[Spanner]

Jokingly, I would love it if somebody had the time to piece up a texture replacement based on the original zone, such as Metropolis Zone in Mad Gear and Labyrinth in Lost Labyrinth Zone. Of course, that would involve more work considering the fact that newer tiles would need to be made, but it'd just be like playing the original game...except with paper mache badniks. Is that actually possible?

This post has been edited by SOTI: 30 October 2010 - 09:07 PM

[evilhamwizard]

Another thing I think might be possible for those who desire higher quality graphics - can we possibly take the higher res from the 360 version's AMB files, convert them to .png, and then use Dolphin's hires texture feature to replace the textures with the ones from the 360 version. This should make the graphics a bit better looking when using a PC, not sure if it'll slow down the game to a crawl. But I think if you got the game to run at a constant 60fps on Dolphin already it should be able to take them.

tl;dr hires graphic replacement project using the graphics from the x360 version.

Been there, done that. It works perfectly.

pix/patch plz, just curious as to how it looks using dolphin's rendering of the graphics.

[Polygon Jim]

Another thing I think might be possible for those who desire higher quality graphics - can we possibly take the higher res from the 360 version's AMB files, convert them to .png, and then use Dolphin's hires texture feature to replace the textures with the ones from the 360 version. This should make the graphics a bit better looking when using a PC, not sure if it'll slow down the game to a crawl. But I think if you got the game to run at a constant 60fps on Dolphin already it should be able to take them.

tl;dr hires graphic replacement project using the graphics from the x360 version.

Been there, done that. It works perfectly.

pix/patch plz, just curious as to how it looks using dolphin's rendering of the graphics.

I only did Splash Hill at the time but deleted it about a week later as I can't even run Dolphin very fast in the first place. It looks identical to the 360 version beyond the Sonic model itself though.

[Alphaman]

It's easy enough to make code to the effect of "IF 1+2=4 THEN do nothing" to fill the space.

IF 1 + 2 = 4 THEN you better fix your CPU, 'cause that should NEVER be 4. If you're gonna use fake-code, at least be sure to put a variable after "IF"s, because using constants will do jackshit (unless that was in-depth joke about the incorrectly rounding Pentiums in the midnineties).

Until we know how these segments work (I.e. what causes Sonic to stick to the ceiling like glue and keep on running) this is all just guessing anyway. Maybe ceilings really just have special attributes to them, and you could just alter the special physics aplies to these. Or it's completely different and a bitch to find out and work around. It's not like Dimp's is gonna tell us; and somewhat rightfully so - they'd somewhat admit that the product was flawed since they're supporting the fans' attempts to change it; and didn't somebody say that they said the physics can't just be changed without having to alter the rest of the gameplay as well?

This post has been edited by Alphaman: 30 October 2010 - 09:54 PM

[DigitalDuck]

You are the world's best programmer. I think you should add in your suggested modification right now.

Point missed. It was mentioned earlier that there seems to be some switch that makes Sonic stick to walls or ceilings when he is on them; if this is the case, there will be code to that effect (although, OBVIOUSLY, it won't be written like that, especially not when compiled. I wasn't suggesting it would be.). Removing that code will stop Sonic sticking to walls and ceilings.

It's easy enough to make code to the effect of "IF 1+2=4 THEN do nothing" to fill the space.

IF 1 + 2 = 4 THEN you better fix your CPU, 'cause that should NEVER be 4. If you're gonna use fake-code, at least be sure to put a variable after "IF"s, because using constants will do jackshit (unless that was in-depth joke about the incorrectly rounding Pentiums in the midnineties).

Point missed even more. This is space filling; therefore it's code that does nothing. 1+2 doesn't equal 4, therefore the code after "THEN" will never be executed. That's the point.


Jeez, guys, I'm just talking about quick 'n' dirty modifications. Clearly I'll just let you guys deal with people asking whether certain things are possible, and then watch you deal with it with needless detail that'll leave them asking many more questions.

[Polygon Jim]

I don't have any big updates as I'm lazy and also have some other projects in the works, but as I couldn't sleep last night I worked on 2 of the simple formats in S4. Neither are complete yet, but I'll work on them some more after I get some sleep.

CODE

.MSG files. Big Endian

0x00 dword //#ASG
0x04 dword //01 02 00 00
0x08 dword //Number of text blocks
0x0C dword //00 00 00 10
0x10 dword //00 00 00 01
0x14 dword //Pointer to text offsets

text offset dword //check 0x08 for amount




00 //end text
0A //linebreak
2E //period

CODE

.TXB Big Endian

0x00 dword //#TXB
0x04 dword //00 00 00 10
0x10 dword //number of files

0x1C dword //pointer to first filename

[Polygon Jim]

I was going to wait until there was more too it, but full level editing is now a possibility. The stage layout/collision itself has been figured out finally.

http://I.imgur.com/TuRZ6.png
Built the tile layout in Photoshop as a test in that image.


Collision and Tile layout are as follows.

CODE

MP format //Big Endian

0x00 word //grid width
0x02 word //grid height
0x04 word //this is the start of the grid
;multiply the width+height to get the total amount of spaces.
;grid goes from left to right, 1 row at a time going from top row to bottom row.

Plane A and B collision files.
ZONE**_ATTR_A.MP
ZONE**_ATTR_B.MP


Plane A and B tile layout files.
ZONE**_A.MP
ZONE**_B.MP



Plane A of the tile layout and collision files will match up in grid size, and filesize. The same is true for plane B.

As example you will see 00 09 for a flat grass tile in SHZ, at the same offset in the collision file you will see 00 EE to denote solid ground.



Hopefully a level editor is soon to follow, I'm not a tool programmer though so I'm counting on someone else to do that part. I'll be trying to get more notes on the format soon.

This post has been edited by Polygon Jim: 21 February 2011 - 08:24 PM

[Lanzer]

Wow a level editor is possible?! Thats amazing jim you found that out!

This post has been edited by Lanzer: 21 February 2011 - 10:55 PM

[Azu]

Wow, you've made great progress. I do hope someone is up to the task.

[evilhamwizard]

It'd be great if we could compare level layouts/designs from the prototypes with the final versions of the game to see what exactly was changed.

Great work, can't wait to see what comes out of this.

This post has been edited by evilhamwizard: 21 February 2011 - 11:33 PM

[Skyler]

Business is about to pick up.

[Dark Sonic]

Someone make a hack that puts the boss at the end of act 3, gets rid of pointless bubbles placement, and gets rid of those end of act bottomless pits. Then I'll be a happy man

[Polygon Jim]

Wow a level editor is possible?! Thats amazing jim you found that out!

That credit should mostly be given to Endri. He actually had the collision placement figured out for months but didn't know it. Dimps put the art and collision placement in 2 separate files, but they use the same format to place them onscreen. I just figured that out yesterday which means we can start getting somewhere with this.

[Limey Otoko]

Someone make a hack that puts the boss at the end of act 3, gets rid of pointless bubbles placement, and gets rid of those end of act bottomless pits. Then I'll be a happy man

I'd like to play that too. Also, momentum fixes please. Oh, and can you replace all the blue "Bubbles" with the red ones ? It might be more challenging if the homing attack chains weren't just well that. Homing Attack chains. They're meant to be the badniks from Sonic 3 yeah?

[True Dude]

Alternatively, remove the homing attack altogether and rearranging the levels to work without it in the parts where it was needed. Heck, I don't care if the air dash is kept in, as long as the homing attack is removed.