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Sonic Generations Hacking (and More!)

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by Andrew75, Jun 23, 2011.

  1. Dario FF

    Dario FF

    Tech Support Hotline Tech Member
    Thanks Azu, I'll have a look at that. :)

    What a coincidence, we were just there. Here's some footage of our trip! :P
     
  2. 1stKirbyever

    1stKirbyever

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    Those Egg Pawns are awesome.
     
  3. Chris Highwind

    Chris Highwind

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    Holy shit, combined with Dragon Road and Windmill Isle, that means you've got 3 stages done. And if there's 9 continents, that means you're pretty much a third of the way complete, maybe even more.

    Can't wait to blast through those stages again, and Savannah Citadel looks awesome.
     
  4. I like the changes that you made. It keeps the stages fresh.

    On another note, SonicGLVL v0.5.7.7 has a very annoying bug that really needs to be fixed. It pretty much forces me to use v0.5.5a. When I click on any "nested property", the box where you input the Mode/Speed/Etc does not appear. In the case that I have my terms wrong, these are the type of properties that are not able to be changed (Yeah, it's an image from v0.5.5a, but nested properties are nested properties): http://oi48.tinypic.com/2ni8kgj.jpg
     
  5. Dario FF

    Dario FF

    Tech Support Hotline Tech Member
    It's a bug but it's not a big deal if you update the templates. The only one I know that causes problems is the Sonic Spawn.

    Most of the attributes are supposed to be replaced with their respective types(vector3, list, id), so consider it like it forces you to update the templates properly. It helps in the long run if you contribute those templates to the SVN as well!

    Anyway, I've been fooling around with those LUA files Azu sent me. I think it should be feasible to boot into a stage directly with it from what it looks like. Has anyone done some research as to how these modules work, other than adding an extra logo?

    EDIT: I will fix it eventually, I'm just saying that it shouldn't be such a big deal to keep you from updating to newer versions, especially when it can help contribute! ;p
     
  6. Azu

    Azu

    I must be stupid. Member
    I haven't figured it out, but if you look in the StorySequence.lua you'll see PLAYER_GENERIC, PLAYER_CLASSIC and PLAYER_SUPER. These seems to only apply to special missions and boss stages. I.E you can change add Super Sonic to a boss battle, but it will crash eventually. Like for Perfect Chaos, the game crashes when you hit him. Turning on debug in the MainSequence.lua will crash or lock the game at boot. You can still hit ALT+F4, so I'm guessing it just doesn't load.
     
  7. Alright then, I'll start updating the templates and upload them to the SVN sooner or later. Also, there's another bug with SonicGLVL if you haven't found it out already: if you use the "replace selection with copied object" feature, the object that you're trying to replace disappears.
     
  8. Overlord

    Overlord

    Now playable in Smash Bros Ultimate Moderator
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    I see what you did there. =P Very nice looking stuff - continues to impress me in what you're doing.



    I shall have to keep an eye out for the grinding rails and loops, they look hazardous to traverse :v:
     
  9. Dario FF

    Dario FF

    Tech Support Hotline Tech Member
    Ok, so since some people seem to be a bit too stubborn to some changes, and not explain themselves at which or what bugs them about it(and if that's the case I'd just tell you to play Unleashed since what's the point of a straight port if it has the same problems, but let's not deviate much into that), I'll just go through the changes and explain a lot of the decisions. Heavy-image post, so I'll just spoiler it. If you were one of those, I'd recommend you to rewatch the video, there's more to it than just the path Melpontro took while recording(which I told him to do).

    Throughout the explanations you'll see a lot of these changes make way more sense if you see the Red Rings. I didn't want to reveal the positions already, but I will have to for the sake of this.

    Simple change here, there's some extra platforms to let the player know he can shoot in that direction. The timer of the cannon is also increased so the player has enough time to prevent a cheap death from a bottomless pit. Why lure him to the right? There's a red ring there if he runs across the falling platforms.
    [​IMG]

    Tribal egg pawns replace the Fire enemies. Some people say the attack patterns are way too different. Some Egg pawns replace egg fighters, but they only attack in melee just like them. The only reason they're changed is to spice up enemy variety a bit, and fit more the theme of the section you're in(trees/wood, tribal egg pawns, ground and tents, hunting egg fighters).
    [​IMG]

    On this section there was originally 3 poles. Why did they get more spaced out and removed? Because the physics are a whole different story for poles, and we can't recreate the exact behaviour from the Unleashed ones. It just didn't fit with Generations' versions of the poles. With the re-arrangement, if the player succeeds in the first pole, he'll fall perfectly into the second one(or if he's smart, he'll air boost straight into the final platform, saving off some seconds for optimization).
    [​IMG]

    Originally there was a fire enemy here, but now the Egg Pawn fills another role. Why the platform on the left? As obvious as it is, there's a Red Ring now there. The player has the option to risk himself and have to avoid the Egg Pawn's projectile while trying to grab the red ring, or just homing attack into it and keep going quickly. The time he takes to charge it is enough for the player to be safe.
    [​IMG]

    There's an Orange Ring removed here, as well as in some other parts. The Generation's physics work well enough already, and they just provided extra automatization and annoyance for no reason. In this case, it prevented the player from just boosting at a low angle straight into the dash pad, so he can optimize his time even more.
    [​IMG]

    The most drastical change is the QTE section. First off, trick pads can't change their angle. They have to be far away to be able to do a similar jump like the QTE pads in Unleashed did. There's also not much ways to fail/succeed at a trick pad. You either just boost into it and succeed, or not boost.
    [​IMG]

    However, this part is way more interesting than it looks in the video. If you're speedrunning, you'll find out you're running low on boost for this part. If you run out of boost before the trick pad, you're forced to take the lower route. If you boost into it, you go down the upper rail. So what with the alternate path with dash pads on the right? Well, consider it another part of succeeding at taking the upper path. If you don't steer to the left, you'll go to the alternate path, where you'll find a set of springs to get up the tree.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    On to the final tree section then.

    A platform got removed here. It wasn't a good fit for a red ring, like the original medal there in Unleashed was. And to make it a bit less troublesome to travel, the Egg Pawn is homing attack fodder. Take long enough if you stumble and run into the walls in the previous section, and he might've had enough time to charge his attack. Given he's on a movable platform, avoiding his attack should be simple enough.
    [​IMG]

    The part with the poles got drastically changed for the same reason the first one did, they just don't work the same way. You can't change the angle they launch you in, and it's just either succeed or fail. Putting all the poles like it was in Unleashed just doesn't fit, it's messy gameplay and it feels out of place. So instead, it got simplified, but however, there's some additional complexity to it if you plan to get the red ring which is above.
    [​IMG]

    If you pull the left stick back and homing attack it, you're able to go into the middle pole. This will let you grab the red ring which is hidden up-left(and hinted by a line of rings).
    [​IMG]

    However, what happens when you fail with the poles? You go down the alternate route. There's a couple of egg fighters, and at the end of it, a simple elevator platform can take you back to the final part. However, it is quite slow, but at least it won't frustrate the player by having to repeat the previous parts all over again.
    [​IMG]

    The platform also serves the purpose of helping if the player falls at the last pole. The additional orange dash ring is there if he succeeds in the pole, to boost his speed up right into the loop.
    [​IMG]

    And now, the last part which a lot of people seem to have missed. Right after the loop, there's a spring.
    [​IMG]

    This launches you straight up. In Unleashed, there was a QTE where if you succeeded, you go into the Goal Ring... and if you fail, you just go into the Goal Ring slower. This just can't be recreated straight in Generations easily, because the "success" path is easy as hell. And what's the point of doing tricks to gain boost before a goal ring then?

    At the peak of your jump, you'll hear the homing attack sound(or you can just air boost into the thing). This is a pulley which takes you straight to the Goal Ring really quickly. It's the success path.
    [​IMG]

    If you fail to input this properly, you just keep going right until you fall into the swinging platforms. These ARE NOT MANDATORY TO USE.
    [​IMG]

    If you really don't want to take on a platforming section, simply jump back to the spring and try to get into the pulley again.

    Hope that clears things up. I can assure you stages go through several revisions before I decide to keep things as I show in the videos, and there's a lot of playtesting involved. If you say any of these changes break the flow of the stage, you have yet to see a good speedrun. Speedrunning is as good as ever, it flows well, and you'll feel like a badass if you pull it off all correctly. It's enough for the difficulty of a 2nd stage.

    This is my current best time without skills, and I could optimize it to go sub-1:40 if I don't fail in some parts and do more careful boost management.
    [​IMG]
     
  10. ashthedragon

    ashthedragon

    Sonic Paradise Researcher
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    DaGuAr (Gorila5 on youtube) Uploaded a new video of his Metal Harbour mod. It's fucking awesome ( and hilarious)



    The notations are awesome
     
  11. BlazeHedgehog

    BlazeHedgehog

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    Maybe it's just me but when somebody is showing off a level they've made I'd rather they don't spend ten minutes cracking jokes about how broken it is. :P
     
  12. Jay T.

    Jay T.

    It takes an idiot to do cool things... Member
    Nah, you're not the only one. I pretty much kept jumping around the video cause it got a bit tiresome, and honestly, the jokes aren't that funny...but that's just me. XP
    Still, looking good so far.
     
  13. Jimmy Hedgehog

    Jimmy Hedgehog

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    The "remake Sonic 3 intro" joke kinda cracked me up a bit XD But yeah both funny and pretty damn awesome.
     
  14. Flare

    Flare

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    I did expect at the end a proper run through of the level like it looked like it started but hey I still think its pretty awesome.
     
  15. S0LV0

    S0LV0

    Sonic Generations Helpdesk Tech Member
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    Okay, so I have two things to ask about.

    1. GIA. I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it right. I have Vray and the generate lightmaps script. I made a Vray light and ran the script after selecting all of my objects. No matter what settings I put into the script, 3ds crashes upon starting to render.

    2. Invisible objects. This one has to do with a specific level I'm working on.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL77nx9TJHg

    A large chunk of terrain after where I stopped is appearing invisible for some reason. I know it isn't an issue with double-sided materials, since it doesn't appear invisible in either SonicGLVL or 3ds Max. Just to make sure, I made all of them double-sided, and it didn't fix anything, so I'm stumped.

    EDIT: Okay, I fixed the terrain problem, but the GIA problem still remains.
     
  16. Melpontro

    Melpontro

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    We have resumed development on Sky Troops.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qtJSvPaCCE
     
  17. Dario FF

    Dario FF

    Tech Support Hotline Tech Member
    Use a version after 2.0, or use Render To Texture with another of the renderers(like Mental Ray).
     
  18. JansenM

    JansenM

    Member
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    Generations mods
    Yeah. Sure, it's unfinished. But I can't see how he'd improve on the geometry. Things like the side of the grass look really big, you can't even see the earth or whatever below it. The texture mapping looks pretty off, too. Though in most WIP stage previews, near the end of whatever progress they have made texture mapping appears to be a little lazy.
    I guess we'll just see how this one turns out. The guy's SADX stages were pretty good.
     
  19. S0LV0

    S0LV0

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    Okay, I'll try Render To Texture, but what do you mean by a version after 2.0?

    EDIT: Also, how do I do it with that method? I need to make a lightmap and shadowmap, right? I don't see anything like that in the Render to Texture window.
     
  20. S0LV0

    S0LV0

    Sonic Generations Helpdesk Tech Member
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    YannickJason was kind enough to arrange me a speedup variant for his Pyramid Cave Classic remix, and it sounds incredible!