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Sega Saturn interesting finds

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by TeaTime_Beta, Jan 19, 2013.

  1. TeaTime_Beta

    TeaTime_Beta

    Beta of Sokyodai Member
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    Research on outdated formats and platforms.
    I don't have any of the Panzer Dragoon games....yet. I will however be heading to a convention in July, so I'll check there for Panzer Dragoon.

    As for NiGHTS into Dreams and Rayman, I can load up stuff in TiledGDD with Rayman. NiGHTS into Dreams loads absolutely nothing, though I get some weird stuff in the Hex editor that I'm sure everyone already knows about. I know that SANiK released a model viewer/ripper a while back, but I can't find a mirror of it anywhere.
     
  2. Meat Miracle

    Meat Miracle

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    Panzer Dragoon Zwei gives you the Pandora Box which unlocks a ridiculous amount of extra options that alter the game in many ways (you want to play the game Space Harrier style, with a flying dude only?). Don't know about Panzer 1 or Saga, but 1 is kinda meh after Zwei, and Saga already has so much content inside that I wouldn't know where to begin looking for more.

    Nights sucks.
     
  3. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    Ahh man , Panzer dragoon saga is one of my all time favorite games, I pre-orderd it. if I recall it was the second to last Sega Saturn game that came out in the US.. Man that was so long ago I may not be remembering this correctly. I know it was near the end anyways,
    Magic Knight Rayearth was the last US Saturn game. When I got PD Saga there was a small crack in disk 2, it was playable at the time, but since then the crack has gotten bigger and rendered the second disk unplayable.
    Back when the second Panzer game came out there was a playable demo at Toys R' Us, I have never again seen the level anywhere else.
    If you make 100% kills in every level for the second game you get all the box game secrets I believe, including beta footage.
     
  4. TeaTime_Beta

    TeaTime_Beta

    Beta of Sokyodai Member
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    I think my next adventure is going to involve Sonic 3D Blast: Flickies Island, and I've already noticed that the unused pictures found in the PC version are also unused in the game. Considering the load times, I think it would have at least made them more interesting if they used the pictures instead of the generic LOADING background. On the case of tiles and backgrounds, I'm doing thorough research on the files and documenting what they appear to be and do.
     
  5. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    Hope you have better luck than I did.
     
  6. Yarharhar

    Yarharhar

    Oldbie
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    NiGHTS and Christmas NiGHTS!
    Port the nights levels to the superior xmas nights engine!
    Get sonic playable in the other nights levels! ooOOoOo
     
  7. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    We have what looks to be the Metal Sonic boss background building textures here.
    [​IMG] Anyone interested in attempting to extract them correctly ?
     
  8. TeaTime_Beta

    TeaTime_Beta

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    Christmas NiGHTS uses the exact same engine as NiGHTS into Dreams. There's literally no difference other than the inclusion of a clock and some new menus.
     
  9. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    The renderer seems updated in Xmas Nights. Polygon pop in issues have been fixed.
     
  10. TeaTime_Beta

    TeaTime_Beta

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    I'm saying that the game plays identically. NiGHTS doesn't control any better in Christmas NiGHTS than in the standard release of NiGHTS.
     
  11. Elratauru

    Elratauru

    Little Shiny Emurralds Member

    Hmmm, you weren't. But yes. Andrew75 is right, Christmas NiGHTS engine was enhanced a little when it comes to pop in. Mostly because this was a later release and this means that the developers optimized the engine even after released. It would be amazing to find NiGHTS protos where we could look the engine development from zero to what it is on Christmas NiGHTS.
     
  12. dsrb

    dsrb

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    I pre-ordered it too, in the UK. Man, that was too long ago. . . Along the way, someone (almost certainly not me) has thrown away the cardboard outer sleeve, and the disks and manuals have someone fallen into a very sad state of repair. Oh well, it's still playable, which is the main thing, plus I guess it has some sentimental value.

    By far the easiest thing to do, if you have it, is simply to create a save file from Saga. Cleverly, Zwei was programmed in advance to check for files from its sequel and enable all the secrets if one is found.
     
  13. TeaTime_Beta

    TeaTime_Beta

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    While that would be intriguing to do, I certainly do NOT have any knowledge on how I could even obtain something like that, let alone afford it. I'm just going to leave that up to fate and luck.

    However onto the subject of ripping... I have a bookmark of particular post that was written by SANiK that mentions some sort of observation along the lines of "Sonic Team used the same formatting for all of their games(Starting with the Saturn), just updated slightly for each release. Now this is somewhat of a stretch, but if someone were to use the information located in that post and applied it to something like the SADX model viewer, we could have a halfway decent model viewer/ripper for NiGHTS into Dreams and/or Christmas NiGHTS. (Which as far as I know, uses identical formatting, though I'm unsure on this.)

    The aforementioned article.

    http://sadxforum.freeforums.org/sanik-s-notes-issue-2-saturn-format-t191.html

    Yes, I am aware that SANiK himself released a NiGHTS into Dreams model viewer, but it seems to have been lost to the sands of time. I can't find any mirrors of it, so if someone's got a copy of it, then we could completely skip this step.
     
  14. Glaber

    Glaber

    Has Beaten Sonic Genesis for GBA Oldbie
    so, has there been any progress on the Sonic world model since the ground texture was successfully captured?
     
  15. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    I have been pretty busy renovating my house IRL, I did do some item placement stuff, and a bit more modeling for the floating TV's since we don't have the models ripped. ( and yeah the floor is in place and the river is cut into the ground already.)
    I probably wont have anything releasable anytime super soon, sorry.
    Also keep in mind I do have AXSX, Jam is a side project.

    SANiK needs to get his butt back here and form a Saturn hacking repository or something, its sad that he did so much work and than it all disappeared when he did.
    Anyone seen SANiK lately ?! Its like he just Up And vanished.
     
  16. Glaber

    Glaber

    Has Beaten Sonic Genesis for GBA Oldbie
    Ok, just figured I'd ask.
     
  17. Meat Miracle

    Meat Miracle

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    We already have the Japanese demo disc if you want to look at earlier-than-final code for Nights (we have the E3 demo disc too, but it's 99% identical, only the title screens are swapped between the two).
     
  18. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    http://I.imgur.com/IiC4vGd.jpg
    http://I.imgur.com/C3glQeD.jpg
    http://I.imgur.com/Wqfq759.jpg No faked true quad polygons
    http://I.imgur.com/gDHTYJW.jpg With Faked saturn true Quad polygons
     
  19. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    Hah, nice work there!

    How long has it taken you to extract all of this correctly?
     
  20. Lostgame

    Lostgame

    producer/turnablist. homebrew dev. cosplayer. Oldbie
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    The O.I.C.
    and where is the model? do wannnnt :(