Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: kram1024 - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

finally I got around to the beginning of updating kens. There are going to be some wonderful new features in kens.

first off KENS is now using Cmake as a replacement for autotools "configure" scripts.
second, flamewing contributed to the kens project and is now onboard with us, so expect great things ™
flamewing provided a new api for nemesis, kosinski, and enigma compression that he used in his s2ssedit application, and it is now working beautifully. I took the old magus based api and wrapped it around his functions.
third, I am also working on making kens build on all 3 platforms (Mac, Windows, and Linux/Unix)
fourth, expect vb support, gamemaker support, and delphi suport to return along with a new multimedia fusion 2 support, objective c support, and .net compatible binary (will have a check for mono when building that one)
I guess I will now get the flamewing-style streams api working for saxman compression before I begin testing platform checks.

if you are interested please visit THIS page.

Recently, you may have noticed I was gone, that is because I was working on getting KENS to build with Xcode 4. I finally did it and am ready to release the results. Also expect SMC (Sega Mac Compressor) to be released later on too and a .Framework version of MacENS.


Download (32-bit)

Download (64-bit)

I have done something rather interesting since the time when I get depressed. I have made some improvements to MarkeyJester's disassembly that made it compatible with the latest version of SonED2, as well as mice. bug fixes that I assume any modern sonic hacker would apply anyways. As a matter of fact, I distributed SonED2 with it and practicly integrated it into the disasm. Not to worry I did give credit to everyone that provided info that was used in the making of this thing, and stealth included for soned2.

here is what this disassembly has:

• MarkeyJester's 128x128 tile changes
• kosinski compression on 16x16 tiles just like Sonic2 has
• Every single bug fix that exists in the how to section of the community hacking guide
• Working eggman monitors
• Full support for included SonED2 v.11-02-24

I set it up this way to make your life easier but not too easy. For one, I did not make it so that you could make a hack without realizing it in your sleep and for that reason new features that do not constitute a bug fix in my interpretation of what a bug fix is were not added.

here are a few examples of what it doesn't have:

• totally new zones. Add those yourself, if I put those in, then none of it would be yours.
• new moves like spindash. If I did that then every hack would have spindash in it and things would get very stupid.
• retaining rings between acts and at save points. Adding things like that make the hack less original.
• different level select (other than enhancements to the already existing one) or other custom screens. That would be a rip off of a lot of stuff by tweaker and Oerg866.
• extra characters. Do I even have to explain this one?
• Dynamic tilesets and music. That would be way too easy and besides it would make things like that way too unoriginal.
• modified sound driver(beyond fixes). That would take your freedom of choice away so it will never happen.
• other changes that are not fixes.

well if you were wondering, here is the download: Project Two-Eight: Kraminator Special Edition
and since it is based on Project Two-Eight, you can find it here.

You probably saw in an updated reply a ways back that I was having trouble with esreal's sonic3 driver port related to music, so I am disassembling the sonic 3 driver and I like what I see. Expect the howto section to utilized my disassembly in both sonic1 and sonic2 and I learned some new things about z80 pointers, they are 15 bit byte swapped, not 16 bit absolute byte swapped and are relative to the bank they are in. They work like gameboy pointers in a way. The ones you have mostly worked with so far have the high 16th bit set, which I have no idea what it is for though the sonic 3 driver seems to unset it prior to reading the offset.

Well, did you notice that every once in a while a dac sample pointer doesn't have that big set? This is why I say we have not a 16 bit absolute pointer, but a 15 bit bank relative with an unknown high bit flag.

I am getting close to ready to release the asm form of the driver.

In other words we had it wrong but still got done what we needed to. The music should be aligned to a location in 8000h bank space, not to a physical loation in the rom itself, yet we did that unknowingly by aligning to the rom, though now we know. Want to add new music or sounds outside a bank? simply add a new bank and align to that (the pointers may not match the lower half of the rom address but they are legit to the z80)

Update: This thing is totally amazing, remember how the sonic 1 driver and sonic 2 driver had to be reloaded via the interrupts? I just saw Z80 interrupt code in the sonic 3 driver that does just that. And even more, the driver even uses space in the same bank it is in to copy and execute Z80 code and reset the Z80 via the Z80 which is very weird.

You can now download all currently up-to-date versions of the Sonic 3 Driver disassembly on Mediafire via my Mediapro account:Sonic 3 Sound Driver Disassembly files

I have been talking with tweaker and he (again) ask me to post this topic here before moving forward with any new ideas. I was simply wanting to make a s#.cbp file depreciate build.bat because code::blocks can be given instructions on how to build s#built.bin and provides an IDE sort of like esreal's asm edit tool, but it can use C/C++ code as well! if you were all wondering what this Code::Blocks thing is, Code::Blocks. Yes it is meant for c++ but a custom build step and an asm syntax highlighter can make it very powerful with sonic disassemblies. I will add screenshots of this sort of thing on this post soon.

idea proposed: codeblocks projects for all svn disassembies and a codeblocks:sonic retro edition tweaked fully for rom hacking with editor addons, ida pro like disassembler and all major 68k, z80, and sh2 assemblers, as well as full syntax hilighting support for all languages involved with the scene. Just to let you know, this does not take any of the work out of sonic hacking, it just gives an IDE interface to it and nothing more.

If you like or dislike the idea, please vote.