Graphical Editing

[Drick9]

Ive just recently looked into GS hacking and want to know what you would use to edit graphics

[Rolina]

MS Paint.  Or, if you give him time, I do think an eventual update of the editor will include a sprite editor.

[Atrius (He/They)]

The tool I made to convert Kraden's Battle sprites required them to be have been saved in a very specific format first since I'm not at all familiar with the specifications for many image formats right now.

It'll still be quite a while before you can edit sprites in the TLA editor I'm working on.  I want to focus on getting it at least capable of reading most of the game's data before I start spending too much time on specific things.

[Drick9]

MS Paint.  Or, if you give him time, I do think an eventual update of the editor will include a sprite editor.

er..then how about extracting the graphics so you can edit them in the first place?

[checkmate]

      If you want to extract graphics you might want to try a program called "unLZ77".  It searches for compressed graphics and shows them to you along with their offsets.  It is recommended that you keep a backup of your ROM before you use this.  I am relatively new to this program but I will try to help you if you decide you want to edit graphics.  This program does have limitations.  Listed below are some things you should keep in mind.  

1)  I believe 15 different non-transparent colors (because transparent is in all pictures, I think) is the maximum for how many colors you can put in a gba ROM graphic. (With this tool at least.)

2)  Graphics insertion can be a pain.  It all depends on what you are trying to do.  Some graphics are broken up into multiple pictures.  (I forget what extension.)

   An example of graphics you must rearange include the CO picture (in the BIO page) in advance Wars: Black Hole Rising.  I believe (not certain) this also applies to certain graphics in the handheld portion of the Fire Emblem series.  They were both made (or something to that effect) by "Intelligent Systems."

[Rolina]

The only ones like that I know of are the Summons.  They're made up of a bunch of smaller pics, it seems.

[Atrius (He/They)]

I had to program my own tools to extract the graphics, they're not compressed in LZ77 format.

[Drick9]

I had to program my own tools to extract the graphics, they're not compressed in LZ77 format.

well hopefully one of those tools will make it here eventully  

[Atrius (He/They)]

I *might* consider posting it.  I'd have to rewrite it a bit though, I wrote it with the intention of only using it once to dump the graphics so it's pretty crappily coded.

Here are those dumps if you want them.

Golden Sun (1.97MB .zip, contains 367 images)
Golden Sun: The Lost Age (3.99MB .zip, contains 716 images)

With no real modification I was also able to use it to dump the sprites from Mario Golf & Tennis for the GBA too which were also made by Camelot.

Mario Golf: Advanced Tour (.zip 2.56MB, contains 280 images)
Mario Tennis: Power Tour (.zip 1.37MB, contains 400 images)

[Drick9]

Okay im using this topic again to ask what i can do to insert or replace sprites within the game itself. I have tried a few programs with no luck thus far.

[Salanewt]

Well, I am not sure if there is anything for Golden Sun yet. The editor should include this part in the future, but I am not sure what else there might be in the present.

However, there are many programs that work for other video games... You should try searching for them (if you want to work with other games as well). There is a website that might be good... I forget its name, but it begins with 'z'. They might have programs that work for Golden Sun, but I doubt it.

Have a nice day.
 

[Drick9]

I believe you are thinking of Zophar's domain, but i checked. No good programs. Most programs are made game-specific like UNlz-gba was made for pokemon.

[Salanewt]

Oh yeah. They also have things called Game Corrupters... I do not know what those do, nor am I going to try them out. Anyway, most programs are made for 1 game only (although some are made for a series of games, eg. Pokemon games, Advance Map).

You could try a HEX editor (but I am not sure if it would work for graphics... Maybe colours, but it would be harder to do that).

Other than that, I have no ideas as to what you can use, sorry.

Have a nice day.


P.S. Zophar's Domain, that was the name... Oh yeah... I knew that Domain was in the name... ... ... Ooh, a rhyme.

[Drick9]

I geuss we're gonna have to wait for atrius on this one. Maybe he'll add a graphic veiwer/extractor/inserter in the future

[Salanewt]

Well, there is already a sprite and graphic viewer, but no extractor or compressor yet. I think we will have to wait, however, it will be easy (considering how long it has taken for news of the true Golden Sun DS to come out).

Have a nice day.
 

[Rolina]

Actually, that's a sprite and MAP viewer.  We still don't have a viewer for battle animations.  Apparently, they've been giving Atrius problems with their weird compression.

[Salanewt]

The only battle animations that you can see are when characters and monsters move in battle (only their idle movements I think) as well as weapons. I do not think you can see backgrounds yet either.

Have a nice day.


Translated from English to English with my brain.

[Atrius (He/They)]

Actually, that's a sprite and MAP viewer.  We still don't have a viewer for battle animations.  Apparently, they've been giving Atrius problems with their weird compression.

It's not compression even, it's that they're in GBA Assembly code.

[Salanewt]

Well, surely the GBA assembly code will not trouble you very much in the future. Anyway, I wish you good luck, and I hope that everyone who is having trouble with graphics will be able to have their problems solved in the future.

Anyway, I hope that everybody has a nice day.