HOW TO: Changing the Background Tile - Part 2: The Game Menu Screens + Playoff Tree

[Drezz]

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.

Edited March 8 by Drezz

[Sean]

The mad scientist strikes again!

[von Ozbourne]

Ah, I knew it was only a matter of time before this genius was going to force me to revisit a couple ROMs. Clearly you have no respect for my time.

[Drezz]

1 hour ago, Sean said:

The mad scientist strikes again!

41 minutes ago, von Ozbourne said:

Ah, I knew it was only a matter of time before this genius was going to force me to revisit a couple ROMs. Clearly you have no respect for my time.

 

[von Ozbourne]

So I guess I have two questions.

1. I found an instance of a 054E24 at offset 870F. Weird thing was that when I changed that one to my new offset, it changed the Line Editor screen background, but when I changed it back to the original 054E24, it messed up the tiling pattern on same background.

2. I glitched all of the menu overlays on my first attempt, so I'll need to re-examine what I did there and try again, but in testing the game after Step 2, I noticed that all of the backgrounds looked just fine, but a lot of the text would look like this now.

Edit:
Well that was quick. On a hunch I checked the third and fourth palette that were included in the redirection instructions. Noted that the colours matched what I had in there as place holders and changed the light colours and voilà.

Green is the 3rd palette, Magenta is 4th. I guess I just need to change them to match what they used to look like when they referenced the original palette.

So I guess my follow up question is: I don't actually understand what Steps 3 to 5 do.

Edited March 8 by von Ozbourne

[Drezz]

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).

[Sean]

3 hours ago, von Ozbourne said:

Cool to see the behind the scenes of how you track where thingies go.

[Drezz]

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.

[profit90]

On 3/8/2023 at 10:33 AM, Drezz said:

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.

Love the font, has a TecmoSB feel to it... Fantastic !

[Drezz]

It's from SMB3!