[Tutorial] Sprite Editing and Inserting for Fire Red (2024)

Hey guys, I thought some of you may enjoy a tutorial on how to edit the sprites inside of the Fire Red rom for use in your own hacks/patches for PokeMMO. The methods I use can be used to change Overworlds, Pokemon(front and back sprites), Trainers, Trainer back sprites, and much more, including how to alter the palettes of the sprites you're editing.

Note: This tutorial was too image-heavy for this forum, so I had to post most of these images as links. Sorry!

Things you'll need:

Nameless Sprite Editor Classic (used for effective editing of overworlds)

Nameless Sprite Editor 2.X (used for editing of everything else)

A blank Fire Red rom

MS Paint

Gimp

Time. This one is key :D

So in this tutorial, I'll show you how to edit Red's regular trainer sprite. Using the method I use, you can change other things later.

STEP ONE:

Open up Nameless Sprite Editor 2.X and load your rom. After you click load, click on Trainer Sprites.

Navigate to index 135.

STEP TWO:

Find or edit the sprite you would like to replace Red with and paste it into Paint. For this tutorial, I will be using Wally from Pokemon R/S/E.

Zoom in with the magnifying glass tool, and use the paint bucket tool and make the background white.

STEP THREE:

Go back to Nameless Sprite editor (NSE). Now, hit CTRL and + a few times to zoom in on your Red sprite. Make sure your NSE window isn't maximized, as you will need to see your Wally sprite on the screen at the same time.

Make sure you have your MS Paint image zoomed in on your new trainer sprite and move Paint to one side of your screen. Make sure NSE is open on the other side of the screen, also zoomed in, like so:

In NSE, click the Palette Button. You will see the colors of the sprite you are currently working with. The first color, that teal one there, is the background color. You don't change that one.

Notice the two shades of red in this palette. This is important for PokeMMO, as these two are the colors the client changes when a character is a color other than red in-game.

In any other sprite, that's not as important, but with editing either the Red or Green trainer sprite, it is. Because I'm editing Wally, he's going to have red hair. Why? Because of the limited palette, and when it's in-game, his hair will be the color the player chose for their character to be. Wally is only a test subject in this case, ladies and gentlemen!

STEP FOUR:

Here's where we actually edit the palette! Notice in the bottom of the Palette box the "Edit Current" option. Click on the "+" to the right of it and you'll see some options. First off, we're going to match Wally's skin tone with his sprite instead of Red's.

In this part, refer to the image as you follow the steps.

1: click on the lighter skin tone. We'll edit this first.

2: Use the eye dropper tool by clicking and holding, notice you can move out of the Nameless Sprite Editor window and it will pick up on any color you choose. So while still holding the button down, release your click over the lightest skin tone on Wally's face.

3: Click the button. Notice that Red's skin changed color!

Now repeat this step for his mid-tone skin color and his dark, or outline color. Your Red sprite should now look like this:

http://i50.tinypic.com/4hbipj.png

STEP FIVE:

Now in Nameless Sprite Editor click on File>Export>Export Bitmap. Save it in a folder called "Red" for now, and name it Red.bmp .

Now, navigate to your Red folder and open up Red.bmp in Gimp (once Gimp is installed, just right click the bitmap and click "Edit with GIMP".

Once Gimp is open, adjust your window size and zoom in so you can see what you're doing. Now go to Edit>Copy and switch over to Paint. Paste the image near to Wally. You can erase everything around Wally except for his actual trainer sprite for now.

http://i48.tinypic.com/4hcev7.png

Replace Wally's Green shades with Red's... well, red. You can do this by using the Eyedropper tool and making Color Selection One the light color of Wally's hair, and change your color 2 to the light color of Red's hat. Use the eraser tool, and RIGHT CLICK AND DRAG over Wally. Just like that, his hair has some red in it!

http://i48.tinypic.com/i73kg6.png

Repeat this step with the next darker green and next darker red. On the last shade of green, use the darkest brown Red has for his skin tone(because he shares it with his hat). Because the wally sprite uses an unusual 4 shades to one color instead of the normal 3, make the final shade into black.

http://i45.tinypic.com/9l99bs.png

Next is his pants! Follow the same steps above, but use the shades of blue available to you instead. You may want to change his shoes to a different color beforehand, though. Once done, you should have something like this:

http://i48.tinypic.com/2gtcbcj.png

STEP SIX:

By this point we're making major progress, only a few more things to do.

Now, since Wally's other colors are close enough to Red's, the palette Red has should recognize them. Copy your Wally sprite and paste it into the GIMP file you opened that your Red sprite was open in.

It will look like this:

http://i48.tinypic.com/286u9ad.png

So first use the crop tool and click outside the selection area, and then just use the eyedropper tool to take the teal/green background color and use the paint bucket to fill in that white, and use the pencil tool to get rid of the rest of Red's hand and in my case, the few foot pixels at the bottom.

http://i47.tinypic.com/28ukww9.png

Now that the background is filled in, you can see that there is some of that teal/green background color inside Wally's shirt. That means if it's put in-game like that, those parts will be transparent. It's not a big deal though, it's fixable :) You will run into errors like this occasionally, and it's best to know how to deal with them. First go to your toolbox window and select the pencil. Drag the "size" bar down from 20 to 1, and change the brush to the one pixel box.

http://i45.tinypic.com/2uz4f4g.png

Select the Eyedropper tool again and choose a color, like one of the shades of blue, and fill those teal pixels in. You will most likely need to zoom in again to do this. Add some blue to where the outline went missing if you feel like it. (Remember, when you're doing this for your own project, you'll have more creative leniency!)

http://i49.tinypic.com/24ffkts.png

STEP SEVEN:

It's ready to be inserted into the game now! Your next step is to go to File>Export and save it as something in your Red folder.

Now go back to Nameless Sprite Editor and go to File>Import>Import Sprite Data and click load. Select your Wally image and click save. You'll notice your Red sprite changed into your Wally sprite.

Now click File>Save and the save data window will pop up. When you're doing this in the future and if it won't save because it says your image is too big, click the magifying glass button on this window and let it repoint.

http://i45.tinypic.com/2qn9iqd.png

In this case, it's not any bigger, so just go ahead and save.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You just edited a palette and inserted your first trainer sprite into Pokemon Fire Red! Now copy that over to your PokeMMO/rom folder and login. Notice your character on the characters screen has changed!

http://i47.tinypic.com/2hia2rl.png

BACKSPRITES AND OVERWORLDS:

To change the backsprites, simply load your rom into NSE 2.X and click Navigate, BPRE, and backsprites. Follow the same guide as above, but keep in mind that PokeMMO only changes 2 colors now instead of 3 (only the two red tones).

For Overworlds, load your rom into NSE CLASSIC. The only difference with this is that the palette editing is slightly different. You still use the eyedropper and drag across the screen to select a color, but this time you need to click on the numbers instead of the actual color in the palette box. You can find your palette editor under Edit>Palette.

If you used this tutorial, PLEASE comment and tell me what you thought!