Drezz

That makes total sense. I figured you would have taken all of that into account, seeing as you're the resident expert on figuring out opcodes. I just didn't understand it... and now I do!

I've often thought about doing a Steve Dangle trade history styled graphic, but instead it's an NHL 94 family tree...

I'm confused. It doesn't really disable it though, right? Yours just skips it, where the other version physically nops it out. Does it still cause problems if you try to modify anything?

Legally, no.

Not all of the headers in the IFF files are the same, so the script isn't set up to read them. It's still a WIP tool. Abdul works on the tool as he works on a particular section of the game. He'll update it when it comes time to access files in that particular part of the game.

I've always wanted to mod 96 as it is one of my favourites of the era, but like 95 it is very tightly packed in terms of flexibility for additional teams. I honestly believe you'd have to extend it to 4MB in order to get it to work, and even at that, a lot of the mathematical functions for calculating stats and building season data would have to be altered and expanded to accommodate 32 teams. It's a big job. Not saying it can't be done, but it would take a lot of free time and dedication. (I have neither atm, so don't ask LOL)

An update: I am hoping to put in a few fixes for v1.1 and have the Playoff edition sorted as well. Hopefully this week I'll have both ready to go. From there, the plans are - figuring out the backgrounds for NHL 95 ( @UltraMagnus has been very patient waiting for these) - more 90s seasons & playoff editions (from 91-92 to 99-00, meaning roster updates, more teams and more HNIC branded front-end graphics changes for each one) - inserting the Coach's Corner theme during the period intermission. I might consider doing the 2000s or just making some patches for specific ROMs to change them from the NHL94 stock to HNIC of that year.

I'll take a look when I'm back later this week and send it to you if you haven't figured it out by then.

Enjoy... but down, boy hahahaha

SDTV, a YouTuber known for his commentary on EA Sports games and how they could be improved, gives us a retrospective on arguably the best hockey gaming experience and one of that decades best games ever.

I actually was planning on swapping out the intermission music with the Coach's Corner theme, but sometimes you have to put a limit on things LOL Perhaps for v2!

Thanks, folks! I appreciate the kind words and giving it a spin. There have been a lot of great hacks for current eras, but just a few older gen versions from guys like @clockwise and @CoachMac that I love. I want to help add to that list to keep that era alive and exciting. A lot of cool hacks for other things like ads and music etc were something I wanted to try out. Since the modern day teams and rosters are so brilliantly taken care of, I decided on the era of hockey that really got me excited about the game (80s and 90s)

You'll have to wait just a little bit longer until the playoff edition then. The trades will be up to date, in order to enact your revenge. That is a perspective warp. Not sure if I like it though. There's a false forced perspective ingame and it's not always evident. I may change it back in newer versions. And good catch on the Bruins logo. Didn't even notice that change. The "hole" was to simulate the webbing in the trapper. If it's too much, I can change it back. Just trying to do something different.

*** UPDATED V1.1 below *** What started as a quick and dirty little project to scratch the itch for modding NHL 94 into a Hockey Night in Canada themed ROM, became a full scale experimental playground. This is the first release of... Based on the 1990 - 1991 season, this mod recreates the league from opening day: October 4th, 1990. Using the famed "Hockey Night in Canada" branding from the late 80s, this ROM features a number of new innovations. A completely revamped intro theme, using the iconic HNIC theme instead of the traditional NHL94 theme. A completely custom main menu screen (featuring the 89-90 cup finalists) Team and player introductions by the famed PBP commentator, Bob Cole (on a completely customized late 80s powder blue HNIC themed background!) In-game menu screen edits (timekeepers, Zamboni & scoreboard branding, team banners, fonts) In-game menu changes - HNIC branded custom backgrounds, colours and fonts Player Cards brought to you by EA Sports (in conjunction with the NHL and PRO SET trading cards) Era specific centre ice logos (shown here: Northlands Coliseum logo in Edmonton) Player sprite modifications for more colour variation and uniform accuracy (shown here: MTL blue helmets, no shoulder stripe tied to arm/sock stripe colours) Cleaned up large heading font (GOAL!) and HNIC/CBC branded scoreboard (bottom left) Molson 3 Stars of the Game (Molson was a HNIC title sponsor in the 80s-90s) The hot-shot rookie goaltender takes on the tried and tested former cup champion. (over 500 original old-school player portraits ingame, as close to the 1990-91 season as possible) Modified goaltender graphics (pads, trapper and NEW masks) ...and many more tweaks and graphic surprises and ideas based on the great work of folks like @clockwise @Jkline3 @AdamCatalyst @Sean@kingraph @smozoma and more... Included in the package: A custom updated version of NOSE 1.2c beta with additional options to properly change colours in any "Drezz" sprite hacked ROM. ---------- Some quick notes about this ROM: - This is version 1.0 of the mod. There are bound to be some weird glitches in there somewhere. If at any point you encounter them, please report them to me and I'll see if they can be rectified or improved upon in subsequent patched releases. - The rosters are based on THE BEGINNING of the 1990-1991 season. Trades and Free Agent Signings were valid up until the 4th of October, 1990. A playoff edition featuring player re-assignments to NEW teams will be released next. - Team strengths and player overalls/stats were based on the results of the END of the 1989-90 campaign. If you are disappointed at the rating given to X player, please note that ratings were based on how players ended the previous season. Rookies will have lower ratings, regardless of historical significance (Jagr, Blake, etc). There is a good chance the same player will have accurately expected ratings according to their effort in the 1990-1991 campaign in the followup PLAYOFF EDITION version. - There are a large number of hacks to this ROM. The intro theme. Custom background and splash screens. In-game sprite overhaul Player portraits for ALL 500+ players Team banners Fonts The ROM was modded to create the illusion of playing Hockey Night in Canada from the early 90s as opposed to being a crummy ROM hack of NHL 94 with HNIC graphics. I hope it transports you back in time to a period before modern expansion, the rise of salary caps and the glory days of hockey's heroes like Lemieux and Gretzky. Enjoy. - Drezz HNIC 90-91 Season v1.1 (NHL 94).zip

It's from SMB3!

I have to create a proper HOW TO on how I did it. But that will come AFTER my mod is released. I've spent too much time dinking around with changes and just want to get this damn thing done once and for all.

An additional thing I was chatting with @von Ozbourne about the other night. The dark border around the black text-boxes for the headings is the same blue used for the rink palette and banner graphics. On a mod that uses the standard blue/dk blue combo, it's fine. But I went and changed the whole colour scheme to that 80s HNIC powder blue, and it clashes. I think for this current release I will keep it as is until I can find out where those specific graphics are compressed and give them their own palette.

That's because I'm the man. LOL It's not the easiest thing to do, honestly. There was a lot of trial and error, and happy accidents. I had to mod smoz' script to work with the midi I created because for some reason the tempo and timing wouldn't work. I would suggest following smoz' suggestion and try a team organ first so you get the hang of it. Then you can go off-roading and explore how to fake getting more channels in there. The only other people I know of who actually changed the intro was Sean and CPLANAS. And they used stock intro music from other EA games.

Huh.... that's interesting! Until I changed ALL of the instances, they stayed with the stock EA background. Something is going on there. I did use the stock 30-team ROM from wboy, but I don't think he did anything to that part of the ROM (I know he made a note of attempting it but never did).

If you read my original post about editing the background tile (found here) you can see how we can finally have our own branded backgrounds for custom ROMs. The issue I found though, was that it didn't work for the backgrounds in the game menu (Edit Lines, etc). I have now figured how to get them to display correctly. It takes a couple of steps, but now YOU can have your very own custom background tile for your modding pleasure. STEP ONE: Complete the first part of the background tile tutorial. Follow the EASY WAY if you don't care how it's done and you just want it done. (LOL) Then come back here for the next stages. STEP TWO: There are 6 instances where the tile data is accessed. We already changed one in the first part. Here are the remaining 5. 0x9C53 - Edit Lines Screen 0x9C85 - Game/Player Stats, Crowd Meter, League Records etc 0x173D9 - Playoff Tree 0xFB0EB - Record Holders (?) 0xFC99D - ? I'm not 100% certain on some of them, but when I changed the offsets from the old to the new background tiles it worked. So do this: Navigate to each of those offsets, and where it says 054E24, CHANGE that to 1EC070 (if that is where your new graphic was placed). STEP THREE: Go to offset 055B7E. This is part of the OLD tile data structure which I believe contains some kind of return function and will render the background properly. I copied 64 bytes (including the FFs) and pasted that at the end of the new data we created in Part One - you paste it right after the tile layout data (see the example below - 003B is the last tile in the layout) STEP FOUR: Now, speaking of tile layout data... we need to copy this NEW tile layout data and overwrite the OLD data for this hack to work. Scroll up to offset 1EC8FE . This is where the tile layout data starts (if you placed your tile in the same location as the Part One tutorial). You'll know you're in the right place if you see 0028 001C. That is the area that the tiles will cover (40 x 32) and is the equivalent of a full screen, so we know we're in the correct spot. Copy all of the data starting after 001C until you hit the spot with the data with those FFs you pasted in earlier. You have now copied the tile layout. Now we're going to PASTE that in the old location and finish up. STEP FIVE: Go to offset 0552BE. If you see 0028 001C before it, you've come to the right place, my friend. Paste your tile layout data here. It should be the EXACT same number of bytes. Save a BACKUP... in case you missed a step. Fire it up in an emulator and go through the menus to see if your new tile showed up. It should look something like this. (disregard the playoff matchups, it's still a WIP hahaha) And there you have it, folks. The elusive background tile mystery has been solved. Now get out there and make some custom ROMs.

An update.. I figured out how to get it to work for the other screens as well. Once you do the leg work for the matchups screen above, the rest of the screens are a cinch. Details to follow.

I recall having a similar issue when I started as well. There's a palette editing program called HivePal that let's you see palettes in ROMs. Open up the ROM and navigate to that specific offset (you'll have to convert from decimal to hex) then view the palettes with the browse function. You'll see the proper palette close to the area listed in wboy's tutorial cheat sheet. Make a note of that hex offset. Convert that to decimal and plug that number into the dialog box in Tile Molester and see if that works.

I've often wondered if you could jam all the palette data at the end like the banners...Then you could have one continuous strip of players. But that would require messing with the header too and making it absurdly large. I just labeled all my portraits by team, then according to the order listed in Nose from 0-26, followed by their name. I could see how a contact sheet might work, but that's a fair bit of setup in itself. I hate the portraits. They're so tedious!

I think there is a fair amount of decomp in Sonic games, but they choose to just keep it on emulators instead. There's a whole site that lists each hex command so you have an idea of what's happening. It's not a proper decomp but it's been broken down to understand things better. Abdul @bcrt2000 has been working on a homebrew port of NHL95PC for modern systems, which is similar to NHL 94, just with a season mode and more bells and whistles.