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TOOL: NHL94 Player Cards Cheat Sheet


von Ozbourne

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Given how long this community has been modding, I'm not sure how useful this will be to most people, but as a spreadsheet nerd, I did find this to be helpful to me.

The point of this tool is that while pasting in player card photos and entering corresponding names into NOSE, I would note the offset in Tile Molester and also paste the names into the matching PLAYER NAME field. Then using some fancy formulas, it all gets crunched into the first column, which can be copy/pasted into the PlayerCardsDefault.txt file that EARE uses. I've tested this on a couple of ROMs and it seems to do the job quite nicely in complimenting EARE's Player Picture setting function while also helping me keep track of the rosters, while giving me a quick reference to go to a specific player pic in the case when I wanted to edit or swap it out.

As an aside, one interesting thing I encountered was that the PlayerCardsDefault.txt file needed to be edited and saved before I opened EARE. Not sure if it was real or imagined, but it seemed as if for quick indexing, the program would reference the .txt file in the state it was as the program was opened. Anyway, once I kept that in mind, I had no further problems.

A visual reference:
image.png
Note the Offset of the player photo as you are importing images.

image.png
Paste Player Names into the cells that correspond to the Picture Offset [as opposed to the Card Pointer]
Once all names have been entered, select and copy ALL of Column A and paste it into the PlayerCardsDefault.txt file as found in your EARE.exe folder.
[I keep a copy of the original unedited file just in case]

image.png
Open EARE, and click Set Player Pictures. Repeat as players may be traded, to redirect to player's new roster spot to the old photo spot.

Of note, I even found this worked for multiple instances of the same player, so in the case of an All-Star team or, in my case, having a player selectable and a non-selectable version of the same team [for playoff alignment purposes] both instances of the same named player would end up referencing the Last reference of player name/photo pointer on the list.

Sorry if this is too redundant, I've been told it's important to skew your instruction to all skill levels. Anyway, hope this is helpful.

NHL94 Cards Hex.ods NHL94 Cards Hex.xls

Edited by von Ozbourme
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If you like spreadsheets, well have I got something for you! :)

I don't use EARE for player cards anymore. I use this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oPiasWKUsK2bS49QsQiZ0cQNyEwFfublFUury2LUsFg/edit#gid=697626098

which once you have a list of player cards and offsets (similar to your list), I use the roster extract to copy/paste the players into the document and then it does the work for me.  The document spits out the new table that you can copy into Hex.  

The cool thing is you can also choose which player cards cycle through the menu screen.  

Full details here: 

Hope you find it useful as well.

 

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Heh. Have to admit, that is some pretty impressive spreadsheeting. Although I also have to admit that sometimes I stick with novice level techniques a bit longer than I should as it gives me time to iterate in my mind many times over before I physically complete any one task.

That starting lineup is a pretty cool feature though. I remember as I was just learning I was stuck either searching the hex location and manually entering the roster spot or just being lazy and putting the players I wanted into the roster position that was pre-selected to be featured on the main menu.

Don't have another '94 based game on the to-do list for a while, but I'll have to see how this one works for me when I do.

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Right, dumb questions alert...

@kingraph - You mention in your guide that 6 players per team get shown in the selection screen but all 26 slots have to be assigned. 

Is it the case that the same 6 players get shown every time or does the game cycle through a random 6?

What happens if a team doesn't have 26 players in a roster to start with? 

Do you have to fill the (selectable) player slots in each team with random players to pad things out or is it a case that the cards section needs to refer to 26 players and you can just make up names for the extras (and use generic images) on the basis that they will not be visible anywhere because (a) they're not in the main "in game" rosters and (b) only 6 players per team will cycle through?

Basically, I am going to be updating my EIHL (UK) ROM over the next few weeks and have got pretty much everything I need to sort the player cards.  I just need to make sure I don't balls everything up by starting off on the wrong foot, so apologies if these questions are SUPER basic.

Thanks!

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1 hour ago, LaTormenta said:

Right, dumb questions alert...

@kingraph - You mention in your guide that 6 players per team get shown in the selection screen but all 26 slots have to be assigned. 

Is it the case that the same 6 players get shown every time or does the game cycle through a random 6?

What happens if a team doesn't have 26 players in a roster to start with? 

Do you have to fill the (selectable) player slots in each team with random players to pad things out or is it a case that the cards section needs to refer to 26 players and you can just make up names for the extras (and use generic images) on the basis that they will not be visible anywhere because (a) they're not in the main "in game" rosters and (b) only 6 players per team will cycle through?

Basically, I am going to be updating my EIHL (UK) ROM over the next few weeks and have got pretty much everything I need to sort the player cards.  I just need to make sure I don't balls everything up by starting off on the wrong foot, so apologies if these questions are SUPER basic.

Thanks!

You can choose which 6 roster spots are shown in the cycle, which is cool.  You can see how to choose which roster spots get displayed in my google sheet document.  You can select it for each team too.

There is also a hack out there where you can actually choose more or less than 6!  https://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/20230-how-to-limit-of-player-cards-shown-on-menu-ron-barr-screen/

 

If a team doesn't have 26 players, the way I do the table is make the remaining player card spots to a default picture.  Works perfectly every time.  

 

 

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8 hours ago, LaTormenta said:

Right, dumb questions alert...

@kingraph - You mention in your guide that 6 players per team get shown in the selection screen but all 26 slots have to be assigned. 

Is it the case that the same 6 players get shown every time or does the game cycle through a random 6?

What happens if a team doesn't have 26 players in a roster to start with? 

Do you have to fill the (selectable) player slots in each team with random players to pad things out or is it a case that the cards section needs to refer to 26 players and you can just make up names for the extras (and use generic images) on the basis that they will not be visible anywhere because (a) they're not in the main "in game" rosters and (b) only 6 players per team will cycle through?

Basically, I am going to be updating my EIHL (UK) ROM over the next few weeks and have got pretty much everything I need to sort the player cards.  I just need to make sure I don't balls everything up by starting off on the wrong foot, so apologies if these questions are SUPER basic.

Thanks!

Not to take away from kingraph's guide, but it if helps, I tested my EARE list generator on my 1920 ROM and all of the rosters had between 7 and 12 players.
And I actually had two versions of each team, [one that the player can select, one they can't - for purposes of playoff configuration] and just linked them to the same set of photos. I even changed the order that the teams were listed in NOSE and set the cards again without changing any of the sprites. The thing with EARE is that as long as the player's name and card offset on the list, match with the player whose picture is located at that offset, the program doesn't care. It also by default uses the NLC Line as the main menu featured cards. You can change the NLC line after the fact and it will modify the lineup for Ron Barr's pre-game screen, but will leave the main menu alone. Used along with the hex code change to set how many players are featured on the main screen and you can effectively feature your top players regardless of position, [and the #1 goalie] just so long as you initially set the top two D-men as two of your desired featured players. After that, it seems to just run down the list starting after the top three forwards.

The only real issue with this method I find is that you just need to make sure that you haven't made any spelling or copy/pasting errors along the way and that everything is exactly the way you want it before you click that "Set" button. Otherwise you might be going back and setting it again.

And like kingraph's, any name in NOSE that doesn't have a corresponding entry in the card list, will just end up linking to the default Lefty/Righty Player/Goalie pics after you click that button.

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  • 11 months later...
On 8/23/2021 at 12:03 AM, von Ozbourme said:

Given how long this community has been modding, I'm not sure how useful this will be to most people, but as a spreadsheet nerd, I did find this to be helpful to me.

The point of this tool is that while pasting in player card photos and entering corresponding names into NOSE, I would note the offset in Tile Molester and also paste the names into the matching PLAYER NAME field. Then using some fancy formulas, it all gets crunched into the first column, which can be copy/pasted into the PlayerCardsDefault.txt file that EARE uses. I've tested this on a couple of ROMs and it seems to do the job quite nicely in complimenting EARE's Player Picture setting function while also helping me keep track of the rosters, while giving me a quick reference to go to a specific player pic in the case when I wanted to edit or swap it out.

As an aside, one interesting thing I encountered was that the PlayerCardsDefault.txt file needed to be edited and saved before I opened EARE. Not sure if it was real or imagined, but it seemed as if for quick indexing, the program would reference the .txt file in the state it was as the program was opened. Anyway, once I kept that in mind, I had no further problems.

A visual reference:
image.png
Note the Offset of the player photo as you are importing images.

image.png
Paste Player Names into the cells that correspond to the Picture Offset [as opposed to the Card Pointer]
Once all names have been entered, select and copy ALL of Column A and paste it into the PlayerCardsDefault.txt file as found in your EARE.exe folder.
[I keep a copy of the original unedited file just in case]

image.png
Open EARE, and click Set Player Pictures. Repeat as players may be traded, to redirect to player's new roster spot to the old photo spot.

Of note, I even found this worked for multiple instances of the same player, so in the case of an All-Star team or, in my case, having a player selectable and a non-selectable version of the same team [for playoff alignment purposes] both instances of the same named player would end up referencing the Last reference of player name/photo pointer on the list.

Sorry if this is too redundant, I've been told it's important to skew your instruction to all skill levels. Anyway, hope this is helpful.

NHL94 Cards Hex.ods 146.07 kB · 4 downloads NHL94 Cards Hex.xls 643 kB · 1 download

Which team in the XLS is Detroit and how would I know which player is which!?!?

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On 7/30/2022 at 8:14 PM, CPLANAS1985 said:

Which team in the XLS is Detroit and how would I know which player is which!?!?

Actually that is kind of the thing, there really isn't any specific order for the teams when you use this tool.
[full disclosure, I do the photos last now, so I don't really use this method much anymore]
The way this method works is that when you copy a player's photo into your ROM using the sprite editor, you copy that player's name into the spot that corresponds with the offset. [circled in the first image]

<EDIT>
I keep NOSE open to make sure that I am putting the photos in the same order as I have the players listed in the roster section.
But the actual order that the photos and players are related can also be checked in the hex code.
image.png
Player 0000 denotes the staring goalie and doesn't like being changed. It always glitches out on me whenever I try to put him in a different order. He ends up as the last guy in the rotation regardless. In this example I had 20 skaters and 3 goalies and the net minders were the first images i pasted in, but the last three player photos/cards shown where the backups and the starter.

But in any case, the red circled offsets in the original post pictures is where the offsets and player names get aligned. To be honest, I messed with them in a couple cases and the player photos don't even need to be in any particular order, just as long as the offset number listed next to a particular player's name matches the offset of the desired photo of the player who owns that name. Or in some cases, multiple people who share a name, so you will have to make sure if you want that or not.
</EDIT>

The main use for the spreadsheet I find is to change things around after your players have already been set up. For example: A pre-season vs a trade-deadline version of the same ROM. Rather than moving photos around, you can just click to re-point a picture to a player that was traded to another team.

 

Edited by von Ozbourme
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19 hours ago, von Ozbourme said:

Actually that is kind of the thing, there really isn't any specific order for the teams when you use this tool.
[full disclosure, I do the photos last now, so I don't really use this method much anymore]
The way this method works is that when you copy a player's photo into your ROM using the sprite editor, you copy that player's name into the spot that corresponds with the offset. [circled in the first image] You can also double check with NOSE to make sure that you are putting the player's photo in the offset that is already linked to that player.

As listed in NOSE:
image.png

The main use for the spreadsheet I find is to change things around after your players have already been set up. For example: A pre-season vs a trade-deadline version of the same ROM. Rather than moving photos around, you can just click to re-point a picture to a player that was traded to another team.

The "Offset Hex"... Isn't that for the text, NOT pictures!?!?

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6 hours ago, CPLANAS1985 said:

The "Offset Hex"... Isn't that for the text, NOT pictures!?!?

Shoot. Yes. Sorry, it was late and i was getting wires crossed. I edited to sort of fix the incorrect info.
hopefully. it is late again.

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On 8/2/2022 at 12:00 AM, von Ozbourme said:

Actually that is kind of the thing, there really isn't any specific order for the teams when you use this tool.
[full disclosure, I do the photos last now, so I don't really use this method much anymore]
The way this method works is that when you copy a player's photo into your ROM using the sprite editor, you copy that player's name into the spot that corresponds with the offset. [circled in the first image]

<EDIT>
I keep NOSE open to make sure that I am putting the photos in the same order as I have the players listed in the roster section.
But the actual order that the photos and players are related can also be checked in the hex code.
image.png
Player 0000 denotes the staring goalie and doesn't like being changed. It always glitches out on me whenever I try to put him in a different order. He ends up as the last guy in the rotation regardless. In this example I had 20 skaters and 3 goalies and the net minders were the first images i pasted in, but the last three player photos/cards shown where the backups and the starter.

But in any case, the red circled offsets in the original post pictures is where the offsets and player names get aligned. To be honest, I messed with them in a couple cases and the player photos don't even need to be in any particular order, just as long as the offset number listed next to a particular player's name matches the offset of the desired photo of the player who owns that name. Or in some cases, multiple people who share a name, so you will have to make sure if you want that or not.
</EDIT>

The main use for the spreadsheet I find is to change things around after your players have already been set up. For example: A pre-season vs a trade-deadline version of the same ROM. Rather than moving photos around, you can just click to re-point a picture to a player that was traded to another team.

 

Looks like random text on the far right... Can you please clarify and specify!?!?

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8 hours ago, CPLANAS1985 said:

Looks like random text on the far right... Can you please clarify and specify!?!?

1st column (8 digits): the offset (aka the address)

2nd-4th columns (4 digits each): the hex values. Note: 2 hex digits = 1 byte.

5th column: the text representation of the hex values of the 2nd-4th columns (20hex=space,... 30h="0", 31h="1", 32h="2", 65h="A", 66h="B", 67h="C".. many values do not translate to a visible character so are shown as ".")

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  • 3 months later...
On 8/3/2022 at 10:58 AM, smozoma said:

1st column (8 digits): the offset (aka the address)

2nd-4th columns (4 digits each): the hex values. Note: 2 hex digits = 1 byte.

5th column: the text representation of the hex values of the 2nd-4th columns (20hex=space,... 30h="0", 31h="1", 32h="2", 65h="A", 66h="B", 67h="C".. many values do not translate to a visible character so are shown as ".")

After all these months... I still don't get it... It's all still very complicated and confusing for me...

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On 8/3/2022 at 10:58 AM, smozoma said:

1st column (8 digits): the offset (aka the address)

2nd-4th columns (4 digits each): the hex values. Note: 2 hex digits = 1 byte.

5th column: the text representation of the hex values of the 2nd-4th columns (20hex=space,... 30h="0", 31h="1", 32h="2", 65h="A", 66h="B", 67h="C".. many values do not translate to a visible character so are shown as ".")

I just want to assign pictures to players,,, That's the part I'm getting stuck at... There are players without portraits of their own... What to do about that!?!?

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Think we might need more information to go on to figure out where you are, but something comes to mind that we should get out of the way first. I'm curious, are you using the 30 or the 32-team ROM? The problem with the 32-team mod is that, like the original game, only the starting lineup gets a picture and every other player is stuck with default left/right-handed player/goalie image.

Now if you're using the 30-team mod, you should already have an image in the ROM data for every player, so it should just be a matter of tracking that down and replacing it. [Once you've been able to determine where that player's data references are of course]

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  • 4 months later...
On 8/23/2021 at 10:43 AM, kingraph said:

If you like spreadsheets, well have I got something for you! :)

I don't use EARE for player cards anymore. I use this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oPiasWKUsK2bS49QsQiZ0cQNyEwFfublFUury2LUsFg/edit#gid=697626098

which once you have a list of player cards and offsets (similar to your list), I use the roster extract to copy/paste the players into the document and then it does the work for me.  The document spits out the new table that you can copy into Hex.  

The cool thing is you can also choose which player cards cycle through the menu screen.  

Full details here: 

Hope you find it useful as well.

 

Hi folks,

I updated @kingraph's spreadsheet to support the 32-Team '94 ROMs.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l1oqGZSDN5IIgwqEwh-Dvw-mDRzNYlfUwm4HoECVgBQ/edit?usp=sharing

I also updated the notes, to hopefully make it a bit easier to understand. 

One very important detail. I have it setup for 800 players (25 players per team) instead of the 26 players per team in the original. This is easy enough to change if you like.

If you decide to edit this spreadsheet, please note that there are some hidden fields! I didn't notice this at first, and nothing made sense to me until I set this to visible.

 

 

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