don't click here

Sonic Advance 3 Hacking Guide

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by Erik JS, Oct 13, 2004.

  1. I was just bored of "normal" hacking then I decided to go into something more "advanced". Hopefully, you'll find more than just palette editing there.

    http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/erikjs_br/so...acking/english/

    The guide was 100% made by me based on my researching of the SA3 ROM (btw, it's about final American game, not the European beta). Icy Guy contributed a little with his Sonic Battle notes.

    It has various sections, but in majority only pointers are given and no full explanation of the format is shown, but I'm just in the beginning, and that's better than nothing NOW because there aren't other sites involved in Advances series hacking (as far as I know).

    There are two hacks I would like to show to everybody. Go to the guide and get'em at Hacks section.

    Please send me your comments. I want to make the SA3 hacking guide as better as possible.
     
  2. Icy Guy

    Icy Guy

    Hedgehog. Sonic the Hedgehog. Member
    776
    0
    0
    California
    GoldenEye 007 level hack
    That is one of the best, if not THE best, lines I've ever seen in a hacking guide. :P

    So anyway, I like your guide. ;) You've got a lot of comprehensive information, it's easy to read, and you also do a good job of explanaining stuff. I also like the fact that you're "breaking new ground" in the hacking scene, because I always like seeing people hack the lesser-hacked games.

    I think I might be able to contribute a few things to your guide, but I'll have to work on that later today, as I'm supposed to be doing schoolwork right now. ;)
     
  3. Sonic 65

    Sonic 65

    Tech Member
    Damn, you beat me to it. Waah. :P

    Oh well, great job anyway.
     
  4. LOst

    LOst

    Tech Member
    4,891
    8
    18
    The zone data pointers look exactly like the ones in Sonic Advance 2. So you can port the levels between the two games.
     
  5. Hayate

    Hayate

    Tech Member
    LMFAO!!! :D
     
  6. LOst

    LOst

    Tech Member
    4,891
    8
    18
    It isn't Sonic Team that made the game. It's Dimps.

    They use a library that isn't supported to be on the GBA, but works.
     
  7. Hayate

    Hayate

    Tech Member
    I know that. Maybe that's why the Advance games are worse than their Genesis counterparts :D
     
  8. LOst

    LOst

    Tech Member
    4,891
    8
    18
    No, they are not worse because of that. They are worse because the game designers lack of creation and insperation.
     
  9. Hayate

    Hayate

    Tech Member
    Um, you just contradicted yourself... :blink:

    If the game designers lacked inspiration then that would mean it was the reason, because Dimps designed the Advance games... Oh never mind this is offtopic :lol:
     
  10. LOst

    LOst

    Tech Member
    4,891
    8
    18
    The programmers did a good job, but it isn't as good as the old games. Far away from it actually.
     
  11. Who did the game anyway, guys? Was it a good job? Neither Sonic Team nor Dimps told me how to hack the damn thing, so I don't care. A Sonic game is a Sonic game no matter how/where it was made. The fact is that there was pratically nothing about SA3 hacking. LOst, you seem to know a lot about Advance games, so if you have any more relevant info, please "give it away now".

    Guide updated. The page about GBA palette is up. It shows a very easy way of reading and saving colors through some math operations. Now you don't need to "mess around with binary", as stated by Icy Guy's SB guide. I'm not claiming my explanation is better than his, but...
     
  12. Aquaslash

    Aquaslash

    <The Has-been Legend> Moderator
    Would one of your goals be Sonic and Tails in Nonagression?
     
  13. Kles

    Kles

    Member
    In what? Huh?

    (Before you go on and go OMG BUMP, this is the archive so I think that's okay :P)
     
  14. Ice God

    Ice God

    Earthbound Fanboy Banned
    I've been try to get that. So far, the best I've got was SuperSonic and Eggman in Chaos Angel act 3 with Route 99 music.
    :lol:
     
  15. Sorry for the long delay, people. I was having trouble while uploading RAR files to GeoCities. They refused such files ("invalid filename", no matter how long/short or which characters the name had) and I don't know why. I'm using my account at Tripod to keep the RAR files pointed by SA3HG (sometimes it gives bad tranfer rate), so you'll need to visit the main page (http://e-r-I-k.tripod.com/) before downloading any files from there. If you know a good free web hoster, then you're a liar.

    Back on-topic. That "Sonic & Tails" question is ASM-dependent, definitely. I passed the last days working on trying to get something from GBA ASM, after I found VBASDL in GSCentral. The guide was updated, so check out ASM Hacking. The Topic 1 was written in a tutorial style, so you can continue ASM-hacking SA3 without waiting my next topics if you want. I don't like to "tie" people; if I discover any other cool things I'll let you know. ;)
     
  16. Icy Guy

    Icy Guy

    Hedgehog. Sonic the Hedgehog. Member
    776
    0
    0
    California
    GoldenEye 007 level hack
    Ooh, ASM hacking. I haven't had time to read through the full tutorial, although I do have time to point out this nifty document. Not only does it have general info about the GBA, but it also has the complete (as far as I can tell) THUMB and ARM instruction sets, which will definitely help out any aspiring GBA ASM hackers.

    EDIT: Oh, and also, I think, in THUMB, a NOP is 46C0.
     
  17. Ice God

    Ice God

    Earthbound Fanboy Banned
    I've been wanting to create a level editor for SA3, but I don't know any programing languages besides HTML... =(
     
  18. Tweaker

    Tweaker

    Banned
    12,387
    2
    0
    I know this is old, but I fucking love you for this. I had no clue you knew the music format in the advance games. I'm gonna check this out and see what I can manage with it.