Starting to hack, needing some help

[Zebesiano123]

Days ago I said that I want to do my own Touhoumon but featured (no competition with others intended), I'm needing of some help for creating a great hack with your help, I'll put the forum on the credits for thank everyone that helped me on progressing.

Right, I'm now starting to extract the sprites of the japanese game Touhoumon and I want to know if I'm doing the sprite ripping well, here I screen of what I'm doing now:

http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k421/TraceS666/Screenshots/spriterip_zps418f12b5.png
As you can see I'm extracting all puppets sprites, I'm doing this well or I need to do some other things? later, how I can put them on the FR ROM?. I'm also going to replace the items and puppets menu pokeballs by miko orbs as well.

Also I have some shorter questions:

• How do I can add this DPSS system?: Yeah, I'm going to add this system (the type split system).
• Replacing type names and colors?: I want to replace the puppets/moves names like other games, you know (Fight>Dream, Poison>Miasma, etc.) and changing the colors of these type icons.
• Editing texts?: I don't want to left any pokémon reference on a dialog or something.
• Edit move names, effects, etc.?: Some originality should be on my project, for that like in AW/WL there are some character spell moves like Superego or HellsTokamak, so I'm going to replace/add some moves by spells and main character weapons.

That are all my doubts for now, some more may appear later but now focused on this :3. Thanks for the help---

[Neotornado]

first things first, I use the wichu sprite editor to edit my sprites. it's much easier and more user-friendly, although you might still need to use UNLZ for more in-depth things (such as the custom type sprites)
That program can be downloaded here: http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=196143

As for your questions...
1. DoesntKnowHowToPlay made a patch for fire red/emerald that adds in the physical-special split, which can be downloaded from here: http://www.pokecommunity.com/showpost.php?p=7465618&postcount=163. no permission from DoesntKnowHowToPlay is nessicary, but you do need to give him credit.
Something to note, is that you will need to edit every move to be physical/special/status yourself, which can be done using an attack editing program, such as the attack editor pro. not linking to that since there's a more in-depth program that I'll be linking later that you can also do it with.
2. as I mentioned, UNLZ updates the graphics, type resistance editor handles the actual in-game type editing. the type resistance program can be downloaded here: http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=188426. dunno how exactly you change the graphics, though...
3. advance text helps you out with this. can't find the original thread for the program, but a quick google search should find you the program pretty easily.
4. Same way as mentioned in #1, the same program can edit both.
still, I personally use a program pack for my stuff, which can be downloaded from here: http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=299112 saves me a massive amount of time and headache. it contains the attack editor I mentioned earlier, as well as a pokemon stats editor, and a few other programs that can help out.
While there is a decent amount of trial-and-error related to the programs themselves, most of them should be fairly evident on how you are supposed to use them.

There are some other programs that I didn't mention, such as advance map and advance trainer, but they should be included as downloads in the pack. however, one that isn't is a hex editor program. dunno on how you can get one, but you may need to go into the hex for some things.

[Neotornado]

oh yeah, forgot to mention the stuff relating to the hack itself. it's good to have something that separates your hack from the others, such as adding new regions, adding new puppets, and so on.

Generally, it's a good idea to figure out what you are doing stuff out early and stick with it. for example, choosing between 1.5 typings (canon Pokemon) or 1.8 typings (touhoumon typings), between evolution types (Ex: chibi > normal > EX or chibi > regular or shard form), are your attacks going 1.5-style (such as a lot of signature moves, which seems to be the direction you are going in), or 1.8 (with very few signature forms, but almost everything gets good STAB/coverage moves as a result) and what game you are going to edit (fire red or emerald. this one is simple enough), and ask yourself a few questions, such as "is this hack supposed to be easy or difficult?" "does it include the PC98 puppets in the maingame or not?" or even "am I even sticking with the pokemon formula of 8 gym then E4 then champion with a villain team in-between, or trying something new?" It's best to answer these questions when you are early in development, so that way you aren't fumbling about when you have most of the hack done. I should also note that you aren't restricted for pure 1.8 or 1.5, you can take up hybriding if it interests you, such what emerald AE did.

Still, one thing you must accept is that hacking is a tedious thing. it will take a while, ESPECIALLY if you are going for a new region and whatnot. still, if done right, the reward can definitely be worth it.

lastly, you'll need playtesters, which is a pretty obvious thing. should this hack get off the ground, I'll gladly offer to playtest it.

[Zebesiano123]

Oh, you did an astounding research, I need to REALLY thank you for your help and of course the creators of tools and the DPSS, you cleared my doubts so far .
I'm going to give it a try, going to hack FR and later may be do another edition based on Emerald. This hack as you said should be distinguished from others, and this is the idea, I was thinking to use some 1.8 types and at least one of my invention "light" (I need to know what type should replace to put light lol), some light-type may be the three mischievous fairies since I heard they manipulate light, but I need to find more to add this new type.
About evolutions I need to think it or simply use the classic 1.8 types using shards, but if I use shards they'll may be only acquirable like in the PP Emerald (getting UFOs instead of buying them and the place to get shards is only accessible after getting certain HM). Of course new areas will appear as well as I learn of this, I was planning on add Gensokyo based on the map that A. Sanae used for his/her hack (my hack won't be a remake of Another World though) or just try to add another "poké-original" region (Hoenn/Johto).
I'm a novice but putting effort on it a great work will be released, I think so .

[Neotornado]

Thank you! I'm far from the best hacker on here, but I like helping people out. as for the new type, there are three options on that. The first one is overwrite the -type, which works out somewhat fine, but it messes up struggle's typing. (and I think doom desire/future sight, I'm pretty sure that touhoumon 1.8 replaced both moves, though.) The second option is to replace the illusion typing, which is used three times in canon 1.8. (AdYukari, tori, and the moemon dragons that lance has in the E4). You'll need to re-type all of the attacks that are already illusion-type, though, which is a decent amount. the final option add the typing youself. I dunno how this works, but I imagine that it involves a crapton of hex editing. probably not a good idea for a new hacker, all things considered.
still, I think I had the non-advent shards as game corner prizes in my concept hack, dunno how well that idea would work out though. (they were 3,000 coins a pop) whatever you want to do with the shards are fine, though, but since you are doing FR, you might want to remove the two moon stones in mt. moon so we don't have things like ASanae at that point. (since the attack shards replace the moon stones)
I believe agastya was working on a 1.8 hack base at some point, but I dunno how well it's doing, and it may be a dead project, now that I think about it.

[Zebesiano123]

Hmm yes, I'm sure that replacing the Ill. type is the best idea so the initial attacks like tackle and pound can be BEAST-type (pound is Ill. but I think it'll be beast) and try to take advantage of the Ill. Attacks to use them as light-related danmaku spells or something, as well light-types will be weak to dark attacks and vice versa.
Now that I'm going to replace the types...
That type/res. program you sent, it replaces/generates the in-game types images (the colored rectangular icons with the type name)? Or how I can do such icons? If I need sprites I think I need to burrow them from other hack but I need to make a icon for light so this is a problem and for that I want to create all the icons.
About these joke-mons I'll exclude them for sure, they don't seem to fit on the hack or Touhou-related things (Tori and all the puppets that appeared on the Safari Zone on Touhoumon Blue Version) and fan-characters ONLY if I don't have enough spaces and/or the sprites, giving the opportunity to catch and train all the characters from HRtP to DDC.
I also thought about moves descriptions for saying their attack range or what they do (like PP emerald):

Spoiler

> Pound (BEAST) "M/A basic 0 pri move with no sec. effects" notice that I wrote a M/, it stands for melee (phys.) so attacks with this will enter in contact with foe.
> Blazing Wheel (FIRE) "R/Rin 0 pri Spell that attacks all enemies, 20%/B" R=Ranged/Special, /B=burn chances.
> Pray4God (FAITH) "H/0 pri. Pray for a god to regain up to half of the max. HP" H/=heal.
> Sharpen (DREAM) "S/Increases base ATK by one level, wears off if switched out" S/=move that increases one or more stats.
> Detect (DREAM) "P/Move that protects user from being damaged, fail if used in reg. or sw." P/=protection.
> Will-o-wisp (FIRE) "SP/Sinister blue flames that travels in an arc to burn the foe". SP/=status problem if hits.

Oh too much stuff, thank you but I wanted to share some of my ideas.

[Neotornado]

So dark is weak against light and light is weak against dark? I dunno, since dark-type is evil-type in Japanese, but I guess it'd work for things like rumia and whatnot. XD
As for the type icons, I mentioned earlier that I'm kinda clueless on how to do that. I know it involves UNLZ-GBA and I think some hexing to correct the color pallets?
about the joke-mons, the only real joke-mons in 1.8 are tori and reisen II. (and that second one could be buffed a tiny bit. she's used as a "free watasuki" coupon in regular 1.8), as the moemon dragons take up boss slots. (which can be used for player-stuff as long as they aren't found in the wild. there are 25 slots overall) Also pointing out that while the TD/DDC characters do have sprites/icons, I think you need to ask ExSariel for permission on using the TD icons. dunno who made the DDC ones, but I'm assuming it was Ex as well. thankfully he hangs around here a pretty decent amount, so it shouldn't be hard to get contact with him.
As for the moves...

Pound I'd change to a dream-type move. tackle is already an early-game beast move. if you are using the alice/reisen/sanae starter circle I'd suggest replacing pound on alice and sanae's movesets with tackle.
Blazing wheel is fine, although I dunno what base power it is. (assuming that's replacing flame wheel)
As for pray, I dunno if that one's needed. wish/recover should be fine. although if you want to keep it, how about changing the name to "HealPrayer"? sounds a little better, since "healing prayer" won't fit in the 10-character text limit.
the last 3 are how they work in regular touhoumon, no changes there. (unless you want to change those)
out of the illusion-type moves you will need to change, I think return/frustration/selfdestruct/explosion are probably going to be the most confusing ones, since giving them coverage would be somewhat broken. (return and frustration both hit 102 base power when full) maybe change what they are or limit their distribution? (although you'd need to replace return as a TM. I think frustration is exclusive to parsee and the moemons) I'd imagine if you are going for signature moves, maybe explosion could be changed into a base 170 (255 base power after STAB is factored in, 5 points stronger than normal) signature move for utsuho? quite a few mons like having sacred fire as physical faith-STAB, and removing it would cripple them somewhat, especially if they don't get force palm. dunno what you'd be doing for selfdestruct, though.

*edit*
er, dunno if you've started yet, but I found a tutorial on adding new types if you want to try that out:
http://mail.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=313872

[Zebesiano123]

Ahh damn, selfdestruct, hmm, I thought on dark but I need to add an average type that damages all types with 1x efectiveness, so this involves a huge problem that I think I should solve by myself because if I replace ? ? ? type, attacks like curse (well, this is not a big problem) will be ghost instead of "? ? ?", but the problem starts from the egg type (we will found light eggs may be? XD).
About the dark and light I thought on another non-TH game which involves a war of light and dark (better I won't distort the theme) but it was as this and I didn't know what you say :O but it's so logic because puppets like Remilia are lovers of darkness (dark-types, so far obvious lol) but if they receive light attacks they will be damaged by the holy power of the light, as well the light users and some other things (I'm having lot of creativity, better I should start the hack ^^).
Thank you a lot for your help, I need to do research for anything that helps me replace puppets/move types and start to add all characters, I'll share some ideas and progress on other post :3.

Edit: Ah yes, I'll request that user the icons of puppets and put him on the in-game credits like all the other things, you know the puppet sprites creator (of the upper screen)?. Also I intend to add other starter puppets to make this hack different from others as it should be.
Edit2: Oh!, forgot said that your idea about the healing move is better, I didn't have another idea :O Thanks.

[Zebesiano123]

I need to thank you again but more doubts about the tutorial you sent cames, specially related to hex edition...
I was at least 3 hours editing the sprites so accurate (this is not the problem) so following the tutorial I did this on paint, it's a zoom-in screen (I also saved it in PNG and BMP (16color, 256color and 24bit) if this helps:

Spoiler

http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k421/TraceS666/Screenshots/paint1_zps577ad6f1.png

Once the creator of the tutorial speaks about hex finding and replacing, this gets a huge problem, look:

Spoiler

http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k421/TraceS666/hxd_zpsaa94ee4c.png

I don't know about this, and also another problem about saving image:
The image should be transparent but it look as this:

Spoiler

http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k421/TraceS666/Screenshots/nse_zps67f29245.png

So I tried to go to GIMP and erase the dark green BG leaving it transparent, then exported it as PNG without Gamma and Adam7 (all other options checked as it was and compression 9), once exported as PNG I imported as the tutorial creator said and I get this:

Spoiler

http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k421/TraceS666/Screenshots/nse_002_zpse5d90c3d.png

Can you help me through adding a new type (in a new post or something)?, I'm terribly bothering with all my problems but if you or someone else helps me with that I'll in deep thanks .

Edit: Notice the icon sprites losts a bit of color but I have them in better quality.

[SG-Sanae]

Have you planned the matchups of the Light type already?

[Zebesiano123]

Have you planned the matchups of the Light type already?

Hmm, if you're asking about puppets and moves of such tipe yes.
Luna, Star and Sunny will earn light-type once evolve to normal form, as well I think Reimu will be another light one.
About moves I don't know the spells of these fairies but I heard they manipulate light (for that reason they earn this type) so yeah, a few more moves:

Spoiler

Fantasy S (Light) "R/Reimu's traditional spell with good damage. Attacks all enemies." Power: 90 - ACC: 80 - PP:5
Energy Light (It was NATURE but now LIGHT) "R/Holy magic that attacks one foe. 20%D/Sp.Def." Power: 80 - ACC: 100 - PP:15

From now I've these ideas and puppets with said type, also I thought about W/R (weakness & resistances), these are:

Spoiler

Weakness: Dark, Ghost. (As well light attacks are SE (super effective) against dark and ghosts).
Resistances: Faith, Reason, Heart.
Light moves deals more damage to: Dark, Ghost, Miasma, (may be DREAM).

And now I'm out of ideas but everyone is free to suggest something.
About progress I didn't start yet because of the problem with adding new type (I'm novice at HEX).
If curious I also thought a few more spells:

Spoiler

PoaHP (stands for Philosophy of a Hated Person, I wanted to add this but a lot of limit on use for avoid repeated use on it, nature-type may fit with it) "R/Koishi's spell that cloak the user by one turn. Works at once in every turn." P:180 A:90 PP:1 (just for avoiding spell abuse, you may think two times before use).
Superego (Heart) "R/Heart-shaped bullets attacks all enemies, 15%/I" I=Infatuation - P: 90 A:70 PP:5
Other typical move is LUNATIC (it may fit better thinking on its GFX as DREAM) "R/Attacks with the ultimate danmaku 5%/ID" ID = Instant Death (if appliable) - P: 120 A:80 PP:5
MasterSPK (Wind, Marisa and Yuuka may be the unique puppets capable of using this) "R/Attacks with a huge laser that lows SPEED by 2 stages." P:150 A:90 PP:5