answered HG/SS Trainer Back Sprites

[CeroRift]

Hello! As the title reads, I am working on editing a Pokemon Soul Silver Version, and I am having a couple of issues editing the main trainer's back sprites (male and female). I have the designs ready (png files) and ensured they are each 16 colors only; I used KazoWAR's method of swapping out sprites just in the other data folder (a/0/0/6). Using the unscrambled images in Tile Molester, I even pasted the entire 64x800 image one bmp at a time while scrolling down (about 7 total) to match the original sprite image. After going through Kaz's method over and over, I should have done everything correctly (replaced the 6_000.rgcn, 6_001.rlcn, 6_075.rgcn, and 6_076.rlcn files), but when I narc it and remake the rom, I notice some unexpected issues.

First off, when battling a wild Pokemon, the in-battle trainer sprite has some wonky inversed colors at the beginning (correct palette, wrong placement) until the animation begins, then everything looks perfect. I assume this has to do with the other file in the set of 5 (6_004.rgcn and 6_079.rgcn respectively) as when I bring this file up in DS/Pic with my palette, these colors do the same thing. I attempted to save a direct from my correct png with DS/Pic, but it gets a weird error and creates a file of 0 KB. I was wondering if anybody knew a way around this? Maybe a program which successfully can replace this file?

Secondly, as soon as I start a battle with a trainer, the rom freezes. I tried replacing only files 6_000 and 6_001, then only 6_075 and 6_076, and in both cases it freezes. I am not really sure why though as, not only does the original rom I added to work perfectly fine, but I'm really only replacing two files at a time in this case. And one's a palette! What confuses me more is that I notice my changes work in wild Pokemon battles, so I have no idea why I can't enter a trainer battle.

Any help on this would be truly appreciated as I've been pulling my hair for days trying to figure this out.

Thanks for reading!

[CeroRift]

So, after just redoing the steps in KazoWAR's videos, I actually got it to work! I think it was after a better understanding of why certain steps were in a certain order and getting a hang of all of my palettes needing to be consistent. Either way, I still encounter the problem of my character having his palette with the old sprite when a battle starts with a wild Pokemon. I believe this still has to do with the 6_004 and 6_079 files, but I don't know how to save new ones based on my png's since, when saving "Direct" from DS/Pic, they turn into noise (I am assuming this is due to encryption/decrpytion).

If anyone has any idea on how to save these updated files to replace 6_004.rgcn and 6_079.rgcn, I would be eternally grateful.

[Lamphrey]

I actually just did a guide for editing and swapping mugshots in this post:

https://projectpokemon.org/forums/showthread.php?49577-Please-Help-SSHG

And I've found that swapping trainer backs is largely the same, the trick is to use Tinke to do most of the work.

ALSO, at the end of that guide I remember talking about and linking to a program Kazowar himself made that will scramble and unscramble your trainerback spritesheets. Makes it suuuuper easy to import and export trainerbacks.

I'm planning on doing my guide in a video format in the future but till then that should definitely cut out a lot of the extra work and issues.

Good luck!

[CeroRift]

Thank you so much for this! I'll go ahead and look through it more to see if it helps me out. Yeah, KazoWAR's program does help in un-shuffling the first rgcn, but unfortunately I can't seem to do anything about the second rgcn file for a trainer back sprite. Which is weird since Pokemon DS/Pic seems to open this file fine via Open Direct (not random static/noise that's incomprehensible), yet I can't edit or make a new one to replace this file correctly. I have gotten the animation to work with my new sprite and colors, but my character's sprite will still have the old sprite (with new colors) at the start of a wild encounter, and I think this has to do with that second rgcn.

[Lamphrey]

Ohhh, snap. I had only been testing the trainerbacks on trainer duels...

Yeah, I see what you mean on the random encounters, there's like a ghost of the original trainer back with some weird colors...

Dang, and I thought I had it figured it out...

But it's definitely possible, I'm actually even using the hack Mr.Magmar made that includes ALL (except that 3D bag holding image) of the Lyra female's images to Kris.

Check it out, he's got pictures:

http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=347879

Maybe shoot him a message and ask how he eliminated that 'ghost' trainerback image. If I'm not mistaken he's still active.

Also, this other person was swapping out Kris's images too and I think ran into a similar problem:

 

They might have figured it out by now lol so it might pay to shoot them a message as well.

If they do have answers for you, maybe post the solution here? I think my trainerbacks are now in the same boat as yours haha

[CeroRift]

Well, I attempted to message Mr. Magmar and 2and2make5, but I never received a response, so unfortunately I don't have a solution yet. I did message KazoWAR a bit on a possible solution with him saying there is apparently another version of Pokemon DS/Pic that can edit those other rgcn files (I have Pokemon DS/Pic Platinum, but he said there is one specifically for HG/SS which we cannot seem to find). Otherwise, this might have to be a mystery for a while.

[Hiro TDK]

After a ton of searching I've found PokeDSPic DP, Platinum, and HGSS. HGSS doesn't open the files you're looking to work with though. That would be PokeDSPic DP.

Step-by-step:

1) Extract the palette file and the garbled image file with Tinke. (6_6 and 6_9 in your case.)

2) In PokeDSPic DP, navigate to Expert > Open Direct and open the extracted image file.

3) Navigate to Expert > Open Pal Direct and open the extracted palette file.

4) Hit SavePng... and make any edits in whatever program.

5) Hit OpenPng... and import your edited image.

6) Navigate to Expert > Save Direct and save the edited image file.

7) Navigate to Expert > Save Pal direct and save the edited palette file.

8) In Tinke, select the palette file and hit Change File. Navigate to the edited palette file and select it.

9) Repeat step 8 with the edited image file.

If you need it, I found the tools in various places.

PokeDSPic DP / Platinum

PokeDSPic HGSS (Though I don't know the difference.)

EDIT: For the record, this is something I figured out last year when I successfully put Kris into the game. I had to figure it out again though, because as with the overworld sprites and magnet train sprites, I simply forgot how I did them and forgot to write it down. This is something that BlazingMagmar and MeroMero have both done in their hacks as well.

[CeroRift]

Thank you for your response Hiro TDK! I actually attempted your step-by-step process with PokeDSPic DP, but when I save Direct, the file that results appears as garbled noise in both PokeDSPic DP (when I try to open this newly saved file) and the gameplay itself. Am I missing something when saving the Direct file? Maybe I need to save my edited PNG in a specific format to correctly translate to the Direct file?

[Hiro TDK]

That's very odd. I just tried it myself and it seems to work fine. If PokeDSPic isn't reading the newly created files, you might have a bugged version. If you have not already, try the one in the link I posted.

[CeroRift]

That is strange; I actually did try it with the version that is in your link but still no luck I have uploaded the png I am using in the link below:

http://www.mediafire.com/view/5u3q398a8g8h33a/Gold_Backsprites.png

I haven't even changed much; just color schemes of the outfit and character, but I am still having serious issues with getting it to save in the correct format for some reason. Would you mind trying it yourself and seeing if you can figure it out on your end? This might at least eliminate any doubts on the pngs I am saving (all I am using is Paint.net).

[Hiro TDK]

Wow, I see what you're talking about. Something must be up with the encoder. Let me do some research and I'll report back.

[CeroRift]

Awesome, I'm looking forward to it! Thanks!

[Hiro TDK]

I can't even believe it was this simple, but the background color has to be the first color in the palette. In Photoshop, when exporting, you can sort colors by popularity. This will put the most used color at the beginning which will be the background color. TweakPNG says that you used Paint.Net to make yours though. From reading forum posts, it seems that you can name colors in Paint.Net and they're sorted alphabetically.

Here's your sprite with the palette modified. It should work now. http://puu.sh/r8oGq/58f8d06a42.png

[CeroRift]

Wow, that's amazing; you figured it out! The image you provided worked, and I was able to save a successful Direct and Pal file and open them the same way. I was wondering though; I tried finding a way to name colors in Paint.Net, but I have can't seem to find any results. Did those forums happen to mention the way to do that?

Otherwise, I have been using TweakPNG to essentially switch back-and-forth the background color to get it to be in the first slot, but this apparently isn't good enough. After doing so and saving the Direct and Pal, the direct file, although much better than random noise, is still pretty messed up compared to the image you provided (as seen here: https://puu.sh/r9rUW/16e8066540.png).

Another issue I have sadly is that the 6_004 rgcn uses a different palette than my 6_000 rgcn file even though they use the same colors. I was hoping there was an easy way (maybe with naming the colors in Paint.Net) to organize them in the same order in both of their palettes without changing the actual images. Should I maybe get Photoshop instead? Otherwise, the color schemes still don't match, and I have either that first image's color messed up or the animation sequence's afterward.

[Hiro TDK]

Yeah, I just found out that Photoshop's color palette sort is a lie and doesn't export. The resource I found for Paint.Net turned out to be a dead link. I found a few of those actually. In Photoshop at least, I found a workaround.

1) Export image.

2) Open exported image.

3) View color table. Note which color is first.

4) Select the Magic Wand tool. Set the Tolerance to 0. Uncheck Anti-Aliasing and Contiguous.

5) Use the Magic Wand tool to select the first color and the background color and hit copy.

6) Go to Image > Mode > Color Table and change the background color in the palette to the first color and vice versa.

7) Close the palette and hit paste.

8) Save your image once again.

I'd have to grab a copy of Paint.Net to figure a workaround with that program.

EDIT: I'm going to write a tutorial through this, so I'm going to work on the palette problems now. I think I have an easy workaround for the differing palettes though.

[CeroRift]

Thanks for the steps; I did it in Photoshop, and it worked great! Yeah, the only issue now would be the matching palettes between the two images. I'd love to hear about your workaround though. And a tutorial would be super appreciated!

[Hiro TDK]

That's actually rather simple. When you put the new RLCN and RGCN into Tinke, you should be able to import the other image with swap to original palette. If not, you can manually edit the image to have the same palette using similar methods to the background workaround.

[CeroRift]

Looks like this is all finally answered. I got everything to work on my end; I can finally move on to changing other things. Thanks a lot!