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Sonic 2 Special Stage Editor

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by flamewing, Feb 10, 2011.

  1. flamewing

    flamewing

    Emerald Hunter Tech Member
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    Sonic Classic Heroes; Sonic 2 Special Stage Editor; Sonic 3&K Heroes (on hold)
    Edit: New version released:
    [​IMG]

    Changes:
    • Fully functional undo/redo: you can now undo your mistakes -- whether it is the deletion of a ring group, a segment or even an entire special stage. The undo/redo are also smart, grouping many related actions.
    • WYSIWYG drag/drop of selections.
    • Rings and bombs can now be drawn in lines, loops, triangles and more in a click-and-drag manner, adding several rings and bombs in a WYSIWYG manner.
    • Added a counter showing total rings, bombs and ring/bomb shadows. This can be used to keep them within limits, which would prevent a segment from ever ending.
    • Grid-lock (toggled through toolbar button, defaults to on) constrains the possible angles for ring and bomb placement.
    You can grab the Windows binary or the source code.

    The original content of the post has been wrapped in spoiler tags.

    Edit: New version released. New screenshot: [​IMG]
    The changes are rendering the special stage track to give a better visual guide of what is where and adding constrained object creation (ctrl+left click when inserting rings or bombs).

    Windows version 0.1.1.

    Source tarball 0.1.1.

    The rest of the original post follows:

    I have been working on th past couple of weeks in an editor for the Sonic 2 Special Stages. The result is this:
    [​IMG]
    With it, you can edit the object placement (rings, bombs), how the special stage twists and turns (within S2 engine constraints), how long each special stage is and how many special stages are in the files. For other things (background, palette, ring requirements or actually making any new special stages work in-game, to name a few), you need to edit the disassembly.

    There is a pre-compiled version for Windows (click here for v0.1), which can be extracted anywhere you like.

    There is also a source tarball (click here for v0.1), which can be used to build it for Linux (or for Windows, if you are masochistic enough not to take the binary blob above). To compile, you need libgtkmm-2.4-dev version >= 2.12, and all associated dependencies (see e.g., this for a quick summary).

    In either case, the included readme is essential for using it, but I think the program is user-friendly enough to dispense with it.

    I welcome any suggestions/bug reports.

    Edit: You can also grab the source code on GitHub.
     
  2. theocas

    theocas

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    I suppose I can compile this for OS X too, right? It looks so promising...
     
  3. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    Hah, cool stuff, it's about time we got a Special Stage editor for Sonic 2 (as mentioned many, many times before), I've gotta give this a go soon, see how interesting it'd be to create new special stages.

    Nice work from what I can see so far though!
     
  4. flamewing

    flamewing

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    Sonic Classic Heroes; Sonic 2 Special Stage Editor; Sonic 3&K Heroes (on hold)
    I think so. You may have to use Fink to do it, and some twiddling of configure.ac may be required. If you get it working, I'd appreciate knowing the steps so that I can add them to SVN.
     
  5. Scarred Sun

    Scarred Sun

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    Welp, this.
    I have been bitching about this for a DECADE.

    You have made my dreams.
     
  6. The special stage no one thought would get an editor GETS AN EDITOR?!

    Awesomesauce. I can only imagine what goodness will come from this!
     
  7. PsychoSk8r

    PsychoSk8r

    PsychedelAnt | Tone Turner Oldbie
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    It's about time somebody did this! Well done! =P
     
  8. nineko

    nineko

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    Flamewing, I will upload this on the wiki soon if you agree.
    Just a question: does it have a name, or is it just "Sonic 2 Special Stage Editor"?
    Also, the "readme" file included alongside the Windows executable should probably be renamed to "readme.txt" to make it easier to read for people who use Windows and are complete noobs, and it should use CR+LF so that Notepad displays it right. It's just a minor thing, though.
    Bonus points for not using .net
     
  9. Azu

    Azu

    I must be stupid. Member
    This awesome and all, but it would be a nice for a direct rom edit.
    In any event, is it possible to add like a line tool or some type of array creation tool?
     
  10. Azu

    Azu

    I must be stupid. Member
    Edit: Didn't know it when through.
     
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  11. flamewing

    flamewing

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    Sonic Classic Heroes; Sonic 2 Special Stage Editor; Sonic 3&K Heroes (on hold)
    Agre to Wiki. The name is just that: Sonic 2 Special Stage Editor.

    Next revision will do both. Here is a screenshot for the Wiki (already for the next revision):
    [​IMG]

    I have little incentive for doing that seeing as I use Linux myself. Sure, some people are falling all over for Mono, but I just don't like it.
     
  12. nineko

    nineko

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  13. minichapman

    minichapman

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    What can I say that hasn't been said that hasn't been said before?

    Absolutely fantastic work there.
     
  14. MarkoMan

    MarkoMan

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    Oh boy... this looks like fun.

    I wonder how many special stages one could possibly make...
     
  15. Arctides

    Arctides

    I am a bloated bag of hate. Oldbie
    This is certainly a great tool, as we haven't had a utility to edit the S2 Special Stages before (though ones for S1 and S3K have existed for ages).
    ... Yet I get the feeling that we're going to see penis-shaped ring clusters in a hack because of this.
     
  16. Mr Lange

    Mr Lange

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    With all the Sonic 2 rom hacks out there, the one part never changed were the special stages. Years later we will finally have some fresh half pipe special stages to play. Awesome.
     
  17. Jimmy Hedgehog

    Jimmy Hedgehog

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    Penis Special Stage Sonic 2 Edition anyone? :v:

    This tool looks great! Would love to try it sometime ^^
     
  18. SegaLoco

    SegaLoco

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    Wow, simply wow. I clap for you my friend. I considered doing something like this a while back, but I could never arse myself to study up on the format. I'm so glad you made this!!! Good work!! :D
     
  19. Eduardo Knuckles

    Eduardo Knuckles

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    Thanks, flamewing. Thanks A LOT. Our dreams are now really a true fact. If we had a Blue Spheres special stage editor, more than one Sonic 1 Special Stage editors, why not a Sonic 2 Special Stage editor? ;)

    Que trabalho fabuloso, fabuloso demais.
    E das mãos de um brasileiro!
    Você realmente realizou meus sonhos, cara. Parabéns pelo feito surpreendente!
     
  20. Mr Lange

    Mr Lange

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    Maybe someone can help with this.
    I'm using the 2007 Sonic 2 disassembly. I split a clean rom and all the files were put in there proper places.
    I used the latest Sonic 2 Special Stage Editor here, and navigated to the misc folder as instructed.
    The moment I pressed ok, the program consumed tons of memory, and minutes later dropped an error message like:
    "This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way."
    What in the hell. That sounds suspiciously like the program requested too much memory. I have 512 mb ram, is that seriously not enough for this program??