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

Yes I know I browse and hardly post, coming out of nowhere to ask another question might seem rude... I think I got the right forum here, right? I just figure, what better place to ask about something relating to hacking and Sega?

To try to make things simple, all I really want to do is either find out...

A: How to hack palettes in the arcade Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, so I can replace level palettes with single non-black colors, making ripping easier or for some sprites even just possible.
B: Disable layers, probably via cheat code. I've heard of cheats to turn off layers in arcade games, and it might be a reasonable alternative to the palette idea. I've tried to use Final Burn Alpha but it doesn't seem to support layers for Moonwalker.
C: View the sprite tiles. It would be nice if I could get sprites out of the actual tiles, but MAME's tile viewer only shows the background and HUD tiles, gameplay wise. A few sprites animate or overlap weirdly, meaning if I could view the tiles I could stitch up things and rip them separated from the effects.

I figure there might be a chance of information applying generically to System 18(or even 16 or other similar ones like what SegaSonic the Hedgehog uses... it'd be cool if the format for that was the same too) and thus to this game. Till then, I'll get what I can via manually removing the background till someone can help.

Recently I've been trying to get some random voice clips out of some games for a personal thing of mine, the short kind for things like attacks or such rather than standard dialogue. The latest thing I've tried to get are the various "Up" "Right" "Left" "Down" type noises from some of the characters in Space Channel 5 Part 2[n "English vocals on the Dreamcast" mod I had found, to be exact] by digging directly into the files.

I managed to use some program called AFSExplorer that was made for some sort of soccer/football game to extract the AFS files that contain a lot of the stuff in the game, even finding the ADX files for the music and various lines of dialogue, but it seems that the sound effects and such are just stuck in nameless .bin files(which are inside various "R[Level Number][Section Number]BANK.AFS" files). I've tried to open them as raw sound files in Audacity, the best I got was using variations on VOX ADPCM Mono, usually at a sample rate of 22050, but they still come off weird, with small sound issues and weird volumes.

I also tried just rebuilding the CDI file after renaming the music files so it'd be silent, leaving just the sounds and voices, but I couldn't manage to get a bootable file out of it. I figured I'd go back to trying to get the voice bits directly, which definitely got farther at least, but I just can't manage to get Audacity to play them perfectly. Anyone here have any ideas on this format? If it helps, a quick look in a hex editor shows several SOS and ENDs.

Oh, and while I doubt it, if anyone here knows anything about a different sound pack format that ends with .SAMP that's used in "Bomberman Jetters" on the GameCube, feel free to chime in too. I have a family member who wanted voice clips out of that one, so it was something else I tried to rip from. It came out even worse in Audacity than Space Channel 5 Part 2, though voices and such were still vaguely identifiable.

(Sorry for another topic so soon)I saw an ad for a hacking guide to Sonic Advance 1 and 2 on the main page, but the site seems to be down, so I can't check there. The main thing I am thinking about is level data, has any been found for any of the advance series? For 3 I almost am sure of it being 48x48 tiles, I checked and it seems like that, reminding me of older Sonic games. If you view the picture I am attaching with a 48x48 grid on it, you'll see that the ground I put there is made of exactly 48x48 tiles each, and I've checked and assured myself that this is almost surely the way the game does it's level data. I haven't checked 2 or 1 but I would guess it is simular. Oh, and the graphics are all uncompressed, so no worries for graphics hackers, though each sprite doesn't have all the free blank space per pose that Sonic Battle gives, but lets take what they give us and be happy or something...


Edit: Oh, and if you are wondering where that pose of Amy running with her hands together is from, it is when you have her as Sonic's partner.

I hope I'm not bringing up an old topic I just don't know of, but after seeing a topic about getting the Hidden Palace Tails 1-Up in Sonic 2 & Knuckles, I wondered if it would be possible to trick the Knuckles in Sonic 2 effect into working on the beta of Sonic 2, or if it just isn't possible due to something missing in the code that we can't add in or because of too many differences between Sonic 2 and Sonic 2 beta. Again, if I am bringing up a dead topic by asking this, just tell me and I'll try not to do it again. Also, I don't want to waste a post on a quick question so I'll ask it here: I saw pics in a thread, of people time attacking this hack called "Emerald Power" or something, and I saw an emerald icon in the place of lives. What is this and where can I get it?(And other great Sonic hacks)