Newb Question

[Rezin]

I was wondering how to edit text on a SNES rom. It's easy on NES, because all I need is Nesticle and WindHex, but I don't know where to start on SNES.

[Blade556]

Get Thingy32 and make an SNES table file. It's real simple <img src=smilies/eek13.gif>

[Rezin]

> Get Thingy32 and make an SNES table file. It's real simple
>

That's the thing, I can't make a SNES table file, because I don't know the pattern table. With NES, I could just press F2 in Nesticle and boom.

[king killa]

> I was wondering how to edit text on a SNES rom. It's easy on
> NES, because all I need is Nesticle and WindHex, but I don't
> know where to start on SNES.
>

just think of it as a cryptogram. <img src=smilies/magbiggrin.gif>

[Ugly Joe]

> That's the thing, I can't make a SNES table file, because I
> don't know the pattern table. With NES, I could just press
> F2 in Nesticle and boom.

Ick, don't use Nesticle. Use fceuxd instead, it has a pattern viewer (F2 in Nesticle) and lots more features, plus the added feature of not being horribly outdated.

More to the point, look up Relative Searching and use that to make your table.

[Rezin]

> More to the point, look up Relative Searching and use that
> to make your table.

Alright, so I got a relative Searcher, tried it out on Harvest Moon, and Chrono Trigger...to no avail

So i tried it out on a nes rom, and of course it worked.

[MooglyGuy]

> Alright, so I got a relative Searcher, tried it out on
> Harvest Moon, and Chrono Trigger...to no avail

That's because Chrono Trigger's text is compressed, smart guy.

[Ugly Joe]

> That's because Chrono Trigger's text is compressed, smart
> guy.

Indeed. Stay away from anything Square until you have more experience with SNES rom hacking.

In a general sense, though, there is a major difference between nes and snes relative searching because most snes games will use two bytes for a character instead of just one byte (due to all them pretty kanjis). Unless the relative searcher is doing it automatically, you'll need to add wildcards between each character in your search query to handle that other byte.

For example, in an NES game, the word "cab" might be:
0x030102

For an SNES game, it would look more like:
0x800380018002

You need to use the wildcards so that the searcher will ignore the "80"s that are between each byte. Just make sure you don't ignore them when you make the table (that is, 01=a is incorrect and 8001=a is correct).

[Rezin]

> You need to use the wildcards so that the searcher will
> ignore the "80"s that are between each byte. Just make sure
> you don't ignore them when you make the table (that is, 01=a
> is incorrect and 8001=a is correct).

..this is where I give up, forget the whole experience, and go back to PLAYING the damn games.

[Audigy]

> ..this is where I give up, forget the whole experience, and
> go back to PLAYING the damn games.
>

wow, you give up quickly... we're not even explaining the hard stuff yet. relative searching and double-byte characters is easy. :)

[Kitsune Sniper]

> That's the thing, I can't make a SNES table file, because I
> don't know the pattern table. With NES, I could just press
> F2 in Nesticle and boom.

Load up the rom on a graphics editor like Tile Layer Pro or yy-chr. Then navigate down to the place where the letters are stored, and there you have it - a basic pattern table. This doesn't always work since many games have compressed fonts.

[The 9th Sage]

> Alright, so I got a relative Searcher, tried it out on
> Harvest Moon, and Chrono Trigger...to no avail
>
> So i tried it out on a nes rom, and of course it worked.

Maybe this defeats the purpose of what you're trying to do, but I think Temporal Flux supports editing of text...it's a huge Chrono editor, very neat stuff.

[Rezin]

Are there any good turorials/documents on SNES hacking?

I haven't read any, and am going on the good old try-to-do-something-complex-with-absolutely-no-knowledge-and-ask-people-on-the-forums-why-stuff-isn't-working method...

Not working.

[Ugly Joe]

> Are there any good turorials/documents on SNES hacking?

Try reading some of the ones at http://rpgd.emulationworld.com/rhdoc/RPGd</a> (since ZD right now is, well, you know...). Really, most docs that you find will be general faqs, you just have to adapt them to whatever system you're trying to hack.

[CROcOp]

> Get Thingy32 and make an SNES table file. It's real simple
>
Simple as hell...

[CROcOp]

> That's the thing, I can't make a SNES table file, because I
> don't know the pattern table. With NES, I could just press
> F2 in Nesticle and boom.
>
Boooom!!!
And a car explodes.<img src=smilies/banghead.gif>

[CROcOp]

> Maybe this defeats the purpose of what you're trying to do,
> but I think Temporal Flux supports editing of text...it's a
> huge Chrono editor, very neat stuff.
>
And if you are interested solely in Chrono Trigger text hacking then you should consider using Chronotools by Bisqwit (http://bisqwit.iki.fi/source/chronotools.html).

[Ugly Joe]

> > Get Thingy32 and make an SNES table file. It's real
> simple
> >
> Simple as hell...

Not really. Multi-byte tables are rarely mentioned in faqs, it's just something you're supposed to know (though it's not inherently obvious). I've never seen a faq that says to try adding wildcards between each byte in a relative search. Also, while compression in snes roms is mentioned in just about every faq, it's not very obvious whether script data is compressed or not. It can be hard to tell whether script is compressed or if you're just doing something wrong.

I'm not saying it's hard to do, but it's hardly simple -- especially to someone new to rom hacking.

[MathOnNapkins]

> ..this is where I give up, forget the whole experience, and
> go back to PLAYING the damn games.

You know most romhacking isn't that hard if you just sit down and fiddle with it for a few hours. Did you ever give this easily when playing actual games?

[CROcOp]

> ..this is where I give up, forget the whole experience, and
> go back to PLAYING the damn games.
>
Then go away. Go to some other forums. ...Punk.<img src=smilies/angryfire.gif>