#acnl hacking

[cicadatree]

visiting the reset center

[azraelasitgets]

these are some weird fish

[bbeebles]

photo dump of screenshots from my new leaf town :-) 🍰🍀💗 some rooms & outdoor things !!

[some-melon]

ACNL CUSTOM VILLAGER/NPC/NPC VILLAGER GUIDE 2025

PLEASE READ THROUGH EVERYTHING BEFORE ATTEMPTING!!!

I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS WITH YOUR 3DS OR GAME!!!

PLEASE BACKUP YOUR FILES BEFORE ATTEMPTING!!!

Hi! I'm here to make a guide on how to make a custom villager/switch an npc to a villager in 2025, since there are not a lot of guides, and any guides out there are now old and obsolite

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

A hacked 3DS with CFW

Computer

7-Zip or Winrar

Animal Crossing: New Leaf (cartridge or digital)

Any Image Editing Software (i.e FireAlpaca, Gimp, Photoshop)

Ohana 3DS [link]

Ohana 3DS Rebirth [link]

HxD [link]

First things first- you're gonna need the romfs files of your game. The way to get them is through GM9 (GodMode9) The way to acsess GM9 is to turn on your 3DS, and as it boots up, hold down the START button.

Besides editing the sprites, this will be the LONGEST part out of this entire process. The romfs has EVERY SINGLE GAME ASSET, so youre basically dumping every single thing from the game onto your SD. For me, this took ALMOST 2 HOURS, so be ready!

FOR CARTRIDGE

Go to [C:] GAMECART ()

Go to the file that has .3ds (NOT THE .trim.3ds)

Click NCSD image options…

Click Mount image to drive

Click yes when prompted

Click content0.game

Go down to romfs and hit Y to copy the romfs files

You can now paste the romfs files to any folder on your SD, but if you want to be organized, created a designated folder for your romfs on the root of your SD

To get to your SD, go back by hitting B until you get to the first page

Go to [0:] SDCARD and click on it, and you'll be in your SD card.

Find the folder you'd like to paste your romfs in

Open the folder and hit Y to paste the romfs, and now you wait

FOR DIGITAL

Hit the Home Menu button in GM9

Go down and click on Title manager

Click [A:] SD CARD

Find Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Go to Open title folder and click it

Click 00000000.app

Click NCSD image options…

Click Mount image to drive

Click yes when prompted

Click content0.game

Go down to romfs and hit Y to copy the romfs files

You can now paste the romfs files to any folder on your SD, but if you want to be organized, created a designated folder for your romfs on the root of your SD

To get to your SD, go back by hitting B until you get to the first page

Go to [0:] SDCARD and click on it, and you'll be in your SD card.

Find the folder you'd like to paste your romfs in

Open the folder and hit Y to paste the romfs, and now you wait

When that is finished, power off your 3DS, eject your SD, and put it into your computer.

Move your romfs to your computer or a USB, that way you don't have them clogging your 3DS' SD and you have a backup of the vanilla files

To keep things organized, make a folder to copy any files you're going to edit to that folder.

Finding NPC files

FOR VILLAGERS

romfs> Npc> Normal> Model

There you can find the .bcres files of every villager

FOR NPCs

romfs> Npc> Special> Model

There you can find the .bcres files of every NPC

Open Ohana3DS rebirth to open and view the .bcres files so you can find the villager or NPC you're looking for

Once you find them, copy them to your desiganted folder

If you want to edit a villagers name you'll need the STR_NNpc_name.umbst file

To find the file go to romfs> Script> Str and find the file, then copy it to your designated folder

If you want to edit your villager's icon go to

romfs> Item> Model

the file will look like brm_(villager id).bcres , FOR EXAMPLE brm_mus17.bcres

When making an NPC into a villager, you're going to have to find a villager to replace. FOR EXAMPLE I edited Sabel and replaced Penelope, so I renamed Sabel's file, hgc.bcres, to mus17.bcres

EDITING THE VILLAGER/NPC

use this guide when it comes to editing the textures and renaming your villager [link]

LOADING YOUR FILES

Now that you have finished your character, heres how you'll put your files on your SD so they'll load into the game

Put your 3DS's SD card into your computer

on the root, located the luma folder

now go to luma> titles> and find Animal Crossing: New Leaf's title ID

US title ID's are

0004000000198F00 for New Leaf

0004000000086300 for Welcome Amiibo

If there is no title ID folder for ACNL, make one

Inside the title ID folder make a romfs folder

In the romfs folder, make a folder for whatever files you edited, so if you edited an NPC, the script, and the NPC icon make 3 folders and name them: Item, Npc, Script

Lets start with Npc first, if you edited a villager or replacing a villager with an NPC, open the Npc folder, make a folder named Normal, open the Normal folder, and make a folder named Model, and in the Model folder put your .bcres file

So luma> title> (title ID)> romfs> Npc> Normal> Model

If you edited an NPC open the Npc folder, make a folder named Special, open the Special folder, and make a folder named Model, and in the Model folder put your .bcres file

So luma> title> (title ID)> romfs> Npc> Special> Model

Now with the script, open the Script folder, and in the Script folder, make a folder named Str, and in the Str folder is where you'll put the .umsbt file

So luma> title> (title ID)> Script> Str

Finally, the villager icon. In your Item folder, make a folder named Model, and in your Model folder, put in the .bcres file that is the villager's icon

So luma> title> (title ID)> Item> Model

Once you have finished that, put your SD back into your 3DS, turn on your console, boot up Animal Crossing, and your custom villager should be there waiting!!

That's All!!

[snowdrop-milk]

*+✧･ﾟ *✧･ﾟマイ ドリーム ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

[hugemarshall]

friend lily and my doing bad @lillycrossingpretty

[eleanr-crossing]

a trip to the local supermarket 🍦🍜

[sourlemondrops]

I ported the flowers from new leaf into city folk!! I didn't think I'd be able to do it on my own haha

[frogtowns]

throwback to plot resetting. worst time of my life

[villagerlavis]

the hoops... THE HOOPS to get an acnl qr pattern into acnh without nintendo switch online 😩

[cicadatree]

frutiger aero themed town 🌎

[azraelasitgets]

tortimer aint the only one with an island

[smell-o-gram]

Normal behavior is making a shrine for your f/o in Animal Crossing

[ye-olde-dream-suite]

Did I find your Dream Town?

Some hacked towns I came across, I honestly don't dislike hacked towns, you can create some really cool things with them, what I don't like are hacked towns that would actively harm your game.

The last two are definitly different towns but this are all the hacked pictures so I bundled them together.

[i-luv-queen]

Before and after Queen mod after material change

If you are modding ACNL and have a similar problem, make sure your model is running on the .bcres’s ORIGINAL material file. However, at night time, the model will have a slight glowing effect. I think the automatically-generated material may be used for nighttime? It’s hard to say, as ACNL furniture/PWP modding isn’t a very explored area in the hacking world.

I think the issue disappears when it’s an indoor furniture mod, because these two models are identical (aside from the left replacing a furniture model and the right replacing a PWP)

[ploverbear]

after the events of the past 1-2 months i stopped like. playing animal crossing and watching severance and doing things for fun so im trying to get back into them but honestly i have no drive to play acnh nor watch severance -___- ...