Edit- if you are reading this you have probably stumbled upon a very old version. http://gbatemp.net/t73394-gbatemp-rom-hacking-documentation-project-wip has a much more up to date version.
Seeing posts around the place that usually had a "how do I hack/translate a GBA/DS rom?" and there being no documents specifically detailing it (as far as the GBA/DS goes) I figured what the hell and decided to to type up a document on the subject.
A few days, several (unintentional) late nights and probably one of the longest documents I have ever made later and I have what I consider to be a good document detailing most aspects of GBA/DS rom hacking.
It is not quite finished yet (some stuff on GBA/DS hardware needs writing and I need to finish up the sound hacking section, not to mention I screwed up the formating of sections for this release) but it should be good for everything else.
I am putting this version out as a PDF file as turning it into BBCode and getting a full working set of pictures would be no fun for this initial version.
Ultimately I will turn it into BBCode and put out an HTML version too.
Grab it here: http://www.4shared.com/file/3636881/1f5f088d
Opinions/thoughts/suggestions/discussion on what you cat likes to eat greatly appreciated (for the record my cat goes crazy for kebabs and is partial to skate).
Courtesy of some of those late nights some sections may need to be revised to become more coherent and I will add more detail for the final release, I just wanted peoples thoughts and opinions.
Here is the contents page to give an overview of what I talk about, I tended to merge the GBA and DS aspects as they are similar:
Contents
Introduction
Basics and tools of the trade
Hexadecimal
Hexadecimal maths and other important notes on hexadecimal.
Binary and Hexadecimal wording
Terms
Tools of the trade
Types of ROM hacking
Core:
Translation:
Restoration:
Improvement:
GBA/DS ROM hacking
ASM hacking
GBA Information
DS Information
Core Hacking:
Graphics Hacking:
Tiles
Palette editing
Bitmap
3D Editing
Interesting notes
Text Editing
Tables
Fonts
Notes on text editing
Sound Editing
GBA
DS
Problems Facing ROM hackers
Compression
Developers tricks
Cheating
References and thanks
Seeing posts around the place that usually had a "how do I hack/translate a GBA/DS rom?" and there being no documents specifically detailing it (as far as the GBA/DS goes) I figured what the hell and decided to to type up a document on the subject.
A few days, several (unintentional) late nights and probably one of the longest documents I have ever made later and I have what I consider to be a good document detailing most aspects of GBA/DS rom hacking.
It is not quite finished yet (some stuff on GBA/DS hardware needs writing and I need to finish up the sound hacking section, not to mention I screwed up the formating of sections for this release) but it should be good for everything else.
I am putting this version out as a PDF file as turning it into BBCode and getting a full working set of pictures would be no fun for this initial version.
Ultimately I will turn it into BBCode and put out an HTML version too.
Grab it here: http://www.4shared.com/file/3636881/1f5f088d
Opinions/thoughts/suggestions/discussion on what you cat likes to eat greatly appreciated (for the record my cat goes crazy for kebabs and is partial to skate).
Courtesy of some of those late nights some sections may need to be revised to become more coherent and I will add more detail for the final release, I just wanted peoples thoughts and opinions.
Here is the contents page to give an overview of what I talk about, I tended to merge the GBA and DS aspects as they are similar:
Contents
Introduction
Basics and tools of the trade
Hexadecimal
Hexadecimal maths and other important notes on hexadecimal.
Binary and Hexadecimal wording
Terms
Tools of the trade
Types of ROM hacking
Core:
Translation:
Restoration:
Improvement:
GBA/DS ROM hacking
ASM hacking
GBA Information
DS Information
Core Hacking:
Graphics Hacking:
Tiles
Palette editing
Bitmap
3D Editing
Interesting notes
Text Editing
Tables
Fonts
Notes on text editing
Sound Editing
GBA
DS
Problems Facing ROM hackers
Compression
Developers tricks
Cheating
References and thanks