ROM Hack Super Mario Advance SNES Color Restoration

[Hardback247]

@ShadowOne333

There is this ROM patch that unfortunately was left unfinished, and the person who created it, named Asaki, doesn't really have time to finish it. It restores the colors from the All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. 2 for the GBA version. Think you could help finish it? I don't have the capabilities to do it myself. To start off, the sprite for Mario still has the GBA colors, and not the SNES colors.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2124/

The programs used are listed in the Read Me file:

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/gba/patches/2124readme.txt

 

[Hardback247]

@ShadowOne333

Asaki told me he left off somewhere near World 6.

 

[ShadowOne333]

I would give a try for sure, but I can't promise anything since I have my hands full with other work stuff atm.
Did he say specifically what is left to do?

 

[Hardback247]

I would give a try for sure, but I can't promise anything since I have my hands full with other work stuff atm.
Did he say specifically what is left to do?

Aside from the facts that he left off at around World 6, and that Mario's sprite still has the GBA colors?

Oh, and that large yellow spring in levels 1-1 and 1-3 was colored incorrectly.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Restoring the colours is not that hard, it's just really tedious and time consuming, which is what makes it troublesome given how much time it takes.
I will try it some time down the road for sure.

 

[Hardback247]

Restoring the colours is not that hard, it's just really tedious and time consuming, which is what makes it troublesome given how much time it takes.
I will try it some time down the road for sure.

At least you don't have much to work on. It's about 70% complete.

 

[Hardback247]

If ANYONE has the time to finish this patch, please let me know.

 

[FAST6191]

Have you tried anything yourself?
If it is just tedium then most of the time palettes are not that hard
https://web.archive.org/web/20080408022631/http://etk.scener.org/?op=showtutorial&st=3

SNES palettes are the same as GBA so you can fish those out of savestates rather than play SNES hacker if you don't want to.

Tiled2002 will also allow you to import and export such things, and you could probably twist crysaltile2 to it as well (the hex windows as a data - pal and pal - data).

Where one palette is in a game there are usually two so if you already have 70% a comparison between the stock and existing patch might tell you more where to look. You can even try replicating what has already been done to make sure you have the hang of it.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Adding to what @FAST6191 said, you can pretty much do the entire thing with just SNESPalEd, APE (Advanced Palette Editor), and a combination of No$SNS and mGBA for Palette viewing.
Then simply grab an image on both games of the part of the game you want to restore, try to match them up, do a search in the ROM according to the palettes loaded, and then use APE to locate them and edit them in the GBA ROM.

It's the most simple and best way to do it

 

[Hardback247]

Have you tried anything yourself?
If it is just tedium then most of the time palettes are not that hard
https://web.archive.org/web/20080408022631/http://etk.scener.org/?op=showtutorial&st=3

Unfortunately, all but one of the images in that link aren't visible anymore.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Never mind.

 

[Hardback247]

.

 

[Hardback247]

@ShadowOne333

Here is a list of the programs Asaki used to make the patch:

https://winworldpc.com/download/46c3be69-4c18-c39a-11c3-a4e284a2c3a5

https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/274/

http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htm#download

https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/541/

https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/112/

https://fusoya.eludevisibility.org/lips/

https://sourceforge.net/projects/vba/files/

Unfortunately, I don't even know where to start.

 

[Hardback247]

I really wish I had specific step-by-step instructions.

 

[ShadowOne333]

I don't know why that guy used that many apps.
Like legit I have only used APE (Advanced Palette Editor), SNESPalEd (SNES Palette Editor), and No$SNS/BSNES and mGBA for emus to do most of the colour restoration work I've done. (You might not even need to use SNES Palette Editor, since you don't need to extract the palette from the SNES ROM, simply see it for reference).

Basically all you need to do is:

1. KEEP A BACKUP OF THE ORIGINAL PATCHED ROM. This is important, and you might screw up SEVERAL test ROMs during the process if you change a palette that wasn't the exact one.
   
2. Get the original Super Mario All-Stars ROM for both SNES and Super Mario Advance 1 for GBA (alongside 100% save files for easy access to all the levels).
3. Open each ROM in their emulator. All-Stars should be opened in No$GBA, and SMA1 in mGBA.
4. Go to the same level in both games that you want to restore the palette for.
   
5. Now, look for the Palette Viewer option for both emulators, open them up and take a look at the palettes for both ROMs. (mGBA is Tools -> Palette view, for No$SNS I can't recall but I know it's there).
   
6. This part might be confusing, as it can change between games, and even between levels, but basically from the rows of palettes you need to pinpoint which one is the washed out one in the GBA ROM.
7. Once you have located which palette row is the washed out one, open up the SMA1 ROM in APE, select the "Search" option, and you will start entering the palettes needed in the text boxes at the bottom.
   
8. Keep APE open, and switch to mGBA Palette viewer to start writing down the palette colours for searching. The value you want is the one in listed as "16-bit value", grab only the part after the "0x". However, for APE, you need to switch them in order. So let's say you get a palette with a 16-bit value of "0x1E07". In APE, you need to write it like "071E" so it gets recognized like a proper colour.
9. Do the same thing for the next boxes, each with a colour from the same row of washed out colours (I recommend typing at least 3 colours before doing a search).
10. Once you have some colours typed into APE, click the "Search" button, and that should make an offset or address from the ROM appear in the small text box, then click on "Load" and see if the palette loaded is the one you were looking for and matches the washed out palette you want to replace, if not then continue search. I usually recommend that if you get a match of that exact palette, go to the next palette set in APE and see if that one matches the next palette row that you can see in mGBA's palette viewer, if it doesn't match, it most likely isn't the palete for that particular area.
11. Once you found the palette with APE, you need to open up No$SNS and its palette viewer for that exact and precise level, and start replacing the values one by one where you typed the original palette when doing the search (at the bottom). You will start seeing how each colour in the palette starts changing with each value input. (Take into consideration that you might need to flip the 16-bit value so that APE recognizes it, or use the RGB value converter that APE has in one of its option tabs.
12. After typing each new colour in, click on the "Replace" icon. You will see the above set of colours changing to the one you just typed. This means the new palette is now in the ROM.
13. Now re-open the ROM into mGBA (you have to reopen it, NOT restart), and go to the exact level you changed the palette for. You should now be able to see the new colours in-play. If you still can't see the new colours, or if mGBA's palette viewer still shows the same colours as before the palette hack, then you most likely changed another palette in the game.

A good reference thread:
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=21284

 

[Hardback247]

Do you know where I can find 100% save files for Super Mario All-Stars and Super Mario Advance, and how to load them onto the ROMs?

 

[Shadow#1]

Do you know where I can find 100% save files for Super Mario All-Stars and Super Mario Advance, and how to load them onto the ROMs?

If they r raw saves just name them the same name as Rom and put in same folder emu should pick them up

 

[Hardback247]

You didn't answer where I can find them.

 

[Shadow#1]

You didn't answer where I can find them.

Ok?

 

[Hardback247]

Sorry for my attitude.

 

[ShadowOne333]

All-Stars:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/920979-super-mario-all-stars-super-mario-world/62168750

Advance
https://www.zophar.net/savestates/gba/super-mario-advance.html