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For all of your basic needs in ROM hacking. Because everyone's been a newb in the beginning.
AND NOW THE TUTORIAL
I’d first like to introduce myself, I am “Green Charizard”. I have been a Pokemon ROM hacker for over 4 years now, so teaching you the foundations to hacking knowledge is not a problem for me. The other staff on this site are also very advanced hackers.
But the question is really where to start. Hacking covers many different areas, that is why we have the tutorial section here. So you can learn different things. The purpose of this tutorial then, I guess, will be to introduce you to hacking and tell you about some of the basic things you need for hacking, including how to map, a basic yet satisfying thing to edit.
Hacking is not hard, you may think it is but it isn’t. Some parts of hacking is hard. But a lot isn’t. This is mainly because of the vast amount of tools available for you to use.
Firstly you’re going to need a ROM (Read Only Memory), and that's not a CD-ROM. By "ROM" we always mean a backup of a game cartridge which has been "dumped" on a computer. You can get this off Google, but do so at your own risk. There are laws against it in some if not all cases. We are not responsible. So you pick a version. If I say Ruby, I need to find a “Pokemon Ruby ROM”. Simple. You now have your game file, equivalent to your cartridge.
Next, you need an emulator, we use “Visual Boy Advance”. An emulator allowsa computer to mimic a console, making it capable of playing ROM files. Again, use Google and download it. This is equivalent to a GameBoy Advance.
Now, just to check, double click VisualBoy Advance.
Click File > Open
Click on your “Rom”.
Press open.
It should boot, success! You have a starting point. – Wasn’t that easy.
Next, I’ll teach you a common practice, right click and press copy on your ROM. Then Paste. You now have the game twice. Cool? – Well it is if you hack it and something goes wrong, you can go back to it then!
Next, I’ll teach you the basic thing that you’ll want to do when hacking.
We’re going to edit the bits that you walk around in the game. We call this “the Maps”.
You’ll need Advance Map
Get it from here: http://www.lu-ho.ch.vu/
Ok, now, open up AdvanceMap. If any language instructions appear, just follow them.
Press File > Load Rom
Find your Rom
Press ok
Wait while it loads a second
Now, on the left it should say “Load from header” and “Load from INI”, click through some of the options in them, If you “Load from header”, it’ll tell you what it is.
However, there are a lot of indoor bits. It’s easier to find them from the INI. Click it and it’ll bring up a list of places (in German if you don’t have an English INI, but you can make them out if they are). It should be easy to find the town you want to edit from here. It’s very self explanatory. If you’re lost here, just have a go. It’s really simple. You’ll figure it out. That’s a big part to hacking. But this is just selecting where you want to go from a drop-down list, simple. Once you have done that you should see a Map of the city. On the right you should see what we call a “tileset”. You can click on one of these blocks and draw on screen with it. Easy. So, have a play, think of it like MS Paint for games. Have fun!
Now, it will work, but you can still "move" where you could move before. For example, if you demolished a house in Advance Map, you won't be able to walk on where it was. (If you go to file > save and open it up in VisualBoy Advance you’ll see what I mean).
What we have to do to overcome this is to edit movement permissions view. All you have to do is draw again over the map, to show where you can walk. It’s like mapping. All you need to know for now is PURPLE
is where you can walk, PINK (4) is water and RED (1) is walls. Just go over your map with this.
You can do A LOT more with AdvanceMap, such as changing people, changing tiles, Changing the Music, moving where doors are (that’s simple, click on warps and you can drag them around). AND LOADS MORE…
But I won’t go in to any more detail, hopefully you have achieved something. If you want to do more have a look at are other tutorials.
Also, have a play with advance map, its fun and you can figure out how to do things by yourself. You know the basics, just try clicking through the options and see what it does.
And when you’ve done, don’t forget you can play your work in VisualBoy Advance (VBA).
CREDITS TO GREEN CHARIZARD FROM PHO (POKEMON HACKERS ONLINE)
AND NOW THE TUTORIAL
I’d first like to introduce myself, I am “Green Charizard”. I have been a Pokemon ROM hacker for over 4 years now, so teaching you the foundations to hacking knowledge is not a problem for me. The other staff on this site are also very advanced hackers.
But the question is really where to start. Hacking covers many different areas, that is why we have the tutorial section here. So you can learn different things. The purpose of this tutorial then, I guess, will be to introduce you to hacking and tell you about some of the basic things you need for hacking, including how to map, a basic yet satisfying thing to edit.
Hacking is not hard, you may think it is but it isn’t. Some parts of hacking is hard. But a lot isn’t. This is mainly because of the vast amount of tools available for you to use.
Firstly you’re going to need a ROM (Read Only Memory), and that's not a CD-ROM. By "ROM" we always mean a backup of a game cartridge which has been "dumped" on a computer. You can get this off Google, but do so at your own risk. There are laws against it in some if not all cases. We are not responsible. So you pick a version. If I say Ruby, I need to find a “Pokemon Ruby ROM”. Simple. You now have your game file, equivalent to your cartridge.
Next, you need an emulator, we use “Visual Boy Advance”. An emulator allowsa computer to mimic a console, making it capable of playing ROM files. Again, use Google and download it. This is equivalent to a GameBoy Advance.
Now, just to check, double click VisualBoy Advance.
Click File > Open
Click on your “Rom”.
Press open.
It should boot, success! You have a starting point. – Wasn’t that easy.
Next, I’ll teach you a common practice, right click and press copy on your ROM. Then Paste. You now have the game twice. Cool? – Well it is if you hack it and something goes wrong, you can go back to it then!
Next, I’ll teach you the basic thing that you’ll want to do when hacking.
We’re going to edit the bits that you walk around in the game. We call this “the Maps”.
You’ll need Advance Map
Get it from here: http://www.lu-ho.ch.vu/
Ok, now, open up AdvanceMap. If any language instructions appear, just follow them.
Press File > Load Rom
Find your Rom
Press ok
Wait while it loads a second
Now, on the left it should say “Load from header” and “Load from INI”, click through some of the options in them, If you “Load from header”, it’ll tell you what it is.
However, there are a lot of indoor bits. It’s easier to find them from the INI. Click it and it’ll bring up a list of places (in German if you don’t have an English INI, but you can make them out if they are). It should be easy to find the town you want to edit from here. It’s very self explanatory. If you’re lost here, just have a go. It’s really simple. You’ll figure it out. That’s a big part to hacking. But this is just selecting where you want to go from a drop-down list, simple. Once you have done that you should see a Map of the city. On the right you should see what we call a “tileset”. You can click on one of these blocks and draw on screen with it. Easy. So, have a play, think of it like MS Paint for games. Have fun!
Now, it will work, but you can still "move" where you could move before. For example, if you demolished a house in Advance Map, you won't be able to walk on where it was. (If you go to file > save and open it up in VisualBoy Advance you’ll see what I mean).
What we have to do to overcome this is to edit movement permissions view. All you have to do is draw again over the map, to show where you can walk. It’s like mapping. All you need to know for now is PURPLE
is where you can walk, PINK (4) is water and RED (1) is walls. Just go over your map with this.You can do A LOT more with AdvanceMap, such as changing people, changing tiles, Changing the Music, moving where doors are (that’s simple, click on warps and you can drag them around). AND LOADS MORE…
But I won’t go in to any more detail, hopefully you have achieved something. If you want to do more have a look at are other tutorials.
Also, have a play with advance map, its fun and you can figure out how to do things by yourself. You know the basics, just try clicking through the options and see what it does.
And when you’ve done, don’t forget you can play your work in VisualBoy Advance (VBA).
CREDITS TO GREEN CHARIZARD FROM PHO (POKEMON HACKERS ONLINE)