by dumping your gamecart/digital game using a hacked 3DS (or by downloading one online even if it'S illegal)
Once you got everything, extract the .rar of hacking toolkit and run the setup.exe. Then, create a new folder where you will put your rom and hackingtoolkit3ds.exe.
Run the .exe, and enter the combo key to extract the game depending on it's extention, then wait for the program to extract your game.
If it ask you to decompress the code.bin, do the key combo for yes (should be just entering a y)
After a couple minutes, you should have a ExtractedExFS folder, a ExtractedRomfs and a ExtractedBanner + some other files.
Congrats ! you got an extracted game ! You can now follow any of the next tutorials.
2: Randomizing
Spoiler:
Okay, you want to add fun to your game by randomizing it but you don't know exactly how ?Follow this tutorial.
You will need:
1:An extracted game
2:PK3DS from Teamcity ( log in as guest if the log in page appears) grab the latest link under the artifact tab.
Firstly, you want to create a new folder where you will put your ExtractedExeFS and ExtractedRomFS folders.
Launch PK3DS, go in the file tab, open, and search for the previous folder you created. Open it.
If an error saying there is too much files, remove the sound folder. After that it should work perfectly.
Now you can randomize/edit some basic things, like texts, stats, wild encounters, trainers... everything should speak by itself
3: Texture editing
Spoiler:
This is my favorite part. Alright, let's get this started.
You will need:
1:An extracted game (obvious)
2:An old version of Ohana3DS(like really old, but it is so simple to use and works perfectly with XY)(please let me post link lol)
3: Garctool, with can be found easily on google. It will be on a GitHub page, under the release tab.
4: A software to edit .png. Paint will do the job, but Photoshop is recommended for the job, because of all the tools available to be super precise and to be super quick.
Alright. First thing off, you want to locate the Pokemon/OW Trainers/Battle Trainers.(Won't provide the position for the maps as I haven't tested if editing the texture of them work).
Pokemon are located at a/0/0/7
OW trainers + all Pokemon appearing in the OW are located at a/0/2/1
Battle models are located at 1/4/0
locate the garc, then open Garctool. you want to drag and drop the garc on the window, then click process and wait. After a couple seconds, you should get a folder full of dec_nb.bin.
Editing pokemons is a bit more complicated then trainers. here is why.
Each Pokemon is made of 8 .bin. It would stand like this:
1=model
2=???
3=normal texture
4=Shiny texture
5=???
6=???
7=???
8=???
As you may have expected, you only need the 1, 3 and 4 files. for the OW, each file is one character. in the battle one, each. BCH is a character.
Once you found the files, open them in Ohana (for the pokemons, load the texture then the model)
Then, create a new folder to contains your textures. Go under the texture tab, and click on extract all and search for your new folder.
Once it's extracted, open your favorite picture editing software, open the aping and edit them as you wish (don't delete some parts as it may do some weird stuff when being loaded in the game lol)
Once you are done, save everything and close your software. go back to Ohana, texture tab, ans there should be a "Import all" button. Click on it and grab the folder containing your modded png's. If everything was done correctly, the Pokemon in Ohana should appear with your modded files. If it doesn't, refresh your texture by dragging the bin again on Ohana.
Once that you've edited everything, close Ohana and reopen garctool. Drag the folder containing the bin on Garctool then click process. You should get a nb.garc. Rename it to the number of the original garc (For example, if you edited Pokemon, rename the 7_.garc to 7). If it prompt you to replace, do it.
And Voila ! You are now a pro of texture editing ! Enjoy !
4: Model Swapping
Spoiler:
Yes, you can swap characters and Pokemon. Useful if your game is having a different story, or if you need to kick out some pokemons.
You wil need:
1: The same tools as the third tutorial. Nothing more. (I assume you still have your extracted graces from before)
Model swapping is very simple. It's just about renaming files. For example, if you want to replace OW Sycamore by OW Serena (Not the player model, but the rival one), make a copy of the bin file of Serena, and rename that copied bin to dec_[number of Sycamore].bin. It should prompt you to replace.
For pokemons, I recommend making a copy of every 8 file for the Pokemon you want to put. Then, rename each .bin to the numbers of the Pokemon you want to replace. Make sure you don't make any mistake in the file structure, or the game will crash.
For the Battle Trainers, I haven't really messed with them for now, but I assume you need to copy each .BCH ( + the .bins after it until a new .bch appear) to the numbers you want to place them, and it should swap correctly.
And bam ! You can now swap the game models around.
5: Musics
EDIT: It is now possible ! Check the tutorial !
Spoiler:
Oh I know. Musics. You obviously DON'T love them if you are reading this part. Here is how you can fix that.
You will need
- The sound folder from your extracted game
- the latest release of brawlbox
- audacity
-HxD
- An internet connection
You got everything ? Alright. First you want to get a song. Any song. Just go to youtube and get a remix, then use a youtube converter to get the .mp3. Open it in audacity, and edit the song on how you want (for the battle songs, I recommend increasing the volume a little bit because of the song effects). Once you are done, got to File -> Export -> Export audio and select the wav 16 bit. Export it.
Open brawlbox and ignore the internwt popup. Go to File -> New -> Audio -> BRSTM Audio stream and open your .wav. Here you can set the loop start point and the end loop point. Play with the ticks to see how it works. When you are done, LEAVE EVERYTHING THERE AND DON'T TOUCH IT ! We will need the start value and the end value later.
Here is the complicated part. We need to edit the xy_sound.bcsar (make a backup of this file) file to put your loop points. Load the .bcsar in HxD. Now you will need a loop list. Link :pastebin.com/EJetua4J . in this pastebin there are all the song with there start loop and end loop. Now go into HxD -> Search -> Number and type in the start loop number and tick the direction : all, then click search. Now open your internet browser and search for a decimal to hexadecimal converter. Convert your start loop point in brawlbox. Now what you have to do is REVERSE your hexadecimal output. For example, if your start loop is 233832, the output will be 39168 and the value you need will be 68 91 03 00. Edit the original start loop in you bcsar file and then do the exact same thing with the end loop. Once it's done, save everything and close HxD.
Now you might have noticed that XY is using .aac audio files. Open your web browser and search for a wav to aac converter, and convert your edited .wav to a .aac.
Once it's done, rename your fresh .aac to the file name of the song you want to edit. If it was the pokemon league, then the name will be bgm_xy_pokemon_league.
If you have done everything correctly, you should get a custom looped music in XY. Well done !
If it didn't work, check your hex. You might have missed something.
6: Playing your rom hack
Spoiler:
Okay. You made all the modifications you wanted, and you want to play your fresh rom hack. There are two methods:
1: Rebuild as a .3ds using 3ds builder in hackingtoolkit, then convert it to .cia using Godmode9 on your 3DS. Kinda the long method, but isn't complicated.
2: Using LayeredFS. This is the method that I recommend, but you need to grab each file manually and recreate the roofs file structure.
METHOD 1:
You decided to rebuild as a rom to install it on your system. It's easy:
Open Hackingtoolkit3DS, and enter the key combo to open 3DS Builder.
In the 3ds builder program, find the ExtractedRomfs folder, the ExtractedExeFS folder(it will ask you to recompress the code.bin, press yes) and the DecryptedHexHeader with can be found in your extracted game folder. Then specify an output folder and click rebuild (Or build or compress I can't remember) and after a couple minutes, you will get a fresh .3ds.
But it's not done yet ! You need to copy it to your 3ds SD card, and launch Godmode9. Go into the SD card, find you 3ds, select it and select "Build CIA from file" and wait around 30 minutes. You will get a .cia with can be installed through FBI.
METHOD 2:
This is the method I recommend, because your mod will be loaded from the SD card, so you can easily replace the files if needed with Filezilla.
To do it, create a folder named "romfs" (remove the quotes for each folder name). In this folder, create another one named "a". Now, go in the pk3ds folder. There should be a backup folder. go in it and there will be a bunch of files named with the garc location and the garc name. Memorize each location for each garc you modified in pk3ds, and locate them in your extractedromfs folder. Once it's done, go back to your romfs/a folder, and recreate the EXACT file structure(Like a/0/1/ and put the garc number 2 and etc). do this for each garc you modded.
For the musics, create a sound folder in the romfs folder, and put your custom .aac in it, with your edited .bcsar. The .bcsar is really important otherwise your music will loop using the original loop points.
Once it's done, go in your 3ds sd card in the luma folder. create a new folder called "titles". In this one, create a new folder named with the titleID for your game.
Pokemon X: 000400000055D00
Pokemon Y: 000400000055E00
then copy your "romfs" folder containing all your modded garc in the titleID folder.
If you have done everything correctly, your SD card file structure should look like this:
:/luma/titles/[titleID]/romfs/a/["a" garc file structure]
Once it 's done, launch the Luma configuration menu by holding select and pressing power. In the menu, check "Enable Game Patching" then press start.
If you launch your game, it should load your modded files .
And there you go, you can now make XY rom hacks !
If you would like me to add a specific tutorial (Editing Title Screens for example) Just ask and I will add it when I will have the time.
Have a good time modding !
Credits:
Asia81 for hackingtoolkit3DS
Kaphotics and ScireM for the XY garc list and PK3DS
gdkchan for Ohana3DS
recordreader and PlatinumMaster for achieving and showing me how to replace the musics in the game.
If I missed someone, comment down and I'll add it.
MUSIC TUTORIAL ADDED ! A thousand thanks for recordreader and PlatinumMaster for achieving this first and showing me how they did it. Super appreciated :)
when i opened the folder with pk3ds it grayed out all the buttons and i can't click them. I closed it but whenever i reopened it the buttons are still grayed out.
when i opened the folder with pk3ds it grayed out all the buttons and i can't click them. I closed it but whenever i reopened it the buttons are still grayed out.
So, surprisingly, there isn't many tutorials on XY rom hacking out there. So I decided to create this thread to write various tutorial about XY rom hacking.
[S-HIGHLIGHT]NO LINK REDIRECTING TO ILLEGAL STUFF (basically roms) WILL BE PROVIDED.[/S-HIGHLIGHT]
1: Extracting
Spoiler:
To extract a game, you will need 3 things
-A computer(Windows, sorry Mac users unless you are dual booting or using a VM)
-HackingToolKit3DS, you can find it easily by searching it on google (can't post links due to the 5 post rules). Download the V9 under the release tab
- A 3DS rom. You can have one by dumping your gamecart/digital game using a hacked 3DS (or by downloading one online even if it'S illegal)
Once you got everything, extract the .rar of hacking toolkit and run the setup.exe. Then, create a new folder where you will put your rom and hackingtoolkit3ds.exe.
Run the .exe, and enter the combo key to extract the game depending on it's extention, then wait for the program to extract your game.
If it ask you to decompress the code.bin, do the key combo for yes (should be just entering a y)
After a couple minutes, you should have a ExtractedExFS folder, a ExtractedRomfs and a ExtractedBanner + some other files.
Congrats ! you got an extracted game ! You can now follow any of the next tutorials.
2: Randomizing
Spoiler:
Okay, you want to add fun to your game by randomizing it but you don't know exactly how ?Follow this tutorial.
You will need:
1:An extracted game
2:PK3DS from Teamcity ( log in as guest if the log in page appears) grab the latest link under the artifact tab.
Firstly, you want to create a new folder where you will put your ExtractedExeFS and ExtractedRomFS folders.
Launch PK3DS, go in the file tab, open, and search for the previous folder you created. Open it.
If an error saying there is too much files, remove the sound folder. After that it should work perfectly.
Now you can randomize/edit some basic things, like texts, stats, wild encounters, trainers... everything should speak by itself
3: Texture editing
Spoiler:
This is my favorite part. Alright, let's get this started.
You will need:
1:An extracted game (obvious)
2:An old version of Ohana3DS(like really old, but it is so simple to use and works perfectly with XY)(please let me post link lol)
3: Garctool, with can be found easily on google. It will be on a GitHub page, under the release tab.
4: A software to edit .png. Paint will do the job, but Photoshop is recommended for the job, because of all the tools available to be super precise and to be super quick.
Alright. First thing off, you want to locate the Pokemon/OW Trainers/Battle Trainers.(Won't provide the position for the maps as I haven't tested if editing the texture of them work).
Pokemon are located at a/0/0/7
OW trainers + all Pokemon appearing in the OW are located at a/0/2/1
Battle models are located at 1/4/0
locate the garc, then open Garctool. you want to drag and drop the garc on the window, then click process and wait. After a couple seconds, you should get a folder full of dec_nb.bin.
Editing pokemons is a bit more complicated then trainers. here is why.
Each Pokemon is made of 8 .bin. It would stand like this:
1=model
2=???
3=normal texture
4=Shiny texture
5=???
6=???
7=???
8=???
As you may have expected, you only need the 1, 3 and 4 files. for the OW, each file is one character. in the battle one, each. BCH is a character.
Once you found the files, open them in Ohana (for the pokemons, load the texture then the model)
Then, create a new folder to contains your textures. Go under the texture tab, and click on extract all and search for your new folder.
Once it's extracted, open your favorite picture editing software, open the aping and edit them as you wish (don't delete some parts as it may do some weird stuff when being loaded in the game lol)
Once you are done, save everything and close your software. go back to Ohana, texture tab, ans there should be a "Import all" button. Click on it and grab the folder containing your modded png's. If everything was done correctly, the Pokemon in Ohana should appear with your modded files. If it doesn't, refresh your texture by dragging the bin again on Ohana.
Once that you've edited everything, close Ohana and reopen garctool. Drag the folder containing the bin on Garctool then click process. You should get a nb.garc. Rename it to the number of the original garc (For example, if you edited Pokemon, rename the 7_.garc to 7). If it prompt you to replace, do it.
And Voila ! You are now a pro of texture editing ! Enjoy !
4: Model Swapping
Spoiler:
Yes, you can swap characters and Pokemon. Useful if your game is having a different story, or if you need to kick out some pokemons.
You wil need:
1: The same tools as the third tutorial. Nothing more. (I assume you still have your extracted graces from before)
Model swapping is very simple. It's just about renaming files. For example, if you want to replace OW Sycamore by OW Serena (Not the player model, but the rival one), make a copy of the bin file of Serena, and rename that copied bin to dec_[number of Sycamore].bin. It should prompt you to replace.
For pokemons, I recommend making a copy of every 8 file for the Pokemon you want to put. Then, rename each .bin to the numbers of the Pokemon you want to replace. Make sure you don't make any mistake in the file structure, or the game will crash.
For the Battle Trainers, I haven't really messed with them for now, but I assume you need to copy each .BCH ( + the .bins after it until a new .bch appear) to the numbers you want to place them, and it should swap correctly.
And bam ! You can now swap the game models around.
5: Musics
EDIT: It is now possible ! Check the tutorial !
Spoiler:
Oh I know. Musics. You obviously DON'T love them if you are reading this part. Here is how you can fix that.
You will need
- The sound folder from your extracted game
- the latest release of brawlbox
- audacity
-HxD
- An internet connection
You got everything ? Alright. First you want to get a song. Any song. Just go to youtube and get a remix, then use a youtube converter to get the .mp3. Open it in audacity, and edit the song on how you want (for the battle songs, I recommend increasing the volume a little bit because of the song effects). Once you are done, got to File -> Export -> Export audio and select the wav 16 bit. Export it.
Open brawlbox and ignore the internwt popup. Go to File -> New -> Audio -> BRSTM Audio stream and open your .wav. Here you can set the loop start point and the end loop point. Play with the ticks to see how it works. When you are done, LEAVE EVERYTHING THERE AND DON'T TOUCH IT ! We will need the start value and the end value later.
Here is the complicated part. We need to edit the xy_sound.bcsar (make a backup of this file) file to put your loop points. Load the .bcsar in HxD. Now you will need a loop list. Link :pastebin.com/EJetua4J . in this pastebin there are all the song with there start loop and end loop. Now go into HxD -> Search -> Number and type in the start loop number and tick the direction : all, then click search. Now open your internet browser and search for a decimal to hexadecimal converter. Convert your start loop point in brawlbox. Now what you have to do is REVERSE your hexadecimal output. For example, if your start loop is 233832, the output will be 39168 and the value you need will be 68 91 03 00. Edit the original start loop in you bcsar file and then do the exact same thing with the end loop. Once it's done, save everything and close HxD.
Now you might have noticed that XY is using .aac audio files. Open your web browser and search for a wav to aac converter, and convert your edited .wav to a .aac.
Once it's done, rename your fresh .aac to the file name of the song you want to edit. If it was the pokemon league, then the name will be bgm_xy_pokemon_league.
If you have done everything correctly, you should get a custom looped music in XY. Well done !
If it didn't work, check your hex. You might have missed something.
6: Playing your rom hack
Spoiler:
Okay. You made all the modifications you wanted, and you want to play your fresh rom hack. There are two methods:
1: Rebuild as a .3ds using 3ds builder in hackingtoolkit, then convert it to .cia using Godmode9 on your 3DS. Kinda the long method, but isn't complicated.
2: Using LayeredFS. This is the method that I recommend, but you need to grab each file manually and recreate the roofs file structure.
METHOD 1:
You decided to rebuild as a rom to install it on your system. It's easy:
Open Hackingtoolkit3DS, and enter the key combo to open 3DS Builder.
In the 3ds builder program, find the ExtractedRomfs folder, the ExtractedExeFS folder(it will ask you to recompress the code.bin, press yes) and the DecryptedHexHeader with can be found in your extracted game folder. Then specify an output folder and click rebuild (Or build or compress I can't remember) and after a couple minutes, you will get a fresh .3ds.
But it's not done yet ! You need to copy it to your 3ds SD card, and launch Godmode9. Go into the SD card, find you 3ds, select it and select "Build CIA from file" and wait around 30 minutes. You will get a .cia with can be installed through FBI.
METHOD 2:
This is the method I recommend, because your mod will be loaded from the SD card, so you can easily replace the files if needed with Filezilla.
To do it, create a folder named "romfs" (remove the quotes for each folder name). In this folder, create another one named "a". Now, go in the pk3ds folder. There should be a backup folder. go in it and there will be a bunch of files named with the garc location and the garc name. Memorize each location for each garc you modified in pk3ds, and locate them in your extractedromfs folder. Once it's done, go back to your romfs/a folder, and recreate the EXACT file structure(Like a/0/1/ and put the garc number 2 and etc). do this for each garc you modded.
For the musics, create a sound folder in the romfs folder, and put your custom .aac in it, with your edited .bcsar. The .bcsar is really important otherwise your music will loop using the original loop points.
Once it's done, go in your 3ds sd card in the luma folder. create a new folder called "titles". In this one, create a new folder named with the titleID for your game.
Pokemon X: 000400000055D00
Pokemon Y: 000400000055E00
then copy your "romfs" folder containing all your modded garc in the titleID folder.
If you have done everything correctly, your SD card file structure should look like this:
:/luma/titles/[titleID]/romfs/a/["a" garc file structure]
Once it 's done, launch the Luma configuration menu by holding select and pressing power. In the menu, check "Enable Game Patching" then press start.
If you launch your game, it should load your modded files .
And there you go, you can now make XY rom hacks !
If you would like me to add a specific tutorial (Editing Title Screens for example) Just ask and I will add it when I will have the time.
Have a good time modding !
Credits:
Asia81 for hackingtoolkit3DS
Kaphotics and ScireM for the XY garc list and PK3DS
gdkchan for Ohana3DS
recordreader and PlatinumMaster for achieving and showing me how to replace the musics in the game.
If I missed someone, comment down and I'll add it.
No idea if you're still replying to posts from 2018, but would you happen to know how to change the sprite used for Pokemon in the Box/Inventory? I put Male Pyroar over Phione to give it and the female different stats/abilities, and everything seems to be working fine except for Phione showing up in the box menu. What do? Thanks.
Hello, I made a (kind of) rom hack by editing just editing gym leaders and elite four's teams with pk3ds, and it did work correctly with the citra emulator as a .3ds file, but when i try to install it to my 3ds it just didnt work. Didnt work when tired to download directly from gm9 as a .3ds file, nor as a converted .cia file from FBI. It says it failed to download everytime i try from FBI and the app gives an error when i download it from gm9 as a .3ds file. What should I do?
