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Sonic Adventure 2 Hacking

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by Turbohog, Feb 20, 2012.

  1. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    Thank you. Unfortunately, I ran into an issue: When I attempt to load any of the files found in resource\gd_PC\SOC\ with the PAK Editor found in the latest version of SA Tools, I get an unhandled exception. Do you have any ideas as to the possible cause? The files in resource\gd_PC\PRS\ load just fine.

    Edit: Nvm, you already addressed this here.
     
  2. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    http://youtu.be/sHx3VyZcvzQ
     
  3. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    http://youtu.be/qIAguxNXA-g
     
  4. Turbohog

    Turbohog

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    Very impressive stuff MainMemory. I'm glad you didn't make the water kill Sonic. It was cool to see Sonic explore some parts of Emerald Coast he normally can't and it was cool to even just see Sonic in the water in Adventure 2!
     
  5. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    I figured as long as I'm merging acts 1 and 2 into a single level, I might as well throw act 3 (big's section) in there.
     
  6. Caverns 4

    Caverns 4

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    Sonic: Retold
    Seeing Emerald Coast this complete and playable in SA2 makes me happy beyond measure.
     
  7. Miles Prower

    Miles Prower

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    Wow!
     
  8. En Passant

    En Passant

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    SA2: Piece Expansion, Super Hard Mode
    Hello everyone! I'm a level modder, and I'm also part of a group of people in the speedrunning community who is working on picking apart other parts of the game. Since that's what you guys are doing here, I figured it would be smart to compare notes and work together.

    The first thing I'm curious about is what you've discovered about object parameters. I've done a lot of testing by fiddling with numbers, and I see that you've done some of that as well since that Emerald Coast mod has that stuff working properly. I'd like to share what I have and see if anyone here has discovered things that I haven't yet.
    Here's a link to the spreadsheet.
     
  9. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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  10. Beltway

    Beltway

    The most grateful Sonic fan of all time this week Member
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    Sega of Darkest Peru
    Artwork and classes
    [​IMG]

    (I think the Sonic/Shadow levels are far from the greatness a fair amount of people say they are, but you get my kudos to everything else about this.)
     
  11. Sooo, https://youtu.be/yMauzPcOorQ

    Is there any way to fix some of these issues? Mainly the lighting and transparency. Lantern sa2? :v

    Why do the ports have these issues? Do other Dreamcast ports suffer? And why weren't any of these fixed in later ports
     
  12. Chibisteven

    Chibisteven

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    The Dreamcast was capable of lighting and transparency effects that other consoles in that generation weren't able to do. So you will run into issues when porting these games. Sonic Adventure DX does take change too far (changes for the sake of it) where Sonic Adventure 2: Battle is a more faithful port of the two adventure games but still has it's own issues here and there. Consoles used to be quite different from each other (apples and oranges) in what you could do on one or the other.
     
  13. Jeffery Mewtamer

    Jeffery Mewtamer

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    As to why things aren't fixed in later ports, where persumably hardware advances allow for brute forcing things that required hardware-specific optimizations on the original consoles, I think the common answer is: The port was a quick cash grab rather than an effort to put forth the game's best face for a new generation or for those who want to revisit the original without pulling out their old console or rebuying the original game/console from the second hand market.

    Thankfully, the Adventure Duology has hackers that care to fix the things the porters couldn't be bothered to fix or weren't allowed time to fix. I'm sure there are plenty of half-assed releases of older games that aren't so lucky(or worse, are owned by companies that didn't care enough to do the porting properly, but care enough to shut down fan efforts to fix it).
     
  14. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    You are far from the only person who has brought up these kinds of issues and wants to see them fixed. However, wanting to fix it and being able to fix it are two very different things. We don't have a full grasp on the lighting system in any version of SA2, and as for transparency, that requires implementing Order-Independent Transparency, which basically requires upgrading the game to use D3D11. Now, SonicFreak94 has made a mod that does this for SADX, but it's not fully complete yet, and then it needs to be adapted to work with SA2, which requires time.
     
  15. Speeps

    Speeps

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    I've got a few mods up on GameBanana, HD GUI for SA2 and Menu Overhaul. The first one is exactly what it says (with automatic and manual user config to choose between various DC/GC/PC elements, as well as a few optional fonts) and the second one declutters the menu system to make it more like SA2/SA2B.

    EDIT: Menu Overhaul also restores the scrolling background text for the original SA2 Menu, which was disabled in the PC version due to a texture issue.

    Screenshots:
    HD GUI for SA2:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Menu Overhaul:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  16. McAleeCh

    McAleeCh

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    Ah, great to see SA2 getting some love mod-wise! I picked up the Steam version a while back but haven't had much time for gaming recently - will definitely be installing these mods next time I do, though! HD GUI is a must, and the menu overhaul sounds useful too - know the main menu on the Steam port seemed overpopulated by default, so decluttering it to match the console versions sounds like a great idea. = )
     
  17. Turbohog

    Turbohog

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    I always appreciate quality-of-life mods like this. Thanks for sharing!
     
  18. RedMetallix

    RedMetallix

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    A desk.
    What? Don't be silly.
    Silly question, but there's not a copy of the new challengers mod for the mod loader or one that lets me use the original title screen, is there?
     
  19. Azookara

    Azookara

    yup Member
    Hey! Bumping this thread for a quick question.

    Been trying to get the SA2 Action Remap mod (the one that puts the Light Dash on Y) working in SA2ModManager, but every time it loads up it shows me this:

    [​IMG]

    Anyone got any solutions to this? I'm probably missing something simple.
     
  20. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    The most likely cause is you're missing the appropriate MSVC redist for x86. It will be one of 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015, or 2019.