Unused objects in Sonic 3k

(The first part of this post is a copypasta from my earlier post in The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge, that can be deleted if needed)

Anyone have any idea what this is supposed to be?




It's object ID $12 in the first object pointer list in Sonic 3k. It's not placed in any level, but the graphics fit perfectly in both acts of LBZ. All it does is moves down to a target position (or up, depending on a flag) when it senses a flag has been set, and then moves up to its original position (or down, depending on the same flag) when it senses the flag has been cleared. The use of the flag leads me to think this was supposed to be triggered by a button or some other external event.

If anyone wants to play around with it, use the PAR code 1EFC52:1200, which replaces the first monitor in LBZ with this. To make it move down, use the (Kega specific) PAR code FFF7E0:00FF, and once it's moved fully down use the (again Kega specific) PAR code FFF7E0:0000 to make it move up again. While moving down, it'll get overlapped by level tiles, so I recommend also using 025B00:C3C3 to give the object high priority and make it visible over the level tiles. Alternatively, if you want one which starts off downwards and moves up, along with the first PAR code use 1EFC50:25F0. This is the exact opposite - it starts off down and moves up when the flag is set. The code for this is at $25AF6, it's marked as Obj_12_1 in Stealth's disasm.

Another unused sprite, at object id $1A:



Unfortunately the graphics for this one don't seem to be present in any level, so it's hard to tell what it's supposed to be. You can control it using controller 2 - pressing A rotates it anti-clockwise, C rotates it clockwise and B resets it to horizontal. Normally, without any modifications, when you reach the centre you get sorta stuck there, just gaining speed until you jump off. However, in what I believe to be a coding error, the code for this object contains these two lines:

Code (ASM):

1. lea     (Vectors+$30).w,a2

and

Code (ASM):

1. lea     (Vectors+$34).w,a2

Loading part of the vector table is strange in itself, but later on an attempt is made to write to these addresses, which makes no sense at all and should apparently cause real hardware to crash. If you replace these two lines with

Code (ASM):

1. lea     $30(a0),a2

and

Code (ASM):

1. lea     $34(a0),a2

the cool running effect disappears and Sonic can just slide down these without hinderance, so I have no idea whether the effect was intended or just a coding error.

Although the graphics appear garbled, the code for this exists in the middle of other LBZ objects, so I think it's safe to assume it was intended for LBZ. If anyone wants to play around with these, you can use the PAR codes 094EA6:0002 and 094EA8:7106 to replace all in-level monitors with this object. Additionally, if you want to fix what I believe to be a coding error, also use the PAR codes 027270:45E8 and 027284:45E8. Anyone have more info about this?

 

Object $1D, a platform which you can hang on to at the bottom. Neat idea, I wonder why they scrapped it.

 

Well, I finished going through the entire first object pointer list, the results can be seen at SCHG:Sonic 3 & Knuckles#Object_Pointer_List. Unfortunately there are only two other unused objects, $23 and $27, and they aren't particularly interesting. Slot $1C, which is empty, is in the middle of a lot of other LBZ objects, so it's likely it also contained some LBZ object which was scrapped during development and actually deleted.

I'll be going through the second object pointer list later on, though I don't know if that'll have any unused objects.

 

<!--quoteo(post=196699:date=May 24 2008, 12:22 AM:name=Sonicguy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Sonicguy @ May 24 2008, 12:22 AM)
The width of this can be controlled by setting the subtype between 0 and 2. All this does is displays some numbers from the HUD - more specifically, the first tile in each component is the last tile of the score counter, and the second tile is the first tile of the timer. Judging from the code, this was intended to harm Sonic, but they forgot to include the call to add the object to the collision response list, so in essence it's just an invisible hurting object which uses weird graphics.