How to (manually) replace your signature in pokemon games.

[Chase-san]

[edit by evandixon] The important images are gone. So this article won't help much. However, in a below reply, M@T has provided a tool to do this for you. It even comes with B2/W2 support now! http://code.google.com/p/pokemon-signature-editor/

[original post]

Here is an example of my heart gold!

Cute isn't it!? I think so, and this trick is what I will be showing you today.

Limitations:

The signature field only has 2, count them, 2 colors, black and white. Meaning no full color images, no aliasing, none of that. As you can see from above, the results can be pretty decent however.

What you need:

A RAW pokemon SAV file.

Photoshop (or another image editor, but I will provide zero support for these)

wingrit (I know how it works, and could have made something that does the exact same thing, but what would be the point, eh?)

HxD (or another hex editor, but I will provide zero support for these)

Pokegen

Step 1: Get a lineart you really like!

Generally try to choose something with line detail and little in the way of shading or big blotches of white or black.

I choose this, mostly because it will be really hard, so I can go over everything you need to do.

This is originally by behindclosedeyes00 on DeviantArt, however I modified it to make it harder to convert over.

Step 2: Crop and convert to greyscale.

the image has lots of extra space, grab hold of the crop tool, and cut it down to size.

Once that is done, make it greyscale.

You should end up with something like this.

Step 3: Level the playing field some more, with levels!

Goto the levels command in the image->adjustments menu.

And adjust it so it gets rid of most of the unwanted dimness and so on.

My final values for this image, we're actually 191 and 193.

Step 4: Time to resize and crop.

Find the width of the displayed image you want and use the crop tool to size it. Make sure to keep the full height of the image. Keep in mind how small the image will eventually be.

Once cropped, resize the width of your image to 192 pixels wide.

You will notice it once again has aliasing, this is expected.

Now adjust the vertical, using the canvas resize tool, this will allow you to move the layer up and down with the arrow keys. This time you want to make the height 64 pixels high. Make sure it is not a locked 'background' layer, double click a background layer to bring up a dialog to

convert it to a normal layer (default settings works fine).

And.. wait, this is terrible.

Whoops, well I cannot fit a good scene into this, so, go back and redo it from the initial crop (you can use ctrl+alt+z to go back several states in photoshop). Here I did it again. I also did some other minor editing outside the tutorial.

Step 5: Level again and make it a bitmap!

Level again, be sure to be zoomed in and do this carefully, as this will determine the final level of detail in your end image. Thickness of the lines, get the two ends as close as possible during this step.

Once that is done, you need to convert it into a bitmap.

None of these settings should matter much in our case.

Save it as a BMP with these settings!

Be sure to save it as somewhere you can find it.

Examples of finished pieces.

Step 6: Time to get down to the grit.

Drag and drop your new bitmap image onto wingrit, I hope I do not have to explain how drag and drop works.

Then goto View->GBA Export, and use these settings! But save it somewhere more convenient.

Now click okay.

Step 7: Down to the dirty work.

Find your "sig_image.img.bin" and then drag and drop your sig_image.img.bin into hxd, yes, drag and drop into (meaning you should have it open already). But you can open it any other way as well if you like. Select all 0x600 bytes of it and copy it (ctrl+a then ctrl+c works).

Now open your save file in HxD (you can drag and drop it as well, no adverse effects will occur by dragging it on top the other file)

Now where you have to put it varies by game. Here is the list.

• Diamond & Pearl
  
  1. 0x5904
     
  2. 0x45904
     

  [*]Platinum

  1. 0x5BA8
     
  2. 0x45BA8
     

  [*]HeartGold & SoulSilver

  1. 0x4538
     
  2. 0x44538
     

  [*]Black & White

  1. 0x1C100
     
  2. 0x40100
     

You should put it in both locations or it might not work (50/50 chance unless you know how to determine which is active

Now goto these location in the rom (you can use Search->Goto or Ctrl+G), and then goto Edit->Paste Write (or Ctrl+B).

After your done, save it.

Step 8: Pokegen to the rescue to fix your checksum!

Now open pokegen, goto Options->Ignore Save File Checkum. Close it.

Now drag and drop your save file onto the icon.

Now goto File->Save [save file]

Close pokegen

Step 9: Load and run, and pray you didn't screw up.

There you go, an awesome image for your signature!

[edit by evandixon]

Seeing that the images are gone, outside urls can sometimes die. I've attached a mirror of grit/wringit just in case its website dies. HxD should be easily obtainable elsewhere if its website dies.

grit-0.8.6..zip

Edited March 21, 2013 by evandixon

[Xen]

Wow, really nice tut, I'll try it when I've time and post results.

[Delta Blast Burn]

Or, You could use this if you have an ar and, put it on your retail cart.

http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/44117/t1539608-pokemon-signature-generator/

The image I used is attached

img_sig.img.bmp

[M@T]

I have made a program to achieve this a long, long time ago ; I made a Googlecode for it quite recently which you can find here : http://code.google.com/p/pokemon-signature-editor/.

The program is written in VB.NET 2008, and thus needs the .NET Framework 3.5 to work.

It handles both AR code creation and save modification, for every DS game (D/P/Pt/HG/SS/B/W) with AR generation for every language (excepted Black and White obviously which are only available in Japanese).

It automatically converts colored images into monochrome with the possibility to adjust brightness but doesn't resize them.

You can also preview the result on a trainer card which adapts to the game you chose, and change the color of this card by selecting the amount of stars from 0 to 5 (ex. : in DPPt and HGSS, 5 stars = black card).

There is also the possibility to extract the signature image from a save into a file, or generate an AR code from it.

Sadly, I didn't have the time to translate it in English yet ; it's still in French at the moment as I created it for a French forum.

An English translation as well as an animated view of the signature for B/W is planned, but I'm really busy and I can't find enough time to continue. :\

[Juan-K]

M@T this tool is awsome!!! thanks, i hope you can update when Nintendo release black and white in america and europe

[M@T]

Sure I will.

The save and signature structures should not change from the Japanese games, so the only thing I'll have to update is the pointer address for AR codes generation (it is even possible that it remains the same).

I'll also try to implement the functionalities I planned to add if I have enough time (and maybe an English translation too if I find a way to make a multi-language application).

[Juan-K]

see you has updated the program thanks... hey! can i hep you with spanish traslation?

[Urist McStout-Horn]

Hate to be a thread necromancer, but this is the closest, and most relevant thread to my issue.

I'm looking for a way to do this for Black/White 2. All my searching has lead me to dead ends and broken links.

[Kaphotics]

Same offset as BW1. 0x1C100, but the backup is @ 0x42100

do the same OP proces and paste the binary it in there. wingrit link isn't dead

[awesometeemo]

Can someone show me how to set for GBA Export? Seems like all images are dead.

[evandixon]

Can someone show me how to set for GBA Export? Seems like all images are dead.

...oh the bad luck. The important images are gone...

Try this (courtesy of M@T): http://code.google.com/p/pokemon-signature-editor/

If that doesn't work for you, you can look here and try to contact the author of this article on the settings. If Chase-san replies and doesn't update the post, PM me his reply so I can update the post for him. If he doesn't, then perhaps you can find the info somewhere else on the web.

[Bond697]

there's info on doing this on gbatemp's nds forums. either romhacking/translations or homebrew, can't recall which. you'll probably have to search back a ways.