Generations PC Unleashed Porting - Public Hardware Test #1

Something just occured to me; How modifyable is the hub world, actually? Is the geometry replaceable? Are the sets going to be replaced with custom sets depicting the Unleashed levels? That'd actually be pretty cool and something the community could contribute to, from concept art to modelling to retrofitting textures, etc.

 

The cool thing about editing the hubworld is, that we can make it 3d actually and it will still work for pushing up on the control stick to enter a stage. So in theory we could have this huge hub worlds that are expansive that connect to one another. That fit each others theme.

So yes, it is very open to be edited. We just need a idea of what it should look like. If any concept artists would like to depict that. I say go for it then. Since pretty much everything in there can be remodeled.

Only thing that would be a problem would just be for Classic Sonic for his Spindash since he cannot do that in 3d. Unless we were to disable it in the hub.

 

Someone has to fix Classic Sonic's spindash in 3D. I mean spikes work in 3D, anyway we could use that in this situation?

 

More dum hub world questions. From my fraps footage of the hubworld and what I know about interactive scoring techniques, I am -convincingly- (not absolutely) sure that:

1) Each zone/boss has its own looping theme (hurr durr falk)
2) They're all the same BPM (138) and are 10 bars long - an 8-bar phrase containing the most recognizable hook from the music followed by a 2-bar turnaround
3) There's a 1-bar intro regardless on which zone you start in front of, this has to segue perfectly into the start of each zone
4) The 10 bar zone loops are divided into 1-bar audio files; incidentally the swaps also occur on the bar, and this maintains relative position within the 10 bar loop. (I'm convinced of the file split because of the noticable seams on barlines in songs which syncopate and skip the downbeat)
5) It is not sample-accurate the same way audio engines like Wwise, etc are- I'm definitely noticing irregular drifting across long periods of time

Stylistically:
Instrumentation is as sparse as possible, probably mirroring the 'unfinished' look of the hub worlds. The constant is electric bass and a very raw drum kit, either double-tracked acoustic or overdrive guitars, and at most 1 lead instrument, 1 backing line, most often violin or flute but also inclusive of harmonica and synths (e.g. CPZ, PW)

I'm going to attempt to make loops for all the Generations stages that -should- sound similar enough in tone that they can be believably segued to/from the current material if the mega-hub-world-thingoo takes off, but obviously since the sound of ESPECIALLY the drums won't be identical, I'll also recreate the 1-bar intro and Rooftop Run so that there's a discrete set of Unleashed loops that sound like they came from the same session, same should the Unleashed mod be completely seperate from the base game.

 

This works perfect for me other than the original named issues of the camera.

I am running the following specs

Gigabyte UD3R mobo
i7 920 (C0)
6gb Corsair ram
Nvidia GTS 250 with 512mb vRam (XFX Variant)

Hope this is of some help to you guys.

Craig

 

That sounds good, I'm willing to start modeling something, soon as someone has some ideas of how they want the hubworld to be. I'd have to limit things like no spindashing and no drifting, possibly no boosting either to be fair. But I'm willing if you people would like a hubs that interconnect that are like Unleashed's hub-worlds. It sounds a lot better than just having some model replacement and having the same setting in that white world. So if you got any ideas on it, shout it out since I rather not be unoriginal and just clash hubworld models together.





Yeah the HDR lighting is handled differently in Generations than it was in Unleashed. To get a right tone for it. Generations is too high contrast. I just need to find a right middle man for the values to make it seem just right. I can't stand the over brightness it gives me a headache.

 

I was definitely scratching my head wondering if Apotos Act 1 was during dusk and I just forgot, but it definitely looks like the lighting needs a touch-up pass. As it is it really does imply evening or late afternoon and the shadows are all wrong for that.

Regarding the Hub Worlds: I'm actually still of the mindset that doing up Unleashed level set pieces in the way the current hub world is would be a really nifty thing; especially if they looked like they could have been official work when put side by side with the current zone set pieces.

Also, rough mix: http://soundcloud.com/falk-2/apotoshub

edit: You know, this is actually quite lethargic. While some of the hub world remixes in Generations (I.e. Rooftop Run) manage to pull off some crazy arrangements to make them sound right at a lower BPM, the Unleashed soundtrack as a whole is just higher, like 150BPM+ off top of head for the day stages. I'm assuming though that the hub world music is hard-coded to a certain extent and we can't really mess with the BPM or loop length.

 

^This. I posted a video a few pages back showing the spike-dash working in 3D, maybe theres some way to use that?

 

So I've just been messing around. Learning more about how the sceneeffect.prm.xml thing works and I love the stuff that I'm finding.

Also I liked the specular map on Unleashed more than Generations bronze look.

 

Goddammit. That just makes me want to see Sonic be able to cross that gap of water and run into that island in the distance. Unleashed looked pretty damn good for the pseudo realistic artstyle they were going for. If there was some way to really open up acts like that with the Generations Engine I wold be all for it. Sonic flies across the water, maybe jumps between those racks and onto the green slope into the town. Maaaan.


Downloading now to test this out on my crappy laptop. Again awesome work Dario and Co.

 

Welp, so I was wrong about a few of my assumptions: It seems there is more than one entry loop.

Last few dum hub world music implementation questions (I promise)

-Is the length of each bar (I.e. the BPM) and the length of the total loop hardcoded?
-Is the number of different zones hardcoded? I.e. is it possible to append Unleashed Hub World music instead of replacing entries should we go to the mega-Hub-World-Mashup (in 2.5D, as it currently is!) route

(this one is a little derp and maybe it's already somewhere on the forums but I'm really pressed for time)
-Could you get me -all- the music files, exactly as they are, with filenames intact, for the Hub World? I don't want them stitched, I don't want them looped; I already know the implementation; I just want to see how the files are organized, and much more importantly have the raw files as they appear in the vanilla game assets so that I can match volume levels and how the audio are prepared split into bars/etc. THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT FOR PLAYBACK since the music engine in the hub world doesn't appear to be sample-accurate the way the boost/non-boost swapping algorithm is in actual Acts.

 

Everything runs for me beautifully.
System spcs:
OPERATING SYSTEM:
Windows 2.6.1.7601 (Service Pack 1)
CPU TYPE:
AMD FX(tm)-4100 Quad-Core Processor
CPU SPEED:
3.62 GHz
SYSTEM MEMORY:
8 GB
VIDEO CARD MODEL:
AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series
VIDEO CARD MEMORY:
753 MB
VIDEO CARD DRIVER:
aticfx32.dll

Keep up the good work.

 

http://soundcloud.com/falk-2/white-world-unleashed

Changed the URL for this; Apotos and Holoska sort-of-done. All the other zones probably will be added to the same URL (<3 soundcloud replace clip feature)

 

you're by far one of the best composers I've ever encountered! good work Falk, you're trully a genius!

 

The original files should be fine, I think (not to mention .wav would be a ton of bandwidth for no reason)

I'll figure out conversion and such. (ty GW)

 

totally agreed there. Too bad my computer can't run Generations :/ I need a new graphic card...