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SADX/SA1 Hacking/Modding

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by MainMemory, Aug 15, 2009.

  1. Jase

    Jase

    ~~(_ _C^> Member
    Wow, seeing the object clipping distance being much further really makes the stage feel more alive. And that Tails holding Sonic mod, dammmn. So good to see this stuff.
     
  2. E-122-Psi

    E-122-Psi

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    Concerning the Tails carry mod, I'd focus primarily on getting it perfected with just Sonic first, after all the co op is inaccessible with the other characters by norm. The function would be most useful for Sonic's mode so it would likely be best to refine as much for that particular element.

    And liking the draw distance improvement.

    SA1 has this kinda cramped feel, like you're running in a small moving globe cutting off the road. It might be partially to do with this and the pixelated background. Is there a resolution limit to that art by the way? If it's editable I might take a shot at making a high resolution background one day.
     
  3. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    I believe that depends on the texture size allowed by your graphics card, but in general, I think you could make the resolution at least twice as much as it is by default.
     
  4. SF94

    SF94

    Tech Member
    Using the texture pack system, if it's not limited by your graphics card, it's probably somewhere along the lines of 4096x4096. Otherwise if you're modifying PVMs, it has a(n artificial) limit of 1024x1024.

    Edit: Also
    [​IMG]
     
  5. E-122-Psi

    E-122-Psi

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    Nice. Not quite in line but that animation definitely makes it look like an authentic function.

    Actually isn't that exactly how the carrying animation looked in Sonic Jam?
     
  6. SF94

    SF94

    Tech Member
    Improved:
    [​IMG]

    And yeah, I suppose you're right. I knew it looked familiar...
     
  7. E-122-Psi

    E-122-Psi

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    Hah. Perfect. Their fingers are even conveniently bent the right way. :D

    And yep it is:

    [​IMG]
     
  8. DonutStopGaming

    DonutStopGaming

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    There is a float at offset 94 of Character Object 2 (03B3CDF0 for Player 1) that controls how fast his tails spin. Freezing this to 0 in cheat engine would fix that, but it wouldn't affect the flying.




    Quick Edit: Not really related, but 4 bytes away at offset 98 is the float for the flight timer.
     
  9. E-122-Psi

    E-122-Psi

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    Okay, wasn't sure whether to put it in this thread or the mini projects thread, but here's that high res Emerald Coast background I mentioned:
    [​IMG]

    Made it double size as advised before.

    Shrunk down the trees and added a gradient to give more a feel of distance (since it looked odd next to the DX version's misted background objects). Also got rid of the sea texture and made it all beach since a layer of dark sea behind another looked weird.

    Not figured out how to implement this stuff yet, though it's there if anyone wants it.

    Just a thought, but can the skybox be animated? I could possibly make an all sky background that would look cool if rotated around to move.
     
  10. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    Sure, if you got someone to code an animated skybox.

    All a level's skybox is, is an object that can display one or more models, usually (but not always) with the horizontal center tied to the camera's position.
     
  11. E-122-Psi

    E-122-Psi

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    Here's an improved version, downplayed the noise and colour defects, also narrowed the clouds so they don't look as stretched wrapped around the skybox:
    [​IMG]

    Plus one without the beach (I may look into this some point):
    [​IMG]

    I'm looking into doing ones for Windy Valley 1 and Lost World 2, they were two of the most blatantly pixelated and flat against the 3D layout. Didn't Mario and Sonic 2012 have a high res version of Windy Valley 1?
     
  12. Ayu Tsukimiya

    Ayu Tsukimiya

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    That already looks so much better than the original it's not even funny.

    You might know about this site already, but http://waifu2x.udp.jp/ is a great place to upscale images if you want to do so. I tried it with the sky box and it looked pretty great to me.
     
  13. walrusWrangler

    walrusWrangler

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    Hey Psi, I tested your backgrounds in game. There's probably an easier way to use them (there's some sort of new texture pack format for the mod loader that I'm not familiar with), but here's how I did it:
    1. I made a simple mod, with just a basic mod.ini and a system folder with a copy of BG_BEACH.PVM in it.
    2. Then I opened BG_BEACH.PVM in the mod folder with PVMEditSharp, and replaced sonic_sky1 with one of your higher resolution textures.
    3. Saved it, loaded the mod in the mod manager and took some screenshots.

    Here's the shots:

    [​IMG]
    Already this is a massive improvement on the default. However, using your skybox with the beach, it's pretty easy to see why they had that extra ocean at the bottom. For some reason the color in the water stops outside the playable area.

    [​IMG]
    Unfortunately the sky only one is still too bright for the ocean.

    As an experiment, I took the original skybox, doubled the size, and used a surface blur effect on it in Paint.Net. I then deleted the beach from your beach skybox, and slightly resized the ocean to fit in the space (your beach ends just a little bit higher than the ocean in the original). I'm sure someone else can do a better job with it, but here's the result:

    [​IMG]
    There's still some room for improvement, the horizon line is higher in these higher resolution skyboxes than in the original so there's a dark green line above the water line, but it's hardly noticeable. Also, I didn't get a screenshot of it, but if you look straight up, the sky in the middle uses a separate, single color texture that should be modified to match the adjusted sky color in the higher resolution skybox.

    Here's the frankensteined background I made and used for the last shot:
    [​IMG]

    If anyone wants the mod folder for it, I can upload it, but considering this is really Psi's work, I'll wait for his ok.

    Also Psi, since you were interested in animated skyboxes, the skybox in Windy Valley (after the tornado section at least) rotates, so the clouds move across the sky. And you're right, it's pretty pixellated.
     
  14. E-122-Psi

    E-122-Psi

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    Horray, someone actually wanted to use it. :D I'm flattered if you want to upload anything (it would technically be my first SADX mod as well).

    That actually looks pretty good with the fix, and it works with the misted scenery too. Thanx for the call on the ocean error. I'd advise maybe keeping a small bit of the beach on top however (or a brighter shine gradient on the ocean nearing it), just enough that the ocean texture isn't peeking above the real sea.

    EDIT: Very quick attempt at refinement:
    [​IMG]
     
  15. walrusWrangler

    walrusWrangler

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    Looks great!

    [​IMG]

    And here's the download.

    Fun fact: As I was getting the on/off shots, I noticed that Emerald Coast has two suns, or at least two lens flare sources.
     
  16. E-122-Psi

    E-122-Psi

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    The download link doesn't appear to be working (being listed as being 0KB might have something to do with it). Your example looks good however.

    Was the top of the scenery always stretched like that though? Maybe that's what that big empty space at the top of the original was meant for.
     
  17. walrusWrangler

    walrusWrangler

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    This link should work for download. I checked downloading it back myself. I've edited the link in the other post too.

    In the side by side it looks like the original didn't get all stretched around the top. Here's a little site I just found that makes comparing it easy. With the mouse not over the image it shows the original skybox in game, mouse over it to switch to your texture. It's definitely not stretched in the original. The edge of the main texture also blends better with the edge of the "top of the sky texture" in the original, likely because the top edge of the original is all one color rather than different shades from the cloud edges.
     
  18. E-122-Psi

    E-122-Psi

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    Hmm, maybe look into fixing that, which do you think has the better effect? Clouds squashed to the bottom but in proper circulation or ones stretched but curved all around the screen?
     
  19. E-122-Psi

    E-122-Psi

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    Here's an attempt at Lost World.
    [​IMG]

    Still hardly high res, but at least it doesn't look as much like a blurry oil painting. I also tried to apply some feel of distance.
     
  20. Any way to fix the weird zig zag/water draw distance/geometry draw distance?

    http://imgur.com/Rz4aDCm

    Crude comparison of the GC version vs the PC version. Basically, the water is drawn all the way to where it should be on the GC, but this is not the case on the PC. I don't know why this is the case since I assumed that geometry draw distance would have been further on the PC version. Pretty sure it's drawn properly on the current gen console releases as well.