General Project Screenshot/Video Thread

Don't worry about the music. It's just garbage data.
Here's a demonstration of me demonstrating Chameleon Debug Tails, Metropolis zone 1, and the SRAM functionality. Enjoy!
P.S.: When in a level, don't turn off the console before the zone fades in, otherwise any data since the last time it saved will be lost. The game is saved in the Options menu as well as on the title card, before the zone fades in.

 

Forgot to mention it in the video but this is extremely portable. The Python script reads from a file containing a list of commands, their cooldown timers, and TTS phrases. And when a command is triggered it sends the corresponding command ID over serial, which the game then uses an index table to run the corresponding routine.

 

So Twitch plays Sonic 1 on Hardware when? d=

That's really super cool by the way~ I'm not in a position to watch the entire video right now, so apologies if you've already said this in the video, but; what's the latency? (excluding the obvious network latency, meaning from your computer to the Mega Drive)

 

I've thought about also doing Twitch plays with the same method after this, we'll just see how well this does.
As for latency between the PC and console, I don't notice any. I just left the serial baud at 9600 in the Python script, which seems to work fine. The USB port on the EverDrive is managed by the FPGA, so the Mega Drive doesn't really hold it down.

PS: If you have ideas for commands, let me know! I'm very open to suggestions on this project. I've got about 17 commands right now but I'm aiming for 25-30.

 

A bit unrelated, but what do you use to capture the video and audio output of the Genesis? I want to buy something similar, but I don't know where to look at.
Back on topic, "Twitch plays Sonic 1" will probably fail very quickly because of the 3 lives system and the timer. It may work better with infinite lives and timer.

 

I run it through an AV to HDMI converter and then use this capture card I got from Walmart It's like $15 but don't let that put you off, it's pretty competent.

 

Chief, that's not emulated, that's the 2013 port.

 

Recently, ive been working on a port of lava shelter from shadow 2005 into shadow generations

Probably the most technically challenging part of it was doing a full global illumination pass rather than using the game's built in real time lighting which the sonic team's stages use, but because the current tools only work for sonic forces and below i actually had to backport the stage to that game in order to accomplish it. It was really annoying to do but it was worth it because the stage looks a lot more striking when the emissives such as the lights and the lava actually cast light onto the environment around them rather than simply idly glowing.

 

Very cool. Given the current state of things, would it be feasible for the client to have an interactive overlay of the game screen where objects, such as spikes, could be placed in a drag-and-drop manner? Resulting in the objects appearing in-game at the corresponding screen coordinates.

 

In theory, sure. But that's way way more work than necessary and you'd have to ask the viewers to download a separate program and log in to it. Something like that would probably better spent on a real-time level editor instead.

 

Understood. Come to think of it, that use case that I brought up seems pretty divergent from intuitive interaction through a Twitch client.

It would be interesting to see how the current setup handles simultaneous inputs from multiple users.

 

Maybe add 2P support for Sonic 2 VS with both players on the chat?

EDIT: So that both players can send spikes to one another!

 

Better yet, a group of players per character where each member of a group has to submit at least one command per 5 or so seconds. Forcing a frantic attempt at coordinating between one and another to advance their character to the end of the stage.