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romhackerman

/rheg/ - Getting started

romhackerman
May 10th, 2022 (edited)
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  1. So, you want to make a GBA Pokemon romhack? There are two methods to making a romhack: binary hacking and decomp hacking. Binary hacking is the traditional kind of romhacking where you use various programs to edit a ROM file. Decomp hacking is a newer method where you make changes to the game's decompiled source code and assets, and compile them to produce modified ROMs.
  2.  
  3. Decomp hacking is generally the better method as it gives you all of the game's data and code in an easy to edit format, allowing for modifications that would be extremely difficult to implement with binary hacking. Decomp hacking also has better tools and lets you avoid many of the data corruption pitfalls of binary hacking. However due to being newer there's less tutorials for the decomps and the installation process is more complicated than with binary hacking.
  4.  
  5.  
  6.  
  7. ====================== DECOMP HACKING ======================
  8.  
  9. First, you need to decide which ROM you want to hack. Emerald is the best choice as basically all decomp hacking resources are for Emerald and its decomp is more documented than the others.
  10. The other decomps are also fully usable, and viable if you either want to make a really vanilla hack without custom features, or you are fine with programming/porting those features from pokeemerald by yourself.
  11.  
  12. Decomp repositories:
  13. https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald
  14. https://github.com/pret/pokefirered
  15. https://github.com/pret/pokeruby
  16.  
  17. The first thing you need to do is to download a decomp and install its dependencies so that you can compile it.
  18. Each decomp comes with installation instructions in a file called INSTALL.md.
  19.  
  20. Alternatively you can follow one of the many installation tutorials on pokecommunity:
  21. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=432351
  22. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=425246
  23. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=454082
  24. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=446273
  25. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=426921
  26.  
  27. If you want your hack to include Pokemon, items, moves, abilities or mechanics from later generations, you should install pokeemerald-expansion:
  28. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=432321
  29. https://github.com/rh-hideout/pokeemerald-expansion
  30.  
  31. Once you've managed to compile a GBA file you can actually start making changes to the decomp.
  32. To edit the decomp, you'll need some tools:
  33. - Text editor: any text editor will do.
  34. - Image editor: should support PNG format, transparency and indexed colors. (e.g. GraphicsGale, GIMP)
  35. - Porymap: https://github.com/huderlem/porymap/releases
  36.  
  37. You can find other useful tools here:
  38. https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/wiki/Useful-Modding-Tools
  39.  
  40. Useful links:
  41. Porymap manual: https://huderlem.github.io/porymap/index.html
  42. Scripting tutorial: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=416800
  43. Pokeemerald wiki's tutorials: https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/wiki/Tutorials
  44. Pokecommunity tutorial section: https://www.pokecommunity.com/forumdisplay.php?fn=decomp-resources
  45. Simple modifications: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=416647 and https://www.pokecommunity.com/showpost.php?p=10354961
  46.  
  47. Team Aqua's Hideout tutorial videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLNv9Lq6kDmTIYfN5NvgQRvfOHTOXl0uU
  48. Mantager's tutorial videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnf38dBXTIP2hWTp80nXY_mJM5BIOencf
  49.  
  50.  
  51. ====================== BINARY HACKING ======================
  52.  
  53. First, you need to decide which ROM you want to hack. FireRed is the best choice because it has the most resources and tutorials. Emerald is also viable but it's less supported than FireRed. Emerald is mostly hacked with the decomp and many of its resources are not available for binary hackers. All the other versions are shit and no one hacks them.
  54. Once you've chosen FireRed, make sure you get the English 1.0 version of the ROM as most resources and tools expect you to use that version.
  55.  
  56.  
  57. Download the following tools:
  58. http://getam.no-ip.info/?ver=1.92 - Advance Map
  59. https://github.com/Gamer2020/Unofficial_XSE/releases/tag/v1.1.1 - XSE
  60. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=428388 - HexManiacAdvance (HMA)
  61.  
  62. The above three tools are basically all you need to make a hack. There are loads of other tools but their functionality is mostly replaceable with one of the previous tools (mostly HMA).
  63.  
  64. Other tools:
  65. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=320113 - Generation 3 Hacking Suite
  66. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=311461 - Generation 3 Tools
  67. https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=26913 - GBA Graphics Editor
  68. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=149454 - Nameless Tile Map Editor
  69. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=85025 - Advanced Palette Editor
  70. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=205687 - Nameless Sprite Editor Classic
  71. https://www.irfanview.com/ - IrfanView
  72. https://www.pokecommunity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=490&prefixid=fg_resource_tool&tag=rom-hacking - More tools
  73.  
  74.  
  75. You might then want to check out some tutorials on getting started:
  76. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=369646
  77. https://www.pokecommunity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=66
  78.  
  79. Scripting:
  80. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showpost.php?p=9705229
  81. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=164276
  82. FireRed flags: https://github.com/pret/pokefirered/blob/master/include/constants/flags.h
  83. FireRed variables: https://github.com/pret/pokefirered/blob/master/include/constants/vars.h
  84.  
  85. Tile editing: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=193377
  86. Editing cries: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=293830
  87. Editing battle backgrounds: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=302401
  88. Adding new Balls: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=326311
  89. Tilesets and tilemaps: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=298030
  90. Adding the Gen 4 Physical / Special / Status split: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=7465618#post7465618 and https://www.pokecommunity.com/showpost.php?p=6976957&postcount=114
  91.  
  92.  
  93. FIRE RED EXCLUSIVE:
  94. Complete FireRed Upgrade (CFRU): https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=425447
  95. Title Screen Hacking: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=459583 and https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=325944
  96. Pokédex Expansion: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=318569
  97. Adding new types: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=313872
  98. Creating new items: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=7202888
  99.  
  100. EMERALD EXCLUSIVE:
  101. Title Screen Hacking: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=283345
  102. Pokédex Expansion: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?p=9446220
  103. Rombase: https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=451990
  104.  
  105. Other resources:
  106. https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=267728 - Resized all Gen 4 and 5 sprites to 64x64, as well as Gen 4 sprites of Gen 1, 2 and 3 sprites
  107. https://www.pokecommunity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=490&tag=binary
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