ROM Hack Question which game to start learning modding?

ishida

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is Smash (NS) a good starting point to learn modding?
would modding Nintendo games be more difficult than PC?
would also appreciate any tutorial links :)

edited:
edit/ import/ export models,
textures.
these are the things i wanna mod for now.

are modding Smash & modding 3rd party games on Nintendo platforms similar?
 
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masagrator

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is Smash (NS) a good starting point to learn modding?

Depends on what you want to learn it for. Learning modding smash won't help you much with other games.
Either you are learning modding for one game or for engine.

would modding Nintendo games be more difficult than PC?

In some cases easier (for example UE4 games), in some cases neutral or harder (Unity games)

The biggest plus for Switch in comparison to Windows is layeredfs

The biggest minus is exclusive code injection which is not that easy as in Windows.
 
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FAST6191

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Generally whatever game/project/goal will hold your interest.

If I had to learn to hack with sports games then I would not have learned anything.

If you actually hack smash brothers then I can see learning a bit. If you just use the premade tools and guides from the game's/franchise's hacking community (it is one of the more hacked franchises out there) then you will learn less.

I have a guide to the GBA and DS https://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-rom-hacking-documentation-project-new-2016-edition-out.73394/ but frankly hacking is much the same whether you are on a commodore 64 or SNES or Switch or anything. Some PC stuff can have some things you will not see outside it (encrypted files are extremely rare on consoles, common as you like on PC).
 
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ishida

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thanks guys :)

i think modelling, textures are the areas i wanna learn most for now.
also importing & exporting models between games.

would learn modding smash help modding other games on Nintendo platforms?
 
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masagrator

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thanks guys :)

i think modelling, textures are the areas i wanna learn most for now.
also importing & exporting models between games.

would learn modding smash help modding other games on Nintendo platforms?
Not much. You will learn some common formats and compressions, but there is no common engine in Nintendo. There is toolset called "Lunchpak" which is used to create engine. Games using that to create their engine have some commonality, but they are not the same.
 
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Souperman9

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Not much. You will learn some common formats and compressions, but there is no common engine in Nintendo. There is toolset called "Lunchpak" which is used to create engine. Games using that to create their engine have some commonality, but they are not the same.
Yeah, and many Nintendo games actually share extremely similar level formats. For example, I was able to modify a 3D World level editor to open Ring Fit Adventure levels, and it actually ended up working pretty well
 
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FAST6191

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thanks guys :)

i think modelling, textures are the areas i wanna learn most for now.
also importing & exporting models between games.

would learn modding smash help modding other games on Nintendo platforms?

While you will find yourself back in the hacking world at some point (most games don't use nice formats as saved by 3d modeller/CAD programs, rarely even exported without plugins designed for it) then that sort of thing would probably be better served seeing you learn modelling right through to animation*. If you can't tell me what gimbal lock is and contemplate origins/parent-child for animations and work it up almost intuitively then you will come unstuck very fast even if we teach you about the hardware formats favoured by the consoles and enough to get there.
I would suggest both CAD (what engineers use) and more artistic (see most of Blender if doing open source) but as much as it pains me then artistic would be the better path for most things and CAD is something you can learn later.

*often the harder part of swapping models around and upgrading things. Animations are usually lists of move node or bone ? by however many degrees (or maybe having some fun with matrix maths do to the translation, rotation, scaling bit you learned in maths in school for graphs). If however ? is not the elbow any more by virtue of there being a new starting point, or there being a whole bunch more nodes because the game you are importing from has a whole load more detail then you get the nightmare fuel I am sure we have all seen with 3d cart tilting and other glitching activities. Textures (especially modern non flat ones with their own depth and destruction features that the Switch will have a measure of) can do a lot and you can tweak models well enough to enhance or diminish certain features, however you will hit a limit. You can work around the limit but it starts to get to be a lot of work you might dodge if you first know the basics of 3d modelling, textures and animations.

I should also note that while you can spend your time as a ROM hacker making new models, textures and whatnot it is seldom the done thing. Most people tend to focus more on tweaks. That said they said the same about music and look how the GBA and DS turned out.
 

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I started with super mario world and wii games many years ago. as for switch games. I started with Super Mario Odyssey. I made so many mods for SMO game.
 

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