Edit Graphics
Required:
- Nothing. This is a stand-alone chapter.
Files:
- Tile Layer Pro
- Super Mario Bros (Nes) rom
In this tutorial:
Graphics editing can be a major thing when it comes to romhacking. If you're making a translation, chances are that you'll have to re-draw the games font from, say, kana and/or kanji to latin letters. If you're making a hack of just about any game, chances are that you'll want your hack to feature unique graphics.
Just like text, graphics needs to be found before you can edit them. But unlike Hex, you won't have to "search" for them in the same manner. All you have to do, is to open up your rom in a tile editor and scroll down until you see the graphics.
Unfortenly, graphics can in many games be compressed, making it impossible to find them. Sure, you could crack the compression and write your own decompresser, but if you could do that, you wouldn't be reading this. I promise.
One other thing that sometimes can be rather confusing, is Bitplanes. Rom graphics can be viewable in a number of different BPP-modes (BPP=Bits Per Pixel). I.e, they will only show up correct in one mode. Here's some of the most commonly used modes in Nintendo roms (all supported in Tile Layer Pro):
- Snes: 4Bpp (Snes), 2Bpp (GB/GBC), 1Bpp (monochrome)
- Nes: 2Bpp (Nes), 1Bpp (Monochrome)
- GB/GBC: 2Bpp (GB/GBC), 1Bpp (monochrome)
Editing graphics can be quite easy at times, but also very time consuming. For that reason, we won't create any unofficial sequels to Final fantasy 3 and the likes. Instead, we'll do some minor changes to Super Mario Bros.
Edit Super Mario Bros
The first thing you should do is unzipping Tile Layer Pro to its own directory, along with an unaltered copy of Super Mario Bros.
After that, you can open up Tile Layer Pro, without opening your rom. Just for the record, here's how TLP (as Tile Layer Pro will be refered to from here on) works:
- This is the menu. Here you can inset/extract images, open files, load palettes etc. Note that only "File" and "Help" are avilable until you have loaded a rom.
- This is the actual rom (loaded on screen: Dragon Warrior 3). Not all of it is graphics though. The dissorted stuff you can see on the picture is regular code data, but since TLP takes every bit of the rom and displays it as graphics, this is what it looks like.
- The Tile Arranger. The arranger allows you to paste graphics together, making it easier to edit.
- A close-up on the current tile you're viewing.
- Palette Editor. Lets you change the colors used in TLP. It won't edit the actual colors in the game though.
Now, that we're all set, open your SMB rom by clicking "File > Open (Ctrl+O)".
The first thingy you'll see is probably a lot of dissorted squares, but fear not.
In roms, graphics are stored in tiles:
Example of a tile
A tile is a square that consists of pixels (those little squares filling the tile). Most tiles are 8x8 pixels in size, and thus contains 64 pixels.
If you wish to edit a roms graphics, you can do this by selecting every tile (one after another) and manually editing them by hand (draw your new graphics pixel by pixel). You can also dump a number of tiles into a separate image and, for example, open it up in Photoshop to edit it.
But for now, we'll do it by hand.
To get at better view over the graphics in SMB, scroll down to the bottom (that's where they're stored). You can do this in TLP by pressing "Down" or "Page Down" (PgDwn scrolls faster).
Once you get to the bottom of your rom, you should now be able to view the graphics. Here you will find the alphabet as well, which you can edit to use, say, another font.
But we won't do that. See if you can find two tiles next to each other that look like this:
Then try to find two more tiles looking like this:
I take it you can see what this is by now? For those who can't, it's the mushroom that makes Mario grow in size. It's also the 1up-mushroom, as these two objects use the same graphics, but different colors.
Now it's time to do some editing. But before that, select the upper left tile of the mushroom. Then right-click on the Tile Arranger, pasting the selected tile. Do the same thing with the remaning three tiles, until you have a complete mushroom pasted out.
Of course, you'll still have to edit each tile separately, but you will at the very least be able to get a clear view of the result.
Now it's time to use your imagination. If you have previous experience with software such as MS Paint, editing tiles like this won't be a problem. The window used for editing, is the "Tile Editor". Click on the upper left part of the mushroom to make it appear in the editor.
Using the palette editor, you can select one of the four colors used on the mushroom. Note that black is used for transparency. Simply assign a main color to use by left-clicking on it. This makes it possible to use the color by left-clicking in the Editor. You can also assign a secondary color by right-clicking on it.
Feel free to draw anything on the four tiles using the Editor. Here's my result:
Save your rom by clicking "File > Save (Ctrl+S)". Now open your rom in an emulator and play until you find a mushroom.
Clocks galore...
And that's about the geist of it. As you can see, the original mushroom colors still apply. If you wish to change that, look up how to edit the palette.