ROM Hack Animal Crossing: Old Leaf

[froggestspirit]

Image courtesy of @TheGrayShow1467 ​

Not sure if this is the right place, but I'd like to start this project, a ROM hack of Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and include content from Animal Crossing for the Gamecube.
My main goals for this are:
-Soundtrack from the GCN version (hourly themes, title, and load game are done)
-Add more villagers (New leaf has 333, I want to add all villagers from previous games)
-More than 10 Villagers per town
-Town Acres similar to the gamecube version (cliffs, etc. Should be possible with model hacking)
-Possibly "Unroll" the town. (this might be possible since buildings arn't rolled)
-More gyroids playing simultaneously
-Remove "flocky" textures (that will make the ground, villagers, etc. solid colors instead of the multi-shaded look)

I still want to keep new content in of course, And I will be looking for people that can help with this project. I can easily do the music, and possibly some of the ASM hacking, but anyone experienced with a debugger, would be a great help. I'm open to suggestions aswell. I'll probably aim towards having this as a .CIA mod, and a LayeredFS project

 

[Spzjulien]

great !!, i cant help you, but im acnl fan

 

[Retr0Capez]

Good idea. But the Ten villagers thing might not be possible since Gamecube had more power than 3DS, and the villagers will require some extra power.

 

[migles]

Good idea. But the Ten villagers thing might not be possible since Gamecube had more power than 3DS, and the villagers will require some extra power.

i don't think thats true... you are comparing consoles 10 years appart.. yeah, nintendo likes to release hardware 5 years later but still... even if the 3ds is a portable..
just loook at games made for both systems, there is no way a gamecube is more powerfull than a 3ds...

 

[Retr0Capez]

i don't think thats true... you are comparing consoles 10 years appart.. yeah, nintendo likes to release hardware 5 years later but still... even if the 3ds is a portable..
just loook at games made for both systems, there is no way a gamecube is more powerfull than a 3ds...

True, but this will also be adding alot of data with the extra villagers, and the 10 villager limit will need more power no matter what, so unless they want to remove somethings to gain extra power, the game might have some lag.

 

[Jinglefruit]

-Add more villagers (New leaf has 333, I want to add all villagers from previous games)
-More than 10 Villagers per town
-Town Acres similar to the gamecube version (cliffs, etc. Should be possible with model hacking)
-Possibly "Unroll" the town. (this might be possible since buildings arn't rolled)

Adding more villagers should be possible, but it's far easier to edit existing villagers. Adding more means you have to edit or add code pretty much everywhere villagers are mentioned in the rom. ~ Like you might add them and all info, but the random number generator to determine who moves in will still only go to 333, so they won't be able to move in randomly etc.

Same with more than 10 villagers. Which runs into the problem of the map limit, as the game auto crashes if you have more than 24 (might be a bit more) things on the map display. Also only 10 can be villager houses, if you duplicate a villager/add an islander house only 10 houses will show up.

Cliffs and unrolling the map, I'm not sure what would happen if you tried. Cliffs would likely take a fair bit of work, (most top cliff from the side acres don't extend a full 16 tiles, and they have no ramps.) but you could potentially use the island style acres and add cliffs to them. Unrolling the map, I wouldn't even know how to go about.

 

[medoli900]

Maybe make a New 3ds and an O3ds version, so you can have more RAM for the New 3ds version.

 

[Retr0Capez]

Maybe make a New 3ds and an O3ds version, so you can have more RAM for the New 3ds version.

New 3DS might only be possible. The power that the gamecube had and wii had were close, and the N3DS has already been seen playing a wii game (Xenoblade)

 

[Keylogger]

Adding Soundtrack from the GCN version is a great thing! GCN has the best soundtrack!

 

[froggestspirit]

Good idea. But the Ten villagers thing might not be possible since Gamecube had more power than 3DS, and the villagers will require some extra power.

Not really, the original was for the N64 in japan

-Add more villagers (New leaf has 333, I want to add all villagers from previous games)
-More than 10 Villagers per town
-Town Acres similar to the gamecube version (cliffs, etc. Should be possible with model hacking)
-Possibly "Unroll" the town. (this might be possible since buildings arn't rolled)

Adding more villagers should be possible, but it's far easier to edit existing villagers. Adding more means you have to edit or add code pretty much everywhere villagers are mentioned in the rom. ~ Like you might add them and all info, but the random number generator to determine who moves in will still only go to 333, so they won't be able to move in randomly etc.

Same with more than 10 villagers. Which runs into the problem of the map limit, as the game auto crashes if you have more than 24 (might be a bit more) things on the map display. Also only 10 can be villager houses, if you duplicate a villager/add an islander house only 10 houses will show up.

Cliffs and unrolling the map, I'm not sure what would happen if you tried. Cliffs would likely take a fair bit of work, (most top cliff from the side acres don't extend a full 16 tiles, and they have no ramps.) but you could potentially use the island style acres and add cliffs to them. Unrolling the map, I wouldn't even know how to go about.

I'd be fine with trying to add more. The RNG should basically just be changing the constant 333 to whatever, the hard part is finding that constant (though we know it's 333).
The cliffs should work, it's not much different than using the butterfly net to go up side cliffs or in rivers. Further more, if you places houses in rivers, they adjust to sit on the ground (riverbed).
As for "unrolling", my only lead would be comparing the way the models are drawn outside VS inside buildings (since all building insides are unrolled iirc)

Maybe make a New 3ds and an O3ds version, so you can have more RAM for the New 3ds version.

I'm going to aim for just O3DS. Anything that runs on that should run on N3DS no problem, plus it wont create a rift between owners of different models

And as for the 14 or so villager limit, It might be the hardest goal right now, so I'm not too worried about it. If anything, I'll probably re-structure the data, so that less used stuff is less used (like the letters they carry around, or memories of others)

 

[pastaconsumer]

Not really, the original was for the N64 in japan

Plus the GC ISO is 37 MB

 

[Jinglefruit]

I'd be fine with trying to add more. The RNG should basically just be changing the constant 333 to whatever, the hard part is finding that constant (though we know it's 333).
The cliffs should work, it's not much different than using the butterfly net to go up side cliffs or in rivers. Further more, if you places houses in rivers, they adjust to sit on the ground (riverbed).
As for "unrolling", my only lead would be comparing the way the models are drawn outside VS inside buildings (since all building insides are unrolled iirc)

And as for the 14 or so villager limit, It might be the hardest goal right now, so I'm not too worried about it. If anything, I'll probably re-structure the data, so that less used stuff is less used (like the letters they carry around, or memories of others)

Well I mean the new villager could try to give the mayor a pic of themself and of course there will be no data for 334th villager pic and that could crash the game etc. Little details like that is why I'd always opt for editting existing villagers. Or at the least, editting existing first, and then move up to creating your own? Just a suggestion anyway, I'm sure you know a lot more about rom editing than I do. (well given as I didn't know people were doing it for acnl yet, but still. )

And yeah, I know most things adjust height, but I was thinking more along the lines of having it look nice, as opposed to relying on glitches to get around. A beach ramp going into island level grass would be more like the original game and should only have 2 squares max here you'd clip into the floor slightly. And everything else should look that that was how the game was originally programmed. And you already know it's workable, glitchless land.

And the villager limit I meant was a map limit. You can add more by removing re-tail/bridges/the town tree etc. But after a point if the game tries to load x surplus images onto the bottomscreen map it just crashes. ~ before that point it starts turning things to stars which is amusing, and making random things invisible (Like this town had 5 bridges and 4 town trees and instead it done this. -> https://40.media.tumblr.com/3a9390ab39ab357b1b1431736cb89812/tumblr_norh5ndht11sojdvio1_400.jpg

 

[pastaconsumer]

I did a thing pls notice me senpai. First attempt, I'll probably make a better version sometime.

 

[froggestspirit]

I did a thing pls notice me senpai. First attempt, I'll probably make a better version sometime.
View attachment 20871

I like how it looks, though I think the leaf is separate since it animates.
If we have an easy way to view models, we can start doing textures for old ones. I'll probably start with the easiest stuff first like music, also, we can remove flocky textures so its solid colors like the first 3 games.
I guess we can replace lesser-liked villagers first, and work from there, keeping the 10 villager limit until we can figure something out for it.

Edit: @TheGrayShow1467 Mind if I use that picture in the first post?

 

[pastaconsumer]

I like how it looks, though I think the leaf is separate since it animates.
If we have an easy way to view models, we can start doing textures for old ones. I'll probably start with the easiest stuff first like music, also, we can remove flocky textures so its solid colors like the first 3 games.
I guess we can replace lesser-liked villagers first, and work from there, keeping the 10 villager limit until we can figure something out for it.

Edit: @TheGrayShow1467 Mind if I use that picture in the first post?

Use it freely! I made it in paint.NET, so when I make a better version, I'll include a .pdn of it with layers and such.
EDIT: Working on a newer/better version of the logo ASAP.

 

[froggestspirit]

Use it freely! I made it in paint.NET, so when I make a better version, I'll include a .pdn of it with layers and such.
EDIT: Working on a newer/better version of the logo ASAP.

it might be better to rip the title screen from the game and edit that, so it's the right size and such. great work though!

 

[pastaconsumer]

it might be better to rip the title screen from the game and edit that, so it's the right size and such. great work though!

Thank you very much! The way I made it was I took the GC Animal Crossing logo and slapped it into the bottom layer. In another layer, I got the "New Leaf" leaf alone and resized it. In a layer above it, I redrew the leaf in orange. In the 2 layers above it, I did my light and dark highlights. Above those layers was my last layer, where I typed "Old Leaf" in FinkyHeavy. I did a small drop shadow after re-positioning the text layer. Once I thought it looked alright, I sandwiched the layers together and saved the image as a .png, then uploaded it.
On the new one, I'm doing more or less the same thing, but putting more detail into the picture. If I knew where to look in the rom for the logo, I'd rip it out, edit it, and inject it back for testing.

Spoiler: Newer/Improved

Here is the .pdn if anyone would like it.

 

[Jarrad]

Has there been any progress on this hack?

Really love to see a ACNL hack that changes the current repetitive hourly music we've been listening to for almost 3 years lol.

 

[rikudawn]

Is this finished yet?