Redhotsonic put this up earlier in the thread, unless you're talking about the proto-Bingo Highway. Then there's not much I can do there... :|
Back again with another update from the internal files. Inside of the comobj.one archive in this E3 build are three DFF models. They're for the Hero, Dark, and Neutral Chao. This makes me wonder what they were doing in here in the first place. These aren't in the comobj.one archive in the final PC version. Turns out the Neutral Chao is, but it's under a different filename, and has some mild changes. Here's an image:
Would not be surprised if Heroes was built off the SA2 engine before it had to get ported multiplatform and use a weaker engine just to even get the PS2 to run it.
Whoa, now you have my imagination spinning. What a different game that would have been. The difference in physics alone would have significantly improved the game, and maybe we wouldn't have had those ugly, shiny plastic character models.
Let's be real though, Heroes stages in SA2's engine would probably be extremely fun. If only SA2 level mods were a thing..
Top men are working on it. Top. Men. Probably. I have no idea. But I really do believe had the Dreamcast not died when it did, we would have seen a second Sonic game utilizing a refined SA2 engine. It had a lot of utility, considering Billy Hatcher ran (or at some point ran?) On a modified iteration of it. I remember first playing Sonic Heroes thinking "Wow, this kind of looks like Billy Hatcher." I had no knowledge of game development at the time, but if there was that common engine ancestor at one point, it would make sense. It's a shame it went to waste so soon.
Actually, I'm pretty sure it was built off the SA2 engine. A lot of assets seem to be ripped directly from SA2 and altered to fit the Heroes look. Well look at that! I had forgotten haha. Still though, these models are different from those. The Balloon_Locator.dff is the model file for those guys. Here's what those models look like.
Do you have any other proof? Because if Heroes used SA2 engine, I think they would keep more things from SA2, like physics. I'm also not sure if it's actually possible to add RenderWare to an existing game. But I know nothing about these stuff, so I'm probably wrong.
From various tidbits I've read from time to time (no exact sources right now, I'll see if I can find some), Sonic Heroes was in development on a "proprietary" engine. That was likely the updated SA2 engine. Don't forget, Billy Hatcher was developed on a modified SA2 engine. This is the relevant bit: This would have been the next logical step for them, but supposedly Sony wanted games to be developed for the PS2 and forced the hand of several developers. This caused a shift at Sega/Sonic Team forcing them to switch development from their engine to Renderware's engine to easily port between platforms. There's a reason the PS2 version is regarded as the worst version. It's also possible to tell by looking at the assets for Heroes as some are seemingly ported SA2 assets (as seen with the Chao particularly). This is really all the info I can recollect at the moment. And to update on looking through the files of the E3 Gamecube version, I haven't found anything else of interest for now. I'm still sifting through it to make sure I haven't missed anything.
Thanks for the release. Was just having a quick look at this and noticed the following image in the files. Is this in the final? Haven't played Heroes in a long time so cannot remember.
Don't know if it's in the final, but it does appear in Sonic Generation's unlockable concept art gallery.
I know I've seen that image many time in the past back on Cult when Heroes was a new thing. Dunno if it's in the final, but it's an old image.
Yeah that was found ages ago when the alpha was found by CulT and they were digging through the files. Hmm, we should go back to the alpha at some point and see what else we can dig up now that better tools are out.