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Sonic Generations Hacking (and More!)

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by Andrew75, Jun 23, 2011.

  1. Andrew75

    Andrew75

    Technical Artist Member
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    Project AXSX(Sonic Xtreme) + Misc Projects
    Yes the ink runs on the disks.
    You can always go M-Disk burner and media which can last over 1000 years apparently.( we'll see) they look exactly like CDs or DVDs
    I'll be making that my next Tech purchase I thinks, have a lot of photos and long lost sonic Xtreme files that I don't ever want to see vanish.
     
  2. Dario FF

    Dario FF

    Tech Support Hotline Tech Member
    modelfbx can also output the animations if you add them as a parameter. You can specify only the .skl.hkx and the .anm.hkx if you wish to make each FBX file significantly lighter as well instead of including the mesh data. That's how I mass-converted most of the animations using a batch file.

    As for being the best way, it's a bit debatable since it doesn't really export the original animation curves but rather just samples the animation at its original FPS using the Havok SDK for the result. Scaling is also not supported IIRC, but I don't think hkxcmd handles that well either. You won't find that many animations that use scaling that much though, other than the Werehog's. AFAIK hkxcmd has the same problems (at least back when I tried it) so it shouldn't be a big deal.
     
  3. Sappharad

    Sappharad

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    According to wikipedia, average life of a recordable disc (CD-R, DVD-R, etc.) is 10 years.

    But it's all down to the quality of the chemicals in the discs you buy. Back in 2000, most of the blank CD-R's on sale were great. I have Dreamcast discs that I burned 18 years ago that still read perfectly fine. I just went to one of my old spindles, grabbed one of the bottom discs (A CD-R burned on December 30th 2000) and tested it out. The disc is fully readable by the external Blu-Ray burner that I use today. I've noticed that 'newer' discs (2004 and beyond) all had very lightly colored bottoms, where it's difficult to even see with your eyes that the disc was burned. Check out this photo of the bottom of the CD-R that I just tested. It was a spindle of 100 Verbatim CD-R's that I bought sometime in 2000, the bottoms were all a nice rich blue color and you could clearly see where the data was burned. If you compare that to newer CD-Rs, they are so much lighter in color you could barely see the burned area. I'm not saying that's necessarily the reason they were so much better, since ultimately the laser isn't detecting reflections the way our eyes do, but in my experience the discs that had more contrast to the burned area on the bottom happened to be the same discs that lasted the longest. If you look at M-discs, they also have very good contrast in the burned area after being used. All of the discs that I've had problems with even after first burning them always were faded looking on the bottom, or had a weird cloudy appearance instead of being uniform. I've had decent luck with dual layer DVD+R's, many of those had a nice deep purple color, but nothing beats those early 2000 CD-R's with the dark blue recording surface. Well... I guess that's not entirely true.

    You can buy "Archival Grade" Phthalocyanine CD-Rs and DVD-R's, they're claimed to last 100 to 300 years. Not as long as M-Disc claims, but much cheaper than M-disc and don't require a new burner. Unfortunately, when it comes to BD-R M-Disc seems to have market domination on that. Panasonic seems to be the only company that makes archival grade BD-R, and they're more expensive than M-Disc.


    Sorry for trailing off, it just disappoints me that a lot of people have burned discs that stop working after 3 years or so. I haven't used discs for backup for probably 9 years now (multiple hard drives ended up being more convenient) but thankfully most of the old ones I still have are still fine.
     
  4. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    Yeah, I'm using multiple Hard disks myself, Seems cheaper per GB than doing the M-disks in the long run too. lol ( ive had disks die in less than a year myself) but yes all my old CDs from the late 90s and 2000s still work!
    Make sure you spin them up every so often if you have the hard disks in storage! Also I hear tell that SSD are bad for long term storage , but that could be debatable.

    P.S. If anyone has all the model assets ripped please, please contact me. ( looking for characters, level objects, and levels themselves.
     
  5. I'm kind of curious, are we still required to use an older version of 3DS Max, or will the newer versions work? It's been a long time since I seriously looked into doing anything, but I'm actually taking a 3D Modeling and Animation course at college, and we're going to be learning how to use the 2019 version. I thought it might be fun to have a side-project to tinker with while I'm learning.

    By the way, completely off-topic, but since I brought up the class, I thought I'd ask while it's on my mind. I have an essay to do over the weekend regarding a question that my teacher has gotten asked every single time he's taught the class: "Why is there a teapot alongside the built-in basic shapes?". We were specifically told to find sources other than Wikipedia, so I figured asking the question directly and getting direct responses would be a good idea, alongside the typical Google searches and whatever.
     
  6. Sappharad

    Sappharad

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    Most wikipedia pages, especially ones on common topics like the GL Teapot, have a sources section at the bottom of the article. My strategy back when I was in school was to use Wikipedia anyway, but instead of using Wikipedia directly use the sources that the Wikipedia article references instead. That being said, you should have no problem finding non-wikipedia sources for it. Also, if books are still a thing, most books on computer graphics will have something about the Teapot. Might be a great source to look for, check the index for Teapot.
     
  7. Skyth

    Skyth

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    Nah, any version of 3DS Max works, if you use the new tools in LibGens, that is.
    Only limitation I can imagine is importing custom skeletons/animations to the game which requires 3DS Max 2011 or below. (with skeleton I mean the .skl.hkx files)
     
  8. Murasaki Fox

    Murasaki Fox

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    Steve is still having trouble accessing the forums so I'll continue to post for him. xD

    We've got the process down really well for all characters except Sonic. With all other characters we can export individual animation files without having to include the character model itself, but Sonic's animations will only export alongside his model.
     
  9. Melpontro

    Melpontro

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    I did a thing
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHBdZhRzkBE
     
  10. Lanzer

    Lanzer

    The saber calls for its master... Member
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    Living life.
    That is an impressive thing man, good to see you back.

    Thinking of tinkering with Forces at all?
     
  11. TheKazeblade

    TheKazeblade

    "Our Life is More than a Side-Effect" Member
    I just finished my first mod. It attempts to make Modern Sonic control with a lot more precision and finesse similar to the Adventure titles. It's built off of Classic Sonic's movement as a base, with additional tweaks from there. Let me know what you think!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3XueowR9S8&lc=z224czhoon22jxm4y04t1aokgoiqdha1tnbykf0vclgork0h00410

    http://www.moddb.com/mods/modern-adventure-generations-physics-mod
     
  12. TheKazeblade

    TheKazeblade

    "Our Life is More than a Side-Effect" Member
    Sorry for the double-post but I've made revisions to my Modern Adventure physics mod! There were issues with wall jumps, homing attacks and various stage scripting that this revision fixes, plus making non-automated Super Sonic standard.

     
  13. Nikk Mann

    Nikk Mann

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    Got a few quick questions:

    1. Does anyone know how to increase the distance at which real time shadows are rendered when using the fxpipeline? Because right now they pop in only a few feet in front of sonic and its very noticeable.
    (from this post: https://forums.sonicretro.org/index...s-hacking-and-more.25598/page-189#post-764866)

    2. Anyone know of a way to increase the render distance of certain terrain in the unleashed project?
    I know that editing the TerrainModelLoadRange line from Terrain.prm.xml in #SystemCommon.ar.00 affects some of the terrain, but doesn't touch other stuff. For example, it doesn't increase the render distance/get rid of the pop-in at these points in the unleashed project:
    ---https://youtu.be/Vq7VKG5Qvww?t=137 (the island in the back right and the bit of the stage shortly after transitioning from grinding to running)
    ---https://youtu.be/Vq7VKG5Qvww?t=340 (the big tree up ahead)
    ---https://youtu.be/Vq7VKG5Qvww?t=462 (the big chunk of the city while falling)
    ---https://youtu.be/Vq7VKG5Qvww?t=1715 (the background of the level after coming off the rail)
    Another good example is the grass when starting on Planet Wisp in Gens and the Windmill Isle intro stage in the Unleashed Project.
    Sorry for the weird way I have to format the post, the links get all messed up if I do it normally.

    3. Is there a way to uncap the game's frame rate? I know there used to be a cheat engine mod for it, but I remember trying it about a year ago and it not working anymore, and I can't find the link for it anyway.

    4. As stated on my WIP Shadow mod, using the quickstep fix along with the Shadow mod for both Generations and Unleashed Project breaks some effects, like the glow from Shadow's jumpball and boost. This doesn't happen to Sonic as far as I can tell.
    The difference between NoQS fix and QS fix is a few lines in MainSequence.lua in #Application.ar.00. I tried changing them section by section and testing it, but it either did nothing or caused the game to crash. Link to the WIP Shadow mod (https://forums.sonicretro.org/index...g-unleashed-improvements-and-tutorials.38862/)

    EDIT 11/4/2019: After some testing, I found that 1 is caused by using the fxpipeline patch on the game's .exe. Realtime shadows have a tendency to glitch out and disappear then reappear when within a certain distance of the camera. For example, if there's a chair 40 feet away, you can see its real time shadow. Once you move to 30 feet, the shadow suddenly disappears. Once you move to 10 feet, the shadow fades back in. I tested this with default and modded sceneeffects, and with the Unleashed Shaders on and off. it only happens once the .exe is patched.
     
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2019
  14. Jason

    Jason

    *Results not lab tested. Member
    I know Adventure 2 modding is the current hot thing, but Generations is still getting some nice imports.

     
  15. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    Speaking of hot things, I caused this to happen, so you're welcome/I'm sorry.
    [​IMG]
     
  16. Jason

    Jason

    *Results not lab tested. Member
    Nice implants, Sonic.

    Amy's dress coming soon?
     
  17. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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  18. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    Working on my art!
    My god I need that mod in my life.

    And hey funny this was bumped I was curious. Has anyone ever figured out how to use like the wisps or mission character partners like Amy, Tails, and Charmy in regular levels?
     
  19. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

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    Doesn't look like this has been posted yet, but UltimateDarkman is working on a new Shadow mod for Generations. While Shadow mods obviously already exist, Darkman's got some skills, so this is certainly something to look forward to.
     
  20. Skyth

    Skyth

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    Oh hey, this thread got some new posts.

    I've released two Sonic Generations mods this year:

    First one fixes some issues with the FxPipeline Renderer (incorrect bloom glare & depth of field scale) and adds extra features:
    [​IMG]
    Most notable feature is including particles in post processing, which makes them look like Sonic Unleashed. The mod is also completely standalone (does not require Unleashed FxPipeline Shaders).

    Second one is the Free Camera mod:
    [​IMG]
    It allows you to freely manipulate the in-game camera in stages and cutscenes. It also has the ability to teleport Sonic and pause the game when free camera is on.

    Currently, I'm working on an in-game parameter editor using ImGui. It applies and shows all modifications realtime.
    [​IMG]