[Morinis]

Hello again, ladies and gents!

First off I'd like to say that I'm finally beginning to have a small understanding of how the 6502 Assembly on the NES works though it is somewhat challenging since I'm not familiar with that kind of stuff.   I'm currently trying to study any information of what I can find to the best I possibly can since I have no tutors to assist me in what does this or that; mainly decent at sprite/graphic editing and that's it lol.  I'm also beginning to understand features for hex editing, I've been trying to find guides and tutorials on how to add extra data to game ROM's but can't seem to locate anything useful as I only find tutorials on understanding the 6502.  This extra data on what I mean can be like new features, new sprites/characters, background graphics, animated background graphics, rooms, bosses and the likes.

Another thing I'm trying to find out is how to add an overlay layer to a character for more colors instead of just the 3 base colors.  Thing is, I do not know if this is possible for the NES unless you make the character into certain parts which will cause more space to be used up on the ROM itself.  This kind of feature I want to mainly do on the playable character or characters on NES games. This kind of feature I'd like to implement on the Megaman games, Metroid, Simon's Quest and Dracula's Curse ROM's since these are my current projects, mainly focusing on a Dracula's Curse project right now by starting on the graphic/sprite editing.

For the hex editing music bit, it's difficult that I know.  Been sitting and looking at my hex info on the FCEUXD SP emulator watching on how things tick when the music patterns change or think they are the music patterns.  I've been currently watching stuff tick on Simon's Quest and Dracula's Curse to see where everything is spread out at but got confused when I scrolled down some to find some more information moving.  Was unsure if it was the same track playing or not.  One thing that I'm worried about is how to make a long note or a short note with each of the instrument channels whenever I do make the leap in music editing so need a 'wet blanket' for that kind of information since there's not many music editing tutorials out there for the NES lol!



I  understand that my questions are asking a lot and that I do feel bad for asking the community in obtaining information for all of this.  Just seems in today's age it's difficult in locating the information that I need to learn on what I'm asking since there doesn't seem to be many online communities out there for ROM hacking unless I'm looking in the wrong areas.  I did ask in a few other website communities last year and got some very poor responses back, mocked at more over than anything else.  No clue if they were kids trolling or what but it left a paranoia with me on asking any online community for any sort of help lol.

So back to my questions, I deeply hope people can provide me the information that I need especially in the music editing of how to make notes and implement them into the game.  Again I understand that this will be a very daunting, painful task to do but I'm willing to learn all of this information so I can press forward in making new things and sharing those new things with people! 

[FAST6191]

" I've been trying to find guides and tutorials on how to add extra data to game ROM's but can't seem to locate anything useful as I only find tutorials on understanding the 6502.  This extra data on what I mean can be like new features, new sprites/characters, background graphics, animated background graphics, rooms, bosses and the likes."

Space wise I believe we covered in mappers. Adding extra stuff is as wide and varied a task as the formats themselves so there will probably not be any general guides beyond programming concepts and data formats. Doing it could see you staring at a disassembler for fifty hours or it could see you figuring out the game's scripting engine, for the NES it is more likely to be on the assembly side but it is not a certainty.

I am not entirely sure if any examples would be of use here so I will say it is usually considered far harder to add new things than it is to adapt older ones, indeed for the new functions thing it is usually easier and better coding if you alter the existing one. You could also run into a scenario where a game assigns enemies an 8 bit reference value and there are already 256 enemies (2^8=256) in the game -- trying to change that and keep the game working at the same time can be a nightmare.

[Morinis]

Oh goodness gracious me, I forgot all about the mappers discussion we had in the other thread sir.  I must look around for information on these mappers then!

Hmm...I wonder on how far some things can be pushed when altered then.  In the max ROM space boundaries of course!  I know that some projects, once I get the hang of adding stuff, I will need to expand the ROM space for things to fit.  Kinda tempted to learn how to 'compress' information on a NES ROM to see if it'll create even more space though I'm just speaking on a newbie side of course since I know nothing on it yet LOL!

[Dwedit]

Adding an extra layer for sprites will push you up against the 8-sprite limit much quicker.  So if you're doing that, you should limit the width of your overlay to 8 pixels wide.

[Morinis]

The extra layer I got my answers about.  It's very intimidating to learn and a lot to do in it so don't think I'll be touching that LOL!


I do thank those that are supplying me answers again!  Trying my best to learn all of this since I mainly dwell in sprite/character editing and not programming lol!