FE8 Friends Hack

[Soren37]

So with very little ROM Hacking experience, I sent out a message to my friends saying that they could pick and choose which characters they wanted me to hack for FE8. This means I have to redo palettes, growths, base stats, events, enemy data, special abilities, and scripts.

I posted this here for two reasons: One, it counts as a project thread, and I crave feedback. Two, I have a lot of questions, and I don't want to flood the hacking questions subforum with over9000 replies, so I'll post most of my questions here.

Now then, first and foremost question (which can be found in the Hacking Questions sub-forum).

If I give a character that does NOT start with a certain ability (eg. Eirika with Dance), how do I prevent the game from freezing? Do I have to change the class or no?

Is there a way to open up all of FE8's script in FEditor, or no?

I know that GBAGE can do palette recolours, but is it really that simple?

If I have any more questions, I'll post them. I'll also post my friend's wishes here, so that I can monitor my progress.

[Paperblade]

For the first question, I'm pretty sure the reason the game freezes is because it's trying to call the dance animation but the Eirika Lord class doesn't have one.

I'm sure someone who hacks more than me will be able to answer than more eloquently as well as the other two questions.

[shadowofchaos]

If I give a character that does NOT start with a certain ability (eg. Eirika with Dance), how do I prevent the game from freezing? Do I have to change the class or no?

Is there a way to open up all of FE8's script in FEditor, or no?

I know that GBAGE can do palette recolours, but is it really that simple?

If I have any more questions, I'll post them. I'll also post my friend's wishes here, so that I can monitor my progress.

1. You will need an animation for it. As in like the mages, as using the custom battle animation module will let you use the "Magic/spell" animation for the "dance" effect. With physical weapons as a substitute JUST by using the module and not making your own for "non magic" units will definitely cause some problems.

2. FEditor Advance function "Script Dump", if that's what you meant by open up all of FE8's script. Notepad will probably make it all smooshed, use Notepad++ if you want it to be readable.

3. A few methods for doing this:

A) Without GBAGE, GBA Color Picker, Raw Hexing, Old inefficient way (Not Recommended):

http://www.feuniverse.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=280

B) Semi-painless palette editing (the thread title is a lie):

http://www.feuniverse.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4109

C) Super Easy way via GBAGE (haven't tried it myself, but I facepalmed when I found out about it saying "WHY DIDN'T HAVEN'T I THOUGHT OF THIS!?")

http://forums.feshrine.net/index.php?showtopic=3073

Edited September 17, 2010 by shadowofchaos

[Soren37]

WRT to question 1, here's the process I went through to try and get it to work.

1. Open the ROM and load the Custom Animation Module

2. Select 0x03 for Eirika (armed)

3. Change the Weapon Type to Dance

4. Leave the "All Weapons or a Certain One?" field blank.

5. Select the Dancer Animation.

However, Nightmare says that one of the drop boxes is incorrect. I also tried this with Eirika Unarmed, and with both options for the "All Weapons" field.

Help?

[shadowofchaos]

Never messed with the module that way before, so I can really only give you basic info. You're on your own with this...

The question is, why did you leave that one blank? Change it to "A Certain one" since you're not using any of the "All Swords/Lances/Axes/etc." values.

[Soren37]

I'll try that and see where it goes.

And it's still having issues.

Edited September 17, 2010 by Soren37

[Soren37]

After hijacking a thread, I now have Eirika's Dance up and running. Next thing I need is to find a download link for GBAGE.

[shadowofchaos]

http://www.feuniverse.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=130

[Soren37]

Thank you very much!

EDIT: And question. How do I change palettes? The guide on FEShrine, while helpful in opening, doesn't describe in detail how to change the palettes. I tried changing the colours in the colour control for Eliwood as a test, but that didn't work out too well. Suggestions?

Edited September 19, 2010 by Soren37

[FragMaster]

Thank you very much!

EDIT: And question. How do I change palettes? The guide on FEShrine, while helpful in opening, doesn't describe in detail how to change the palettes. I tried changing the colours in the colour control for Eliwood as a test, but that didn't work out too well. Suggestions?

i know right. but i think there is a palette editor in nightmare module

[Soren37]

There isn't. I checked.

[CT075]

There isn't one for FE8. And even if there was, it wouldn't do you any good. You need to edit the palettes in hex.

[Psych]

I don't have a palette editor for FE8, but I have a module to swap them. >_>

[Soren37]

I am not going to touch hex at my current skill level. I won't change the palettes around, but I do need a portrait editor. I'm getting Gamemaker from a friend on Monday, and he said that it's easy enough to edit sprites with the program.

[CT075]

It's actually pretty simple. Just locate the bytes of the color you want to edit (Using the tile/OAM viewer on the VBA) in a hex editor, and change it to the color you want it to be (using, again, a hex editor and GBA color picker.)

[Soren37]

It's actually pretty simple. Just locate the bytes of the color you want to edit (Using the tile/OAM viewer on the VBA) in a hex editor, and change it to the color you want it to be (using, again, a hex editor and GBA color picker.)

Would you be able to help me out a bit? It's a tad bit confusing.

I'm really sorry for asking so many questions, but this is my first hack, and I want it to be semi-decent.

[CT075]

Would you be able to help me out a bit? It's a tad bit confusing.

I'm really sorry for asking so many questions, but this is my first hack, and I want it to be semi-decent.

I haven't actually done it myself...

Okay, so open up the VBA. In "tools" there are options called "tile viewer" and "OAM viewer".

Once you've selected the color you want to change in those tools, there should be either an RGB value or a hex value (or both).

Take the hex value, and find using a hex editor. Sometimes, it might appear more than once. In that case, just change it and see what happens. If it doesn't work, change the next occurrence, if that doesn't work, then...

Make sure you have a picture with the colors already changed. Open it up in Paint. Now then, select the color that should replace the one you just found. Take the RGB value of that. Then, input it into the GBA color picker. Once you've done that, take the hex value you get.

Replace the hex value of your color and replace the value you found about 10 seconds ago.

[Soren37]

I haven't actually done it myself...

Okay, so open up the VBA. In "tools" there are options called "tile viewer" and "OAM viewer".

Once you've selected the color you want to change in those tools, there should be either an RGB value or a hex value (or both).

Take the hex value, and find using a hex editor. Sometimes, it might appear more than once. In that case, just change it and see what happens. If it doesn't work, change the next occurrence, if that doesn't work, then...

Make sure you have a picture with the colors already changed. Open it up in Paint. Now then, select the color that should replace the one you just found. Take the RGB value of that. Then, input it into the GBA color picker. Once you've done that, take the hex value you get.

Replace the hex value of your color and replace the value you found about 10 seconds ago.

That still seems really complicated for me. This is my first time doing one, but I think I may have just determined an easier way to edit the colours.

Using FEditor, rip out a sheet that you need (I'll use Kyle because I need to).

Open up Kyle's sheets in MSPaint. Zoom in and recolour the hair, skin, armour, etc.

Save the edited version of Kyle, and insert it over top of the original Kyle.

I'm not sure if it would work, though.

[CT075]

FEditor only has generic palettes.

[Soren37]

Okay then. I guess I'll save the mug and palette editing for another time.

[MasterJP28]

Okay then. I guess I'll save the mug and palette editing for another time.

I haven't done palette editing in awhile but it's not hard just a bit long. I used the VBA tools for the palette viewer, hex table to find the pointer, then snes palette editor (it works on all GBA roms). If you wanna know I'll look for the topic that taught me this.

[Soren37]

I haven't done palette editing in awhile but it's not hard just a bit long. I used the VBA tools for the palette viewer, hex table to find the pointer, then snes palette editor (it works on all GBA roms). If you wanna know I'll look for the topic that taught me this.

That would be nice. I'll give it a shot.

[Soren37]

Progress is going smoothly. The growth rate changes are coming in, and everything's going along. I gave Seth Axes, and I'm getting Gamemaker so that I can edit the sprites that I know can be edited. eg. Giving Seth a ponytail.

Next question: I know that editing the script is done in FEditor with the "Dump" function and then searching everything for your terms. Is there a way to bring the text into a word-editing program such as Word?

Second question: How do I change the names of the characters? I'll use Eirika, and I want to change it to Evelyn. What is the process for that?

[CT075]

Copy/Paste off of Notepad.

Search 'Eirika' in FEditor and change it. Then hit Apply, then Save/Save As.

[FragMaster]

you could also change every "eirika" in the FEditor.