What an original concept that nobody else has ever thought of. The problem with this is, with the Y button reserved for the Light Speed Dash, how do you handle the Magic Hands? And what about the various context-sensitive actions, like whistling, Mystic Melody, pick up, put down, throw, grab? And what about characters who aren't Sonic and clones? Yes.
Thank you for replying. Now that you mention it, my former post does make things a lot more complicated than they need to be so I'll just forget it. As for the Chao Garden thing, could you please point me to how I can do that on the Steam version? Again, thanks a lot for your help.
Presently there are two ways to do it, use Cheat Engine (or add a code to Codes.xml) to freeze the current level value to whichever level you want and use the 2P battle menu to start a 2P match; or use the character select mod and hold Start on P2's controller to force P2 to spawn.
Do what 06 did. up and X held down was light dash, just tapping X was ground action, and holding X was spin dash.
Except that was a terrible control system Just don't change anything about the Y button. Context sensitive actions usually don't cause misfire problems anyway. Just, like,
I always thought Light Dash should be moved to X, but everything else could stay B. The ONLY time I ever had context issues playing SA2 was Light Dash-related.
I agree. I think the only action that should be mapped differently is the light dash. I don't think it should share a button with the somersault though. Half the time when I've wanted to light dash Sonic has just done a somersault instead. The ligh dash should either have its own button or share a button with uncommon context actions like the whistle. I don't think Hamzawesome's question was stupid. Yes, it wasn't an original thought, but I'm not aware of anyone actually making a mod that allows the button mapping to be altered. Also I hate when the light dash is mapped to the xbox y button. Way too awkward to press quickly for me.
And there comes the Saviorph, cool. : 0 Funny thing, though, I never had an issue with expecting Light Dash but getting Sommersault - now Bounce Attacking into a bottomless pit instead of Light Dashing, however…?
I can't believe I didn't know about that mod! Thanks Morph. Thanks especially for making it open source; if I find some time, I might try to expand that mod's functionality. Edit: For those of you who don't know how to build mods, here is a ready to-do download of Morph's light-dash on Y mod.
Has anybody had any luck opening up al_body in GVM2PAK, in either the PRS form from SA2B or the GVM form from SADX? The console appears to state some sort of error message in the brief moment that it remains open following the file being dragged into it - what I think I've seen is "Cannot convert texture files which require external palettes!". I believe that this is the file that contains the textures for Chao bodies.
Several of the textures in al_body use external palette files (*.gvp/*.pvp) to determine the Chao's colors. DDS does not support that, and if I had it prompt for a palette file (which is required to convert the texture to a bitmap), it might end up with all two-tone Chao having the same colors all the time. You can use Puyo Tools to extract and edit the textures.
Using Puyo Tools to open the PRS and GVM through an archive and then extracting it there seems to have done the job with revealing the GVRs, which the program can then decode into PNGs. Thanks for that. From what I can see in the files, it now makes sense to me why GVM2PAK might have trouble with al_body. The majority of the textures aren't like the emotiballs in which the game gives a greyscale image a certain colour to use - it seems like they're already coloured, and on their own the image files look like the markings you'd see on a twotone white Chao. I'm guessing that the game manually shifts the hue of a texture somewhat for certain twotone colours using those GVPs and PVPs? However, it seems the texture used for shiny Chao, chao_rare00, is greyscale. At first I was thinking that the game gives it a certain hue and saturation to assume, but then I remembered what the deal is with black Chao on the Dreamcast versions and now I'm guessing that it's an overlay that uses the luminance in the image to tone the rest of a Chao's textures akin to how black Chao have their bodies (and on SA their emotiballs as well) tinted black. For some reason, the files used for eggs, non-Chaos eyes, the shiny overlay and the unused special colours like glass and the two metals are double the size of the other body textures; and the unused pearl colour just uses the texture of the pearl medal from SA1. Additionally, there are eighteen GVRs that Puyo Tools can't seem to convert into PNGs - every child texture except 01 and all fifteen Hero Chao textures. I wonder what the deal is with that?
Those are the ones that require an external palette file. The Puyo Tools program doesn't provide an interface for selecting one, but if you were looking at the Dreamcast version, PVMEditSharp would let you view and export those with a palette file.
Does anyone have a backup of the 50% sound effect volume archive? It was on Mega, but it seems to have been removed. EDIT: I found it: http://174.92.142.94/files/50percentlowerSFX.zip
Puyo Tools is managing to open up the .PVRs and .GVRs from the Gamecube versions of SADX and SA2B, but doesn't seem to be working with the Dreamcast versions - I probably screwed up something because I swear it was working before. At the very least, GVM2PAK and PAKtool are able to do so with ease. On every version except SA1DC, I've finally managed to locate the file that contains the special/jewel textures used in the Dreamcast versions - al_env_tex. Unlike in chao_body on SA1DC/SADX, the amethyst, emerald, ruby and sapphire textures in this file are completely opaque. I downloaded SA Tools from the link on the wiki and started checking out al_body with it in order to view the files that GVM2PAK and Puyo Tools struggled with, and I think I'm beginning to slightly understand how the palettes are applied. For most of the Hero Chao palettes, the initials in SA2DC's .PVPs seem to correspond with a Chao's alignment, the type of its first evolution and then its second evolution (N, S, F, R, P), though I'm not quite sure what the Z is supposed to represent. To my understanding, the white parts of all of these Chao textures act transparent and depend on the Chao's main colouring - best seen with monotone normals which will forego these textures, or twotone whites, greys and blacks, who just use a white underbody for most breeds and and allow the applied textures to appear as they do when viewed through these programs (and in the case of greys and blacks, a dark tint is then applied on top of the two other layers). Even though most of the aforementioned coloured Chao aren't on the Dreamcast version, it looks like those factors would still apply to the black Chao like Chacron or those obtained from the Egg Carrier or through SA2's Black Market. Still, I can't help but wonder what those files look like in their base forms or how this all works with coloured Chao from the rereleases. al_mayu looks like it does something similar to the Neutral/Dark textures, having the white part of the image act transparent while the yellow part acts as an overlay for one of the three cocoon colours provided by the game.
^My guess would be Z refers to Chaos Chao or, if they exist in the data for the Dreamcast and aren't present only in the ports, character Chao.
All three Chaos Chao have their own texture files in both the Dreamcast version and the ports, as do the character Chao in the ports. I haven't gotten through all of the Z textures yet, but none of the ones I've checked resemble the colours of the Chaos Chao. Still, it'd definitely be worth experimenting with these palette files and see if any of them look like they fit some of the various base textures. Making a grid showcasing all of the combinations seems like a nice way to pass the time and might be useful. edit: I can't remember which of the palettes match up with a certain Hero Chao's colours prior to the start of second evolution. If they don't have their own dedicated files, maybe that's what the xxZ ones are for?
I've been through the Chao evos in both the DC version and GC versions before and I'm pretty sure Character Chao aren't in the former.
Yeah, they aren't by the looks of it. I've seen a lot of rumours about obtaining character Chao swirling about on sites that haven't been updated in donkey's years and only contain information about the Dreamcast releases (I can't remember where, but there's this website with a mockup image of a Knuckles Chao), but all evidence that people know of from both the games' files and information/footage/etc on the internet show that the three official character Chao were introduced in SA2B. Their textures are present within SA2B and SADX's al_body, but not in SA2DC's al_body and the .PRS contains the Chao textures on SA1DC. On the subject of that .PRS, that burgundy jewel texture still baffles me. It reminds me of a mixture of the garnet and ruby textures from the rereleases, or whatever the game does to alter the jewel textures for the Kid's Troops Chao Rangers in SA2DC. I think the gleam might be darkened as well, like with what happens with those colour combination Chao obtained via breeding a gold with a black or a silver with a black in Chao Adventure, I can't remember.
