feature request Is there any interest in updating PokeGen to the standards of PKHex

[KonohaDaze]

I am aware that Pokegen is most likely no longer supported and has been abandoned in favor of moving on to the newer gens

PKHex has ascended to a level that some onlookers of Project Pokemon never even thought would happen three years ago, with the widespread availability of 3DS hacking and knowledge we've gotten recently it should come as no surprise that most efforts have been shifted towards research on XY/ORAS and eventually Sun and Moon later this year...

However, I wanted to bring Pokegen back to everyone's attention in hopes of making it as streamlined and useful as PKHex has become, some features that come to mind are:

• Box Data Report
  
• Showdown Import/Export options (Including Battle Box option for 5th Gen)
  
• Realized Savegame Editor option (This thread comes to mind, hopefully we actually get intelligent replies here)
  
• Basic legality check (If even possible, as far as I know .xfr has gone off of the face of the Earth and the most we'll get is some implementation of Legal.exe)
  
• Various other options that might fit under Savegame editor that are seen in PKHex such as Trainer Info, Event Flags, and Hall of Fame Editor
  

At the very least I wanted to rally support for the knowledge of 4th/5th Gen Savegames and PKM files, hopefully this can reach the dev(s) to tie up some loose ends myself and the general community would like to see taken care of.

Alternatively, I might take it upon myself to implement some of these features so it can be available to everyone, and also to prevent lack of interest and knowledge similarly to Gen 3.

:bidoof: Some other things I wanted to refer to: :bidoof:

• Pokesav
  
• Legal.Exe (Abandoned, PokeCheck was able to accurately check PKM files for illegalities)
  
• Pokecheck (Which maybe be a majoring factor in why the general community would want this in the first place)
  

[NekoSabrina]

Well I wouldn't mind either seeing a newer version, or for PKHex to be retrofitted with Gen 4 and 5 support.

If nothing else, I wouldn't mind for full Wonder Card editing to be a thing again. I've got this nice little thing I want to do as a personal project in Gen 5, but it's starting to look like I'm going to need a mix of that and AR Code generation to pull it off on my retail carts.

[Poryhack]

As you admitted PKHex is the more expansive of the two. On top of that it's open source (I'm not sure what ever happened with PokeGen's source but I don't think it was made fully public). It probably makes more sense to expand on PKHex than PokeGen. If you have any experience with programming you can even do it yourself. If not, continue lobbying I suppose.

[KonohaDaze]

As you admitted PKHex is the more expansive of the two. On top of that it's open source (I'm not sure what ever happened with PokeGen's source but I don't think it was made fully public). It probably makes more sense to expand on PKHex than PokeGen. If you have any experience with programming you can even do it yourself. If not, continue lobbying I suppose.

I did consider that, yes. Was just curious if the devs would be willing to do it as that would save me the time and effort, at the very least, thank you for replying!

[suloku]

Many of the features not included in pokegen are available in pikasav. You can get the latest(?) release here:

https://projectpokemon.org/forums/showthread.php?47484-Pok%E9mon-Black-amp-White-Entralink-Forest-tool-0-1-gt-dream-pokemon-wondercard-like!-(Arceus-event-included)&p=216203&viewfull=1#post216203

Rubenpikachu reelased the source code, but seems it is an older version, as I couldn't find features like join avenue editor.

For gen4, the japanesse editors cover almost all features that aren't in pokegen (feebas finder, underground...), maybe the only downside is that HGSS support was never finished, or at least the latest translated version has basic support. The tools not being open source doesn't help.

I'm currently working on a gen 5 tool, I may release tomorrow as I think it's finally useful for general users. My intention is by no means to replace pokegen, but complement it. New features include full entralink editing with easy injection of dream world pokemon (and I mean injecting the very same ones you would have got from Dream World), editing the key system (which requires infrared to unlock otherwise), join avenue editor (with visitor files import/export), my already released hidden grotto and swarm editor and a basic medal editor. Another planned feature is memory link editor and trainer records editor. Those last three require research to be done, specially trainer records since they seem to be tied to medal awarding. The medal block has some obscure data and flags, and I'd really want to know precisely how it works to be able to give the online-only medals in the very same way they would have been originally awarded.

A unified open source tool with all the features would be awesome but since you can edit almost everything by using different tools, the interest in re-creating already existing features is low. I myself lost interest in making a join avenue editor after seeing pikasav already had it, but I decided to make my own anyways to include more features (even though I'm probably not gonna use them )

[KonohaDaze]

@suloku Yes! Someone is on the same page as me. :grog:

I have to admit, I was under the impression Pikasav was long forgotten and wasn't even sure if it supported 4/5th gens, but that's good to know, thank you for your input.

My original intention was to create a single streamlined program so you wouldn't have to use multiple editors. As the name implies, Pokegen is a "Pokemon Generator" so I didn't have my hopes too high for anything else being implemented, especially so late into it's lifeline. (If you can even call it that!)

I might end up working on such a tool in my free time but I can't promise anything, really, so I wanted to see if there was any interest first. It seems Codr is long gone from these forums anyway.

If you would like any help I would love to assist with whatever info I may have, it's great to see someone else is still interested like I am!

Update: Did some looking around on PikaEdit out of curiosity, the Gen 5 editor seems great but the Gen 4 editor doesn't really have anything over PokeGen, i'll just have to keep looking as 4th gen is what i'm really concerned about right now.

[suloku]

I tried pikasav a little yesterday and... it' VERY dirty. Saving the file without making any modifications outputs a save with many many differences. It's probably the result of loading the data and saving it again to the file, but for example some data in the join avenue editor is wrongly set...

As I said, coding a full editor is out of my goal, pokegen already does a very good job on what it has (I should see if it also makes any dirty changes...). My tool is intended for gen 5 (I personally don't think mixing generations is a good idea, but I guess 4 and 5 are similar enough).

The source is on github and the way I coded it is modular in the sense that anyone could add an editor for data not handled elsewhere without affecting any other parts of the tool, so if someone was wiling to, a box and party editor could be added. Pkhex has classes to handle gen 5 pokemon, so it would not have to be done from 0, and pikasav source has the pid generation functions in it.

In fact, given the dirtiness of pikasav I added an editor for trainer information (id, tid, name, gender, rival name... and gym badges).

[KonohaDaze]

Fair enough, though I think my main goal here is flag/event editing for 4th gen games. Especially in areas such as the Pokeathlon that don't seem to be found anywhere else. Recently I found the offsets for Pokeathlon data and now i'm working on Battle Frontier data for Platinum/HG/SS, we'll see what may become of that in the future.

[suloku]

Well, from my experience, most of the job goes about documenting the data. For example, I wrapped the join avenue editor in no time thanks to this research thread: https://projectpokemon.org/forums/showthread.php?26490-Join-Avenue-Customization-amp-Editing

Propper documentation is the key, too bad old projects were closed source, specially pokestock has a lot of features seen nowhere else (i.e. BW2 3ds link features).

[DracoMilesX]

@suloku

My original intention was to create a single streamlined program so you wouldn't have to use multiple editors. As the name implies, Pokegen is a "Pokemon Generator" so I didn't have my hopes too high for anything else being implemented, especially so late into it's lifeline. (If you can even call it that!)

I like this idea as well it's kinda annoying to have 5 different tools to manage seperate things. I dunno if you have looked at https://projectpokemon.org/forums/showthread.php?48710-Trigger-s-PC-(LEGIT-Gen-3-PokeBank-ItemBank-and-Save-Manager-Tool) ? It's currently Gen 3 and Gen 4 or higher won't most likely get supported.

But it would be great if someone was capable of creating something like that with Gen 4, 5 (and 6)

[Kaphotics]

~3 weeks ago PKHeX started to get rewritten to support the eventual S/M games; as a fringe benefit I've also added Gen4 & Gen5 support in addition to a few sub-editors.

You can track the progress of this branch on Github. As a side effect of a lot of code changes, it'll still be a little bit before it's ready for full release (new bugs). SciresM and I are working out the details on the new sub-editors and any user friendly tweaks, but a lot of things are already working (like PKM editing and Save I/O).

[KonohaDaze]

~3 weeks ago PKHeX started to get rewritten to support the eventual S/M games; as a fringe benefit I've also added Gen4 & Gen5 support in addition to a few sub-editors.

You can track the progress of this branch on Github. As a side effect of a lot of code changes, it'll still be a little bit before it's ready for full release (new bugs). SciresM and I are working out the details on the new sub-editors and any user friendly tweaks, but a lot of things are already working (like PKM editing and Save I/O).

This is great, thank you Kaphotics.

[suloku]

That's actually pretty great, I guess at some point when it's more stable I should try adding the recent editors I've made for Gen 5 and switch everything to pkhex. Just adding them to pkhex should be no problem (all editors I've made work by feeding them a block of data from the save at load, then the block get's written when saving), problem would be that my code is so messy and ugly it wouldn't fit pkhex in its current state...

Also, why hasn't gen 3 been added? Some imcompatibility?

Also, I've re-visited a little gen 4 and DSPokeEdit 1.97 (get it here https://projectpokemon.org/forums/showthread.php?10818-Where-can-i-find-DSPokeEdit&p=89912&viewfull=1#post89912)

It can edit most if not all DPP related stuff, meaning we can get the offsets from it. It only supports japanesse platinum, but seems to work just fine (at least reading) for my eur platinum save.

Not sure about HGSS but the wiki has a lot of information about gen 4: https://projectpokemon.org/wiki/Category:Structures

Seems pkhex will become THE tool. I guess it could even load rhydon if a gen 1 save is loaded... which reminds me I wanted to try making a gen2 version of rhydon.

[KonohaDaze]

IT ALL COMES TOGETHER

[Poryhack]

That's actually pretty great, I guess at some point when it's more stable I should try adding the recent editors I've made for Gen 5 and switch everything to pkhex. Just adding them to pkhex should be no problem (all editors I've made work by feeding them a block of data from the save at load, then the block get's written when saving), problem would be that my code is so messy and ugly it wouldn't fit pkhex in its current state...

I can't speak for Kaphotics, but IMO messy and ugly open source is better than closed source (no matter how beautiful). If you can integrate it with PKHex at all you should (especially if your existing code isn't out on github already); at least that way it's out in the open. Someone will come along and make it better. Maybe even you!

[jariesuicune]

An odd request this may be... but could it be further possible to include Gen I & II along with the Gen III-V into these designs, thanks to the VC release of Gen I so far, and hopefully Gen II eventually (so very wanting VC Crystal in Japanese!). I know there are some editors out there... but to be honest they feel clunky at best, when they even work right, and it would be neat to have a single editor that covers all 7 (and future) generations! It may also help give an edge in accurately converting a Pokemon from a past generation to a later one? (I'm hopeful, at least).

[suloku]

An odd request this may be... but could it be further possible to include Gen I & II along with the Gen III-V into these designs, thanks to the VC release of Gen I so far, and hopefully Gen II eventually (so very wanting VC Crystal in Japanese!). I know there are some editors out there... but to be honest they feel clunky at best, when they even work right, and it would be neat to have a single editor that covers all 7 (and future) generations! It may also help give an edge in accurately converting a Pokemon from a past generation to a later one? (I'm hopeful, at least).

Once of the goals of rhydon save editor was to code the basis for easy gen1 pokemon managing for pkhex to handle the conversion once we know how pokebank does it.

Integrating rhydon in pkhex would't be impossible, but given the different nature of gen 1 and 2 I'd rather have them separate or make pkhex open them when loading a gen 1 save, but that's up to kaphotics.

Modifying rhydon to work as a gen2 save editor would be easy, since they have very similar structures. I don't know if nintendo will release gen2 for VC (I guess they will, easy money and they already made the link enabled emulator), but having another gen2 editor for the future wouldn't hurt (I guess a good name would be Rhyperior?)

[jariesuicune]

Ooh, I hadn't heard about that one!

Hm, I guess loading the saves could just be done like PokeGen dealt with different Gens, that you had to specify which generation you were going to load/work with beforehand? Oh, maybe if it had a Generations Tab, making it so you could load a separate save for each generation but easily switch between them with a click so you could move Pokemon across any generation quick and easy within a single instance of the program! (Hey, I would enjoy it!) It would help make it easier to incorporate the different settings without them interfering with each other, as users would just have to load the correct save for the generation they are working with.

Maybe that, or something like it, could work?