Were to get started with zelda hacking?

[CrazyMartialArtsGuy]

As I have stated when i introduced myself, I want to get into this zelda hacking stuff. First off, I'm not a programmer...yet. I'm in college and my planned degree is computer science eventually becoming a software developer.One way or another i will be a programmer. But that is not the only thing i'm going to need for this. I want advice from everyone especially the veterans like zeth, naxylldritt , nyanpony, sakura just to name a few. Were did you guys start with this and what are the best tools to start out with. I have a project in mind that involves OOT but I will not start until I have what I need down. I have a tad bit of 3d modeling, and texturing but I mean very bare bones minimum stuff. So basically what I'm asking for is the very first step at becoming a zelda hacker. If there is already a thread for this please direct me to it, in the mean time I will start searching myself.

[Jason777]

Start off with simple things like actor placement and texture edits and gradually move on to more complicated things (what comes after would probably be text edits). Once you get to advanced concepts where no one can really teach you the exact way to go about doing those things (hacking with C and ASM), you should have a decent amount of knowledge of the various file formats of the game. The Z64 wiki is a great place to start looking for information.

[SanguinettiMods]

Eh, I started out with Rice Video textures packs, if you can consider that a mod--but moved on to actor placement via UoT, like Jason said.

[Guest sakura]

Start off with simple things like actor placement and texture edits and gradually move on to more complicated things (what comes after would probably be text edits). Once you get to advanced concepts where no one can really teach you the exact way to go about doing those things (hacking with C and ASM), you should have a decent amount of knowledge of the various file formats of the game. The Z64 wiki is a great place to start looking for information.

 

I agree with this entirely. I started out with Zelda in particular by porting maps from Majora's Mask to Ocarina of Time with some guidance. I already had a bit of experience with other systems though, you need a solid understanding of how hexadecimal numbers work and then it's just a matter of learning the format of whatever data you want to change. For example, knowing how maps store their list of actors to do an actor modification. After you learn how to change around data, then you can move on to learning how to change the games code, or read it for a better understanding of how things work. The N64 in particular uses MIPS assembly. If you're learning to program, you can also write tools to make manipulating data easier. For example, even if you know how a texture is stored, it's completely impractical to work with it by hand, so you can write a tool to do any converting for you. Please feel free to ask any further questions as you start out, we have some really knowledgable people who are more than happy to help.

[Zeth Ryder]

The wiki is a great source of knowledge for understanding a lot about the basic structure of actors in maps, you could definitely use it to help you get started and advance further.

http://wiki.spinout182.com/w/z64_wiki:Community_portal

[CrazyMartialArtsGuy]

The wiki is a great source of knowledge for understanding a lot about the basic structure of actors in maps, you could definitely use it to help you get started and advance further.

http://wiki.spinout1...ommunity_portal

 

Sweet I didn't know that thing existed, guess i should have looked harder.

 

Anyway Thanks for the the advice guys, if I have more questions that I simply cant figure out I will Post them here. Again thanks for the advice everyone.