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Games that featured the Sonic CD Opening & Ending

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Kushami, Mar 7, 2017.

  1. Ayu Tsukimiya

    Ayu Tsukimiya

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    Not positive on this, but I think some shots like that were done digitally, like the part showing the mountain with Eggman's face.

    When you look closely at most cuts from the ending sequence on the Mega CD version, there's almost no weird coloration issues from compression like with the opening. That, and the backgrounds and certain shots (like the close up of Metal Sonic's face with his properly colored red eyes when he flies towards the screen) look suspiciously pixel art-ish. I'm guessing that they originally drew those shots digitally, then went back and did them with cel animation for the PC version or something. Or maybe it's the Mega CD version that was redrawn. Either way, it's definitely different footage we're looking at in those few sequences.

    What I don't understand is why Sega doesn't just remaster the footage using the original film negatives if they still exist. A good, careful job won't result in any frame blending.
     
  2. Mastered Realm

    Mastered Realm

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    The Cel-based version was made even before Sonic CD was ready. The MCD version was redrawn, for sure.
     
  3. RGX

    RGX

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    As a giant obsessed Sonic CD Fanaticc someone who fiddled with redrawing the frames or editing them. I can personally say the process is really time consuming and tedious.

    I posted it in another topic, but I attempted reanimating Amy's skirt from the SEGA CD version using GEMS collection footage(its the bonus video):
    [​IMG]

    I even tried to see what restored frames would look like while also painting new pieces of the background to make the cutscene 16:9 aspect ratio (I know its not the greatest thing, I was just messing with it)
    [​IMG]

    What I noticed is that simply redrawing the frames while leaving the background intact gives off the whole DBZKai look where new animation just sticks out like a sore thumb. To make new art mesh well with the original footage would take plenty of blurring and obscuring. Matching the film grain & pixelation from compression was also an issue for me. It's not an easy task. It would probably just be better to reanimate the whole thing for consistency's sake (but that's a nightmare for one person to do).

    I still want to tackle editing the gems footage some day and just edit out the blended frames & restore lost frames (instead of animating the whole thing all over again), but again, it's not easy.
     
  4. Flygon

    Flygon

    Member
    Yeah, so I feared. Restoring individual problem frames would stick out like a sore thumb. And I know from experience that it's just too time consuming to redraw the whole thing from scratch. :(

    It was worth asking, though!
     
  5. Kushami

    Kushami

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    I'm pretty certain they did the cel animation first, digitized it in some manner, and then spent time cleaning it up and adding those missing flourishes. If you notice, the way it's animated in the original captures used on SMC/Gems the colors are very very very flat so that when the colors are dropped down to the Sega CD 16 color palette (or whatever it- it's limited) it's not affected as much. I imagine they found a way to digitize it, and then from there cleaned it up and customized it for the best visuals. If you look at it, it's very obvious the backgrounds are dithered by some algorithm in the Sega CD version, because it's not dithered in a way a human artist would do but gives off the shape of how a computer would do it. The way things are aliases aren't a normal way an artist would draw outlines, etc.

    These videos were originally animated on cels, which means the original framerate was likely 24fps and not 30 like on these videos on Gems/Mega Collection. The opening has almost all unique frames though, which means the frames were likely messed with/sped up somehow. I'm guessing to get it to sync up they just sped it up to 30. But the problem with this is at which point? Usually when you deinterlace 30fps material that is based on 24fps material, you get 4 unique frames and one duplicate. This pattern repeats. You then decimate it down to 24, which means it deletes that duplicate frame and brings it to 24fps.

    Restoring individual problem frames isn't so bad if you know how many frames you have to fix, and then do it in the proper manner - which would mean blurring things out and using portions of the scene rather than drawing from scratch. Really, I need to look at the source to see how salvageable it is. I've had to recreate a bunch of missing scenes for official projects. We had to completely remake 10 missing frames from the Darkstalkers anime IIRC, for instance.

    Windii, if you can actually send along the SFDs / source audio, I'd like to take a look at them. 100% on both.

    Also, if someone has that 25th Anniversary DVD and doesn't mind ripping the vobs for the opening (or can point to where I can buy it), I'd appreciate it. The animation might be less messed with since it was transfered at DVD spec and not weird game spec.

    (As a heads up, I own all these games - I'm just unsure how to rip properly from Gamecube games.)

    Edit: BTW, RGX: I see what you did to cheat the smoke, but your re-animation otherwise is pretty spot on. Awesome job.

    Edit 2:

    Looks like even way back on the PC version there was bad frame blending on the ending. I dunno if it matches the blends on the others yet or not, but it seems they had trouble converting this even all those years back. Also of note is that the sequences are 15fps - half of the rate of others. Which makes sense at least, given video power at the time.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  6. Linkabel

    Linkabel

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    I can get you the VOB files for the DVD if you tell me how to do it.
     
  7. Windii

    Windii

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    Okay, here's the SFDs from Mega Collection and Gems. You can play them with MPC-HC and take screenshots, alter the aspect ratio and other neat stuff. They have ADX files placed as separate files in case you want them.

    I do have the DVD and the VOB, but like... the VOB itself is 1 GB and contains a bunch of cinematics, including the opening at the very start. It's not split into parts or anything, so uh... How do I go about sending that? I can send it anyway but I may probably have no choice but to just encode the opening itself if you don't feel like downloading a 1 gig VOB with a bunch of irrelevant stuff.

    As for the quality, it's actually not bad. Both Gems and Mega videos seem to have awkward stuff going on with blockiness and mosquito noise, but the DVD version largely doesn't seem to have that problem (or at least it's not quite as severe). I dare say it's probably the best quality of the OP by far, at least in terms of picture sharpness. It's no Blu-Ray or anything, but it'll have to do. The song is the version of Toot Toot Sonic Warrior heard in Sonic Jam with Keiko Utoku's different (I assume earlier because it has more awkward English enunciation going on) vocals.

    Now I just wish the ending was treated just as well.
     
  8. RGX

    RGX

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    If you don't mind taking the time to encode it yourself and sending it our way, that would be awesome, Windii! : )

    As for the other themes, I can always just re-insert the other ones through MKVToolNixGUI. Like I did with the GEMs rips.
     
  9. Windii

    Windii

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    Here's the encode from the DVD. For one thing it's not even interlaced so I didn't do anything except crop left and right sides to remove the black borders.

    For another, here's my encode SA2 trailer that's also on the DVD as a bonus. It was made by Sonic Team way back in early June 2001 but the version they offered for download is in a crap resolution. This one has better quality, and at 60 FPS. It's neat.

    EDIT: Okay I suck, those encodes had improper parameters and so they got audio sync issues. I updated the links with new versions encoded through Handbrake this time. Sorry.
     
  10. Kushami

    Kushami

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    If you can send the vob that's the best for me, even if it's an entire gig. I don't mind downloading 1gb. There are proper ways to extract the video, and having just the .vob is the best for me.

    Thank you for the SFDs! Much much appreciated.

    I need to compare but I think we can fix a bunch of things if we're creative.

    RGX: If we can start getting stuff cleaned up, would you mind sharing your raw files for the Amy blink fix?
     
  11. Kushami

    Kushami

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    Sorry to double post.

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9c0bls5gn9hh565/AABrlz1w85EUTyW7T14sGAXna?dl=0

    I took the SFDs and ADXs provided by Windii. I extracted the original m2v files from the SFDs and converted the adx files to raw .wavs and muxed them into an MKV. This should be easier for people to analyze/mess with without the need to re-encode to AVC which adds more compression. I can provide lossless .AVIS later if people want them, though they would be big.

    Comparing the GEMS vs. MC version vs 25th Anniversary DVD, some observations:
    -the SFDs were MPEG1 (not MPEG2) streams muxed in with the ADX. This is the reason the encoding is pretty crappy, because MPEG1 doesn't do as well with lower bitrates as MPEG2.
    -The MC version is taken from an analogue transfer. The GEMs version is technically a cleaner transfer with better color fidelity.
    -The ending is much much more fiddled with in the MC version than the GEMS version. The Gems version has far less frameblending it looks like. I think for the MC version they just used premiere or something and sped it up until it matched the length of the slow version of Sonic Boom.
    -There is less stairstepping on the linework on the MC version but it unfortunately has a lot of bad dot crawl. The GEMs version is unfortunately host to some bad scaling somewhere along the production pipeline after it was transfered from the master tape.
    -The version from the DVD that Windii uploaded looks to be from the same source tape as the GEMS version, only it doesn't contain the same stairstepping/scaling problems as the GEMs version.


    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    -The DVD version also has slightly more vertical picture and it looks like it's been color corrected more than the GEMs version. The DVD version seems to be the clear winner in terms of best quality total.

    Windii, do you mind still uploading the raw .vobs for the DVD version? I can get something similar to the above going with it pretty easily (lossless conversion to MKV). It looks like your encode was scaled down to 640 instead of the full 720 a DVD requires, and I'd rather work with the original VOB if possible.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2022
  12. SonicGenesis89

    SonicGenesis89

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    Does the 25th Anniversary DVD version of the Sonic CD ending cutscene include the R2 / antlion badnik scene? In the Gems Collection version that scene was missing and that scene is completely ruined and non-salvageable in the Mega Collection version. Another strange thing I noticed is in the Gems Collection version in the Quartz Quadrant scene after Sonic destroys the badnik and the flower pops out the scene is abruptly cut to the Wacky Workbench scene completely skipping a few seconds of animation showing the flower bouncing up and down. Does the DVD version include the full animation of the flower or is it abruptly cut like in the Gems Collection Version? In the Mega Collection and Mega CD / Sega CD version the flower animation is in tact. Oh, yeah, another thing I wanted to ask was if the speed is sped up in the DVD version or is it normal?
     
  13. Windii

    Windii

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    The DVD has no ending at all whatsoever, sorry to disappoint. Only the opening. Might as well make due.
     
  14. Windii

    Windii

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    Here's the VOB of the DVD that has the opening. I recommend playing this on MPC-HC as well since (unless your settings happen to be different to mine or something) the player neatly deinterlaces the VOB so that the 60 FPS parts of the video are actually 60 FPS.

    (As for my thoughts on the rest of the DVD's content, I guess it's pretty neat. The actual quality on the videos is good, barring the limited DVD resolution. It also has the Unleashed opening in a NOT cropped aspect ratio, but it's in English with Japanese hardsubs so that sucks. Can't win 'em all.)
     
  15. RGX

    RGX

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    I'm sorry, theres no original file (worked on a premiere file) anymore, All I have left are of the frames of the skirt I drew that was overlayed and mixed with gems footage.
     
  16. Kushami

    Kushami

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    Thanks for the vob of the DVD! Interesting how much better this encode is. They must've gotten it right from the source. It's a huge shame they didn't release the ending song too. Maybe they'll release another album like this someday.

    It's a shame the DVD is pillarboxed, but I guess they tried to make it easy to encode.

    One thing I've found out is looking at the Sonic Jam version, it, too, has frameblending in the ending. It's just hidden by the terrible blockyness. Which is a real shame.

    I think fixing a lot of the ending is doable. I wonder if we can get some artists around here to help us? We could break it up by shot, really.

    RGX, just having those frames would be perfectly fine!

    I've been doing some tests, though, and I'm curious how, for the remake version they managed to get rid of the wobble problem. I've tried a few methods but none of them have been exact. I wonder if they went in and framedoubled/masked and repeated certain frames or something.
     
  17. RGX

    RGX

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    Hope this helps!

    https://mega.nz/#!ehMTCYBa!2XpTAka0Cq8_q22ZEM1BkeO9GxgCNX7Pd5v6etQdi6M
     
  18. bookman the stinky

    bookman the stinky

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    Storyboarding when? :v:/>
     
  19. Windii

    Windii

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    I'm pretty sure the pillarboxing is because the DVD is a mix of 4:3 and 16:9 footage. It makes sense.
     
  20. Ayu Tsukimiya

    Ayu Tsukimiya

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    New Retro project: A team of artists re-animate all of the CD sequences frame-by-frame.. :specialed:

    In all seriousness I just wish Sega would hire Toei to trace over the thing.