Simple Tutorials?

[Cynthia]

Where can one who's never hacked before learn to start? I mean the ones available are great and all, but they really can be a tad confusing to someone who has no hacking knowledge. Some people don't know anything about Hex Codes and such, is there or can some people make some VERY simple step by step guides, or references to just educate people who want to learn?

[Judge Judy]

Sounds like a good idea I think

[Wist]

Romhacking.net has some relevant tutorials. They appear simple enough that I would assume one could use them without any prior experience in any sort of programming. Assuming you intend to start with modding GBA roms, that website is probably a fair reference. As for references pertaining directly to Fire Emblem games, FESS and FE Planet both have dedicated forums, but I don't know how useful they would be for an immediate beginner (the latter has more tutorials than the former, if that helps).

Edited October 6, 2008 by Wist

[Cynthia]

Romhacking.net has some relevant tutorials. They appear simple enough that I would assume one could use them without any prior experience in any sort of programming. Assuming you intend to start with modding GBA roms, that website is probably a fair reference. As for references pertaining directly to Fire Emblem games, FESS and FE Planet both have dedicated forums, but I don't know how useful they would be for an immediate beginner (the latter has more tutorials than the former, if that helps).

You are most helpful Wist, perhaps we should have like a topic dedicated to level of hacking with this kind of references?

[Wist]

Listing and ranking various tutorials sounds like a good idea. I personally would be unable to contribute much to such a thread because most of my experience with game hacking has been directly related to StarCraft modding, but hopefully an experienced member of the forum with a little spare time will consider your suggestion.

Have you found the initial tutorials on romhacking.net to be clear or have you yet had time enough go start going over any of the material?

[Tino]

If you're looking for FE ROM hacking tutorials:

http://www.feuniverse.net/forums

http://fehacking.ipbfree.net/

And a copy/paste from another guide to FE hacking pertaining bytes and the hexadecimal system.

Most likely, you'll already know that a byte is made up of 8 bits, each of which can store a value of either 0 or 1. Together, this makes a total of 256 combinations for each byte, ranging from 00000000 to 11111111. This way of describing values is called the binary system, as there are only two (=bi) possible options for each digit.

Let's compare this to the system we normally use: the decimal system. In the decimal system, we have 10 different possibilities for each digit in a number (hence the name), namely 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. Once we've had those ten, we just start over with a 1 in front of, then a 2, then a 3, and so on, until we reach 99, after which we start using a third digit. This should all sound terribly familiar, so why am I telling you this?

Well, in fact, it's because the hexadecimal system is just the same thing, except there are 16 different options for each digit. These are represented by 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E and F. After that, counting in hex continues with a 1 in front of it, then a 2, .... then an 8, then a 9, then an A, then a B..... until we reach FF. See? It's not at all hard to understand hex. (Note that although FF is the 256th possible value, it corresponds to 255 in the decimal system, since 0 is also a value.)

Now how does this relate to bits and bytes? When studying data in a hex editor, we want to be able to see the value of each individual byte. Of course, it might seem logical to make up a symbol for all 256 values a byte can store, so we can read the value of all of them, but since this would require learning 256 different symbols, this wouldn't really be practical. On the other hand, if the hex editor would show every byte as the collection of 8 bits it actually is, thus only utilizing two different symbols, it wouldn't be much clearer, as this would mean a lot of trouble if you wanted to decipher the actual (decimal) value of the byte from the 0's and 1's. That is why a middle road has been chosen. As it happens, half a byte, which thus consists of 4 bits and is often referred to as a nibble, can take 16 different values, ranging from 0000 to 1111. As 16 different values per digit, or a hexit, as it is also called in this context, is a manageable amount, each nibble is represented by a digit in a hex editor, so every pair of digits is a byte.

Look at the very first byte in the Rekka ROM; it says 2E. As you just learned, 10 in hex is 16 in decimal (since 0F = 15 and 10 comes after 0F), so 20 in hex is 32. It shouldn't take much effort too figure out that E represents a decimal 14, so the 2E byte stores a value that would be represented by 32 + 14 = 46 in the decimal system. Don't worry about having to calculate this stuff though, you won't often need to do that. Still, it's useful to be able to convert hex to decimal and the other way around, since it helps you to spot/edit things that represent an actual decimal number in the game, like character stats.

Here are a few numbers in both decimal and hex that are helpful to keep in mind:

hex 0A = dec 10

hex 10 = dec 16

hex 32 = dec 50

hex 64 = dec 100

hex 7F = dec 127

hex A0 = dec 160

hex FF = dec 255

Obviously, values exceeding FF are stored using more than one byte. There's one catch to this though; those values taking more than a single byte have to be read by reversing the bytes. So a value that shows as 5A 8B 9F in the ROM, is to be read as 9F 8B 5A, which is 10455898 in decimal. Again, don't worry about this too much yet, you won't be needing this all that often. What might be good to remember though, is that a group of 2 bytes is referred to as a 'half-word', and a group of 4 bytes is referred to as a 'word'.

[Cynthia]

Listing and ranking various tutorials sounds like a good idea. I personally would be unable to contribute much to such a thread because most of my experience with game hacking has been directly related to StarCraft modding, but hopefully an experienced member of the forum with a little spare time will consider your suggestion.

Have you found the initial tutorials on romhacking.net to be clear or have you yet had time enough go start going over any of the material?

Well they make sense, but as always it's always nice if anyone has any videos, as I'm a visual learner. I learn by watching and doing.