[Andrew75]

Xrick asked me to post a question here on retro since he cant quite do it himself. I thought it kind of interesting.
He's looking for the actual Sonic and friends models from Sonic 3D blast's special stage, Sonic R, and Sonic Jam so that he can do a comparison to see what kinds of differences he can spot between the Saturn game's models.
I think other models he may like to see is Sonic from X-mas Nights, and maybe the model found in Sonic Adventure from the top of the Tornado.
If anyone has these , please share some screens or possibly the models themselves.

Few images as a basis.

Sonic Jam Models


Sonic R Models

This post has been edited by Andrew75: 15 December 2016 - 06:20 PM

[Dark Sonic]

So, what's the deal with the Saturn Sonic's having the lopsided eyes?

[Andrew75]

The art guy was drunk !

[InvisibleUp]

It seems to be a side-effect of Sonic's eye not being a perfect rectangle like the texture is. I know it renders like that in Sonic R's Direct3D mode. (Not sure on DirectDraw; crashes on my machine.)

Also, there's some unused models I found with the models for the menu and result screen icons. I believe these were used in the Saturn version for the results screen instead of the actual player model. Believe it or not, they're actually worse.



Poses are as-is from the game. Those grey areas are where texture coordinates weren't defined for whatever reason. Here's the download if you need it: https://dl.dropboxus...er%20models.zip

[Andrew75]

InvisibleUp, on 16 December 2016 - 08:47 PM, said:

It seems to be a side-effect of Sonic's eye not being a perfect rectangle like the texture is. I know it renders like that in Sonic R's Direct3D mode. (Not sure on DirectDraw; crashes on my machine.)

Also, there's some unused models I found with the models for the menu and result screen icons. I believe these were used in the Saturn version for the results screen instead of the actual player model. Believe it or not, they're actually worse.



Poses are as-is from the game. Those grey areas are where texture coordinates weren't defined for whatever reason. Here's the download if you need it: https://dl.dropboxus...er%20models.zip

Thx man very interesting indeed! so yeah now some questions!
These were ripped from the Saturn game or the PC game? Could you further explain a little more about the models? Where did they came from and how they were obtained? I'm interested comparing them to the player models that you mention, would you happen to have them as well?
Anyways In ripping models from the Saturn build, the eye polygons may not be rounded because of the Bow tie polygon trick that the Saturn could do with the True Quad polygons that would allow rounded features to be faked by twisting them into a bow tie shape. and that bowtie shape wouldn't be able to be ripped properly unless new method is produced to fake the trick, ( ie adding in new vertex, or subdividing after twist but keep hard edges would be two methods I can think of)

Edit:
I don't have the Saturn build in front of me right now so I'm taking a guess what polygons were bow tied here. The polygons 1 and 2 and maybe the triangle between them would have been the area that the bow tie polygons were in force, and when extracting the models than they did not translate properly to our modern triangle mesh causing the eye texture's top to be cut in half. Also if you look at knuckles spines in the rip supplied they appear lower polygon, again that would have been remedied with the true quad polygons.



Edited again. Saturn build showing tails eyes in game, as you can see they are rounded.
Also if compairing to the PC version of the game, models there are high poly in comparison to the Saturn build. ( for example tails has whiskers in the PC build and different hands, just finished looking at some gameplay videos to make some comparisons)

This post has been edited by Andrew75: 17 December 2016 - 10:01 AM

[InvisibleUp]

Okay, let me explain a little better.

The normal player models (the one in your OP and up for download at The Models Resource) are the only ones used in the PC version. They're used in game play, on the player select screen, on the results screen, and in the credits. (For the record, that's all the places a character model is shown. Although I'm not sure about the time trial records screen.)

The ones I just ripped are also from the PC version (sorry, don't know how to rip the Saturn models), but they are unused. These models are stored with the models used in the menu (ex: the GP icons, the course previews, etc.) in the file /bin/option/option3.bin. (It's actually a level geometry file, weirdly enough.)
I'm assuming that these are copies of the ones used in the Saturn version for the results screen and possibly the character select screen as well. (I'm not certain if they're the same as the one used in the Saturn version's gameplay, though.)



These results screen models seem to be earlier versions of the ones used in-game, as some things are different. (Especially Knuckles. Poor guy.)

Also, about the eyes, couple things to point out. For one, even in that Saturn screenshot the eyes were lopsided. Weird.

Secondly, Tails' eyes are never displayed that way in game. Before rendering the game overwrites the textures on the "eye faces" with either open or closed eyes, depending on whether or not the character is blinking. This means that it's totally irrelevant what's on those faces as they're going to get overwritten regardless. I suppose the modelers either didn't know or didn't care that the top half of Tails' eyes were missing, as ultimately it didn't matter. (This texture goof is present in the actual in-game model as well. I just manually corrected it in my dump.)

---

EDIT: You can see the eye texture process in action with my custom Amy model from forever ago.



Notice how Amy (replacing Sonic) has Sonic's eye texture on her left glove, replacing the usual white.

EDIT 2: Fixed some awkward phrasing.

This post has been edited by InvisibleUp: 17 December 2016 - 02:52 PM

[Andrew75]

Thx for the details ! Anyways I think we need to get the R models ripped from the Saturn game someday to find out more. or perhaps someone has already done that but its all lost to the sands of time here on the net.

This post has been edited by Andrew75: 17 December 2016 - 02:38 PM

[XRick]

Having this thread been created on my request (thanks a lot, Andrew75), I wanted to make a small contribution to it.
Namely, this video by tuber ClassicSonicSatAm:


And this image from his DeviantArt:


Classic 3D Models have been, ever since the Saturn days, something mystical to me, they'd always captivate me in the weirdest ways.
Hence my crusade for proper images of said Classic Models, especially the JAM/3D Blast ones.
I sure hope the little that has been exposed here may help others advance further into this matter.


All of this also makes me wonder how would have the Saturn Project ended up as if it hadn't been pushed onto the DreamCast, becoming Sonic Adventure.

This post has been edited by XRick: 12 May 2018 - 10:01 AM

[Jmtshaw]

It's pretty cool how much of 3D there is in Jam. Some of Jam's unused animations are leftovers from 3D's special stages, like the curling he does when going into a jump and his flip after hitting springs in 3D.

[biggestsonicfan]

XRick, on 12 May 2018 - 07:54 AM, said:

Classic 3D Models have been, ever since the Saturn days, something mystical to me, they'd always captivate me in the weirdest ways.
Hence my crusade for proper images of said Classic Models, especially the JAM/3D Blast ones.
I sure hope the little that has been exposed here may help others advance further into this matter.


All of this also makes me wonder how would have the Saturn Project ended up as if it hadn't been pushed onto the DreamCast, becoming Sonic Adventure.

Doesn't the low-resolution Tornado also use a low-poly Sonic? Also, Sonic the Fighters now has a debug-mode for a model viewer, recently discovered and working. I'm not really interested in ripping them though, but I thought it would give you something nice to look at. Fighting Vipers also contains a 3D Sonic model.

[XRick]

In my case, my interest is majorly on the Saturn Models, especially those from Sonic 3D & JAM.

[biggestsonicfan]

XRick, on 20 May 2018 - 09:57 AM, said:

In my case, my interest is majorly on the Saturn Models, especially those from Sonic 3D & JAM.

I can count on one hand how many Saturn games used a Sonic model, and you have not included Christmas NiGHTs. I was just offering a bit of niche advice to a niche interest, but you seem more focused on the Western releases. The Sonic model from StF is even included at the end of the ClassicSonicSatAm video. I'm just baffled why you want to compare these ones specifically so bad and not include the other models from this era?

[XRick]

I'm not saying they can't be talked about here, the thread can be that flexible and anyone can contribute to it the way they deem best.
It's just that when @Andrew75 started this thread by my request, it was mainly for the sake of the 3D & JAM Models, the ones I've been mostly interested in until SA1 onwards.


EDIT: According to this TCRF page, it seems Sonic & Tails's Sky Chase models seemed to simply be low-poly models of the modern ones, possibly as a reference to their Saturn Models.

This post has been edited by XRick: 07 June 2018 - 07:49 PM