need some help with stuff

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shadowdorothy

shadowdorothy

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so i'm new to hacking, sort of.
i know what a patch and batch files are, but i don't know how to make them.
i have absolutely no idea how to use a text editor and if a text editor can be used one on certain games (like translating a Japanese game to English with a text editor) can it be done?
what is scripting?
i know that games are built on hexadecimal and binary code and i know the # systems involved, but what happens if you change some #'s?
i have a small idea on how to use map editors (you draw the map and replace the one in the game with the one you made? right?)
like I said, i'm sorta new at this stuff and I'm more interested in text editing and translation.
if anyone can help me I'd really like it.
 
K well if you want to text edit you need:
-A hex editor (get windhex)
-A rom (duh)
-A table file (easy to make)

So Once you have a Hex editor, open the rom. The hex you see is the game. You just need to know where the data you want to change is.
For text editing, this is hyper easy;
For NES, you can open a rom in nesticle or fce ultra or something and view the pattern tables. Go to a part of the game with words and stuff and view it. Then you highlight the letters with your mouse and it will tell you the hex of that letter. From this you can make a table file that your hex editor will use.
SO!
Make a txt file with notepad or something and just go
A=81
B=82
C=83
D=84
E=85
F=86
G=87
!=9A
.=9B
etc...

Then rename it Romfilename.tbl
and yeah open the rom in the hex editor and search for words and change it. Make sure you've selected the text and not the hex!!

For other roms, to make a table file you can do a relative search using the hex editor. It will find patterns that COULD be the table needed. Some Hex editors will make the table file automatically from the relative search. For example in Hexposure it will ask you every time you do a relative search if you want to make a table file from the results. Choose Yes and if it's the wrong one, press F3 to search again and you'll find it.

To make a patch file from your hack, just open it up in windhex and click TOOLS--CREATE IPS PATCH FILE!!

To make a Batch just rename a .txt to .bat!!
 
well, some games have text editors made specifcally for them. I'm not familiar with any specific ones because I just use a hex editor. (it's all I can do with a Mac) you should familiarize yourself well with hexideximal. In the end you'll be able to edit text, music, and pretty much everything else you can think of. hope that was helpful.
 
At the risk of being accused of self-promotion, I strongly recommend that you read The Definitive Guide to ROM Hacking for Complete Beginners. The documents and utilities collection at RHDN is much more up-to-date than the one here, as well, so if you haven't been there, you should check it out.

shadowdorothy said:
so i'm new to hacking, sort of.
i have absolutely no idea how to use a text editor and if a text editor can be used one on certain games (like translating a Japanese game to English with a text editor) can it be done?
Click to expand...

Do you mean text editor, or hex editor? If you meant text editor, and mean it in the sense of something like Notepad or JWPCe, these can be used to edit the script but you first have to extract it from the ROM. You can't simply open the ROM with a text editor. If you meant hex editor, that will be one of your main tools when it comes to hacking.


what is scripting?
Click to expand...


i know that games are built on hexadecimal and binary code and i know the # systems involved, but what happens if you change some #'s?
Click to expand...

Actually, most games are built with C/C++ or Assembly, but the ROM file is compiled so you can no longer see that code. ROMs can generally be disassembled into assembly language, but this isn't something you're likely to want to deal with as a beginner. (Hell, I've released a dozen translations and still stay away from assembly language.) A ROM can be opened in a hex editor (which, obviously, displays it in hexadecimal values) but so can any other type of file. (I suppose you could use a binary viewer/editor, but I can't imagine why you would want to, unless you're extremely masochistic.)

As for what happens if you change some #s... That's the whole point of hacking. When you change some stuff, it will break. You keep breaking stuff until you end up breaking the thing you're actually looking for. Then you start tweaking that particular value until you figure out what it means and can set it to what you need.

i have a small idea on how to use map editors (you draw the map and replace the one in the game with the one you made? right?)
Click to expand...

Most map editors will open the ROM, show you the map and let you click and drag different tiles around to redraw the map.

like I said, i'm sorta new at this stuff and I'm more interested in text editing and translation.
if anyone can help me I'd really like it.
Click to expand...

The best way to learn to hack is just to start hacking. You'll screw a lot of stuff up, but if you're cut out to be a hacker, you'll catch on. Pick a project, start working on it and when you come to something you don't understand, post about what you've done so far, what you're trying to do and what's not working. As long as you can show that you're trying to figure things out and aren't just wanting someone else to do the work for you, you shouldn't have any problems finding help.
 
k this helps a bit. but what is the main difference between a hex editor and a text editor? i want to try my hand at translating first, so i want to know these things
can you change game fonts?
when you change the language in the game will you get funny characters?
if you rip the script from a game and translate it can you put the changed script back in the game?

in case your wondering i'm wanting to traslate most, if not all, of the super robot taisen series.
 
Once you have your table file (see my post above) each hex value for each letter corresponds to a tile (an image) in the game. To ''change fonts'', all you have to do is open up the rom in a ''tile Editor'' and find the alphabet. From there, you can change it into whatever alphabet you want.
Make sure to set the tile editor to the console the game is designed for.
There should be a box with like 1bpp, 2bpp, 4bpp, NES, GB, SNES etc. or something like that.
 
k that helps some. i don't know any good hex editors, so i'll have to find one (do we have a utilities section here?)
i'm kinda still confused, but i have a good idea of what to do know. I should most likely just stick to script editing for now.
 
shadowdorothy said:
k this helps a bit. but what is the main difference between a hex editor and a text editor? i want to try my hand at translating first, so i want to know these things
Click to expand...

A text editor can only edit plain text in a plain text file. A hex editor can edit any kind of file in it's raw form. When you open a ROM in a hex editor, you see the actual data that makes up the file. If you open a text file, a picture or a ROM in a hex editor, they all look exactly alike, a bunch of hexadecimal values. As for how you find out what these values mean, well that's where the hacking comes in.


can you change game fonts?
Click to expand...

The font in a game is simply a graphic, just like all the other graphics you see. The console (or emulator) sees absolutely no difference between the word MARIO and the figure of Mario running around on the screen.

if you rip the script from a game and translate it can you put the changed script back in the game?
Click to expand...

In short, yes. In truth, it's not as simple as simply translating the text and sticking it back in. For one thing, the English text is almost always going to require considerably more space than the Japanese text. So you first have to find enough space in the ROM to fit in the new text, then you have to adjust the pointers so that the game knows where that new text is stored. How this is done is going to very from game to game, but it's never as simple as stuffing the new text onto the end of the ROM.

in case your wondering i'm wanting to traslate most, if not all, of the super robot taisen series.
Click to expand...

Don't set your goals too high. Most quality translation projects take far longer than the hacker expects when the project begins. I've had some projects last 5 or more years. Also, several experienced hackers are already working on various Super Robot games, so you might want to poke around RHDN so you don't waste your time on a project that's already making progress.
 
i did poke around RHDN. the have no current translations of SRW A, D, R, or J. so i want to focus on those first. It does help that I know lots of chinese, (referred to as Kanji in Japanese) and i know some Japanese and have a Japanese speaking friend.
but now that you mention pointers I'm confused again. I read the rom hacking guide for beginners and it didn't talk about pointers(if it does i might have missed it)
is a pointer a directory like thing or a space finder thing?
 
Well when you change the text in a hex editor for example, It starts at a certain place and ends at a certain place. The game looks for the text at the first place, using pointers.
So since the japanese text has katakana and hiragana, which save some space, and kanji which saves alot of spece, one person's dialogue in english won't fit in the same amount of space as the japanese dialogue.
The space after the dialogue is either another person's dialogue or other game data.
So, you can either TRY to fit the english in the limited space OR you can learn how to change the pointers...
 
shadowdorothy said:
i did poke around RHDN. the have no current translations of SRW A, D, R, or J. so i want to focus on those first.
Click to expand...

Gideon Zhi is already working on Super Robot Wars Alpha, along with EX, Gaiden and 4. He's already completed translations for Super Robot Wars, Super Robot Wars 3 & Alpha Gaiden, so I wouldn't bother with any of those, as the odds of you learning to ROM hack and completing a project before an already underway project being done by the most prolific ROM hacker in the scene (67 completed translations thusfar) is pretty slim. And when I was talking about poking around RHDN, I didn't just mean look in their database to see what projects exist. There are a ton of projects being discussed on their forum that aren't listed in the database because patches haven't been released for them as of yet.


but now that you mention pointers I'm confused again. I read the rom hacking guide for beginners and it didn't talk about pointers(if it does i might have missed it)
is a pointer a directory like thing or a space finder thing?
Click to expand...

Pointers were definitely mentioned in the guide.
 
I have most the things i needed this thread for.
all I need is a program for marking pointers in game text and I think i found a pretty good one.
that and i opened another thread for the only other thing i needed so this thread is redundant.
 
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