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AHL Project + Hacking Questions


tjans

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I'm not a huge hockey fan. I am however, a big fan of NHL94 on the SNES. I'm also from Milwaukee. Therefore, to make the game a little more relateable for me, I wanted to make a ROM with the Milwaukee Admirals. I've done full ROM edits with logos/graphics/rosters of SNES ROMS before (Tecmo Super Bowl), though it's been a while since I've done some sprite editing. I've coded several editors both for the 30-Team RBI Baseball ROM, Baseball Stars, SNES Tecmo Super Bowl, and Tecmo Bowl's 32-team ROM, so I'm familiar with hex and all that, at least enough to make things happen.

Knowing that, I have some questions:

1.) Is there set of basic formulas that you guys use to convert stats into NHL94 SNES attributes. I dont know much about hockey, so if the translations aren't perfect and since I'm a very casual fan, it likely will go unnoticed, so don't worry about being a purist. I'm just looking for a way to generate some quick rosters and enjoy the game, and if the formulas aren't perfect, I'm happy living in ignorant bliss ;)

2.) I know there's an editor out there, so I'll check that out, and I plan on reading through the mapping project thread. I downloaded the editor a long time ago, but I don't know how it has changed or evolved. Does it have an import/export feature from CSV or Excel, or is it still a manual process? If it's possible, I may consider writing a simple roster import/export feature unless it's already been done.

3.) As far as graphics go, I know there are center ice logos that'd have to change if I made an AHL ROM like this, or I could just blank them out for my purposes. What about the team banners? Is there good information on editing those things? Again, in the meantime, I'm going to spend some time reading the forums to see what I can find.

So, knowing my goal of setting up a quick to play ROM that represents some AHL teams for a casual fan who doesn't care about pure 100% accuracy, are there any other tips a new NHL94 (but not new ROM "hacker") might need to know?

Maybe all of this is just too much work and I'll just randomly generate names and rosters taken from the original ROM and be done with it, but I thought it was worth a discussion.

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good questions. I think your idea of taking an already hacked ROM would be a decent way to start. the problem there is that if you don't like mine, you are kind of out of luck because I don't think anybody else is making one this year. if you read through my posts there are several where I go into depth about how I come up with my ratings. I don't really feel like getting into it all again in text, but I'd be willing to talk to you about it. I'll PM you my phone number. I'm generally available today. there is no importing. there are no player physics nor logo hacks. you are stuck with the center ice logos unless you figure it out for yourself. if you do discover anything to revolutionize SNES '94 ROM hacking, please keep us posted. banner editing is built into the editor, which is probably the same one you downloaded a few years ago. I think 2010 or so was the last update to it. it would be great if you really got into this, as anybody with ROM hacking experience is desperately needed in the SNES crew. here's to your sticking around, falling in love with the inner workings of this game and helping us evolve.

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During January I left comments here regarding editing SNES version of NHL 94, check them and maybe you will find some useful info.

If you are patient enough, wait couple of weeks. I am going to work on the menu/ice logos and some other stuff soon. I think I know what to do as I went through the forum already to gather as many useful information as possible and have some HexEd experience when working on penalty minutes.

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tjans, your two friends here are essentially the entire active SNES '94 hacking community right now.

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Haha, ok. My only problem with getting into the inner workings is that I have the RBI 2014 ROM to finish for the NES (I put out a 30 team version every year). Maybe after that I can get cracking on this stuff and perhaps write a roster import tool or something.

Trudat, I'll probably start with your rom. I don't know any players so it'll be easy to just use yours and replace a team. I thnk yours doesn't have the star indicator right? I'd have to add that back in. I'd also like to have blood added to the game like I've seen for the gens version.

There aren't any logos? I couldn't remember. That makes things easier I guess. I saw that he editor has banner editing, but only allows characters up to the same number as the team you're replacing. That's ok, I can live with it, it's not like this will be for anything but my own personal enjoyment (unless there are other people like me out there:)

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the banners can have words no longer than Minnesota but don't have to be a certain length otherwise, I think. it's the team names and arenas that have a maximum. I get around that by shortening a few of the arena names which allows all other fields in that section to be expanded by that number of digits. the logos are what they are and have yet to be changed by anybody here. stars are easy enough to add back in with tilelayerpro. mine also has no arrows for offscreen guys.

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I couldn't enter a banner name that fit Milwaukee in completely. Ill try again, I was in a hurry when I tried it this morning.

So it looks like I'll have to take your ROM and:

Blank out center ice logos or change the logo myself

Add back the stars/offscreen indicators

Set the portraits to be blank generic portraits (not sure if this is possible)

Edited by tjans
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the only portraits you'd need to change would be Selanne's and Jagr's. the rest are generic. it looks like I'll have two netminders on each team except three on Carolina for my update next month. you may want to practice now but wait for the update. if you figure out anything besides changing the colors of any/all logos, please explain your findings in detail. give my ROM a whirl and see some of the changes in action so you know what's possible so far.

edit: I'll probably only have one goalie for Florida.

Edited by trudatman
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I had most of trudat's changes reversed so that the only differences were supposed to be roster/team stuff, including all the text. For some reason I just like the game to be the same as the original with only the team/roster updates. But, as I played I was still noticing stuff that was different and threw in the towel.

I've just decided to do two things...one, add my milwaukee team to the original ROM and play that way. I won't recognize any of the players anyways, so it'll be new to me. I'm also going to try to work out a roster import/exporter. That way we'd be able to export teams/roster info and put them onto any ROM we want...you'd be able to put trudat's roster on the original if you didn't like all the customizations. No idea when I actually do this, or if, is probably the more correct word. Lots of other stuff in the pipeline...

Thanks for the help trudat, I appreciate it.

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no worries. I'm always pushing for more folks to edit the SNES version, so hit me up any time. I don't know much, but I want others to know all that I do and share anything further that they come across. the community benefits from our public discussions.

edit: if you want current NHL teams in your game, why not have the editor open twice and copy manually? it's not difficult and it's only somewhat time consuming.

Edited by trudatman
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  • 3 months later...

If you're still interested tjans: http://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/16251-center-ice-logos-tutorial/

Not what we, SNES players, want (no logos at all) but definitely better than nothing.

As you are experienced with coding, editors and hex-editors, have you checked these?

http://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/13150-snes-nhl94-rom-mapping-project/

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArV1f1EnnLgZdElrZ3d0NUFWeGhSMndIQkpNSkRlMEE&authkey=CMSFy4kC&hl=en_US&authkey=CMSFy4kC#gid=0

Last thing we need for graphic editing is to find where the ice logos palettes are located in the rom. Can you help?

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Sweet! I'm perfectly happy with a solution that puts a generic logo on the ice. I'll try this when I get a moment...as for finding the logo palettes, I might be able to find the, though I wouldn't get hopeful on that.

I would however love to create an editor that had the ability to import players from a CSV...thanks! BLanking out the logos is a great find...

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  • 10 months later...

I'm stuck in an airport right now so I'm looking from my phone. Have the roster/stats been mapped? I'm looking to write something that lets you manipulate the player data via csv instead of manually il using th editor. Sorry if I'm asking an obvious question. I'm in an airport and I'm bored!

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pretty much EVERYTHING I have found relating to hacking the SNES ROM is listed in the ROM mapping thread pinned to the top of the SNES hacking section. if it's not there, it's not here. what does "csv" mean?

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I'm back at my computer so I'll look at that sheet again to see what I can find. The mobile view is not great for that kind of thing. CSV = Comma separated values. It'd be something like:

FirstName,LastName,speed,check,shoot,defense

tru,datman,87,67,72,42

tee,jans,64,67,82,88

etc

Over in the tecmo and RBI communities, many of our editors read the data in plain text or can import/export an excel sheet or CSV. It's much easier to work with the data because you can easily copy and paste data from one line to another before importing it into the ROM. It's just another way to edit a ROM.

I'd love to sit and chat with Statto someday about making an updated version of his great editor for NHL94 SNES...

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I'd like it if it had overall ratings calculated, but, of what we already know how to do, there really isn't much missing from that editor. it's a great tool.

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