Never before seen build of Sonic X-treme Leaked!

Andrew75 · Apr 23, 2015

Update: Mike Wallis Micro Interview! (5/7/2015)

Related threads:
Release thread for STI Engines, 037 and 040 (PC and Saturn): http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=34038&st=0

The Original Teaser Post

.

Coming Soon! 05/06/2015

BLUE IS COMING BACK!

==== POINT OF VIEW BUILD OF SONIC X-TREME: ====
(Totally different engine from the STI Engine that we are all familiar with)
(Credits to Jollyroger for getting this build to run on real hardware and not just the dev hardware)

Release Trailer:

Credits to Andrew75.

Mini Documentary.

Credits to Borman.

Okay Guys ! So yeah, We have here the never before seen engine build of Sonic Xtreme by Point of View. (videos or pictures have never been released publicly until now.)
Little is known about this build of Sonic Xtreme outside of a FAQ put togeather By Chris Senn which mentions POV a few times.
The Faq can be found here: http://www.senntient.com/projects/xtreme/FAQ.html

From what I gather, sometime in the middle of Sonic X-treme's development, Sega outsourced the completion of Sonic X-treme to Point of View studios, without the knowledge of technical lead Ofer Alon or artist Chris Senn, who were working on the PC and Saturn engine and levels.
Point of View used assets from the original effort and developed a level converter to convert Sega Technical Institute's engine levels into the binary format used by POV's own engine, which had already been used before for several other games on a variety of
platforms, such as Saturn, Playstation, Nintendo 64, PC.

Fast forward to 2015
Jollyroger acquired the POV file assets from Tichua.
In its Initial state the POV build did not run on Standard Saturn hardware, It could however run on development Saturn hardware.
so Jolly had to massage the engine code so that it could run on the Saturn hardware.

Here are some Quotes taken from Chris Senn's FAQ (linked above) in regards to POV and Sonic X-treme.

Q: Why didn't more people learn Ofer's editor?
A: By the end of the project, many had learned the fundamentals of the editors most basic functions. But, while the editor was being developed, only Richard Wheeler and myself really learned the editor backwards and forwards (myself moreso since I worked so closely with Ofer). The editor was changing all the time, with new features and functionality, new ways of doing things, etc. so it was difficult to teach it for awhile. Right about the time when POV got involved was when a great many more people got involved to use it. This was also the time when Ofer and I worked privately to continue development on our own, and his old editor was used by the POV group (which included most of the art staff at STI). The biggest innovation of the newer editor introduced dynamically animating paths (you only see a tiny bit of this in the PC videos). Meanwhile, POV could not replicate the fish-eye lens of the older version. Ofer and I worked with his new editor until the PC division declined funding our game. At that point, there was no point for anyone to learn it... and Project Condor worked away to cancellation as well.

Q: Why were there so many different groups of people making one game?
A: There were a lot of people who contributed to the game. However, many factors were responsible for a large amount of change to the project throughout its development. Technology changes, target platform changes, lead programmer changes, and our team leader leaving combined with mounting pressure and attention from Sega (both in the US and in Japan) caused quite a bit of shuffle and change amongst the structure of the team and its members.

Prior to POV involvement, there was (more or less) a single team with sub-teams working on different parts of the game (I.e. main game team, boss team, glue-screen team, etc.). However, once POV got involved and Ofer Alon was ousted as Lead Programmer, Ofer and Senn continued development for the Saturn on their own and POV continued development using most of STI's personnel. Eventually, Alon and Senn dedicated themselves to the PC version while Project Condor was formed to create a Saturn version.

Q: Was the company named 'POV' involved in development?
A: Somewhere between six and eight months prior to the project's cancellation, management had investigated outside options to help insure completion of the game and chose a company called 'POV'. The effort was led by the Technical Director Robert Morgan, one of the original founders of POV, without the knowledge of Ofer Alon (or Christian Senn). When ready, management brought both Ofer and Senn into an office and unveiled their new plan to finish the game. The plan included removing Ofer as technical lead of the project and shifting technical control over to Robert Morgan, who would lead POV. Management presented POV's early efforts on-screen which included primitive graphic displays but did not include gameplay. In stark contrast was Ofer's editor and engine with real-time world construction, moving sprites (Sonic, rings, enemies) with behavior, triggers and physics - with direct playability from the player. It astounded both Ofer and Senn that management would decide to move forward with this POV technology. Management explained that the plan was to use POV's technology to simply port Ofer's PC development to the Saturn.
Click to expand...

Mike Wallis micro interview:
So yeah , I've been speaking with Mike Wallis (Sonic xtreme's Producer) by email.
and!
I asked if he remembered the POV build from this video and if he could give us some behind the scenes information related to the build.

Mikes response:

Just checked out your video. />/>/>/>/>/>/>/>/>/>
Yep! That's the POV version running there. Very early, no fisheye lens, but still 30 fps.

Some of the information in Chris' FAQ listed about is incorrect. POV was not brought in that early--they were only working with Robert Morgan to port Ofer's PC version maybe 2 months prior to that build being shown to Irimajiri-san. They also did not have access to the STI artists--they used content from what had already been produced either by Ross Harris or by Senn himself. POV worked very much independently until the unveiling to SOJ... then it was cancelled because Irimajiri told us to go with Chris Coffin's boss engine technology for the entire game.

POV was brought in to port the build to Saturn because Ofer could not do it. His original attempt ran at 2-3 fps with 4 colors. He had no concept of how to optimize the performance to run well on the Saturn.

-Mike
Click to expand...

Next I asked him if he could tell us anything about this particular v40 build for Saturn that was found by Jollyroger in the POV assets he had acquired. (as featured in the video.)

Mikes response:

Ha! Wow... I haven't seen that in forever!

I *believe* that is the test level that Ofer/Senn put together to test the fisheye view. That port to the Saturn clearly doesn't have the animation engine in, which is why there's popping between the limited # of frames.

I don't know if that is POV who ported that to Saturn, or if that is actually Ofer who ported it. I don't believe it is Ofer who did the port, because immediately after he showed his first initial port on the Saturn, he abandoned all efforts of Saturn development to focus on the PC version. Therefore is it likely POV's port of the test level.

It's very cool that you guys got that running. You should definitely show Coffin and Senn!

-Mike
Click to expand...

Point Of View Sega Saturn July 14, 1996 Build Public Release 001:

Mega
Hugefiles
Mediafire

Notes:
I used ImgBurn for burning the iso.
If attempting the swap trick or installing a Mod chip , please be careful not to bust your Saturn, all parties involved with this release are not to be held accountable.
If I've made any mistakes here, please point them out and I'll correct them, thanks guys!

Xeal · Apr 23, 2015

Andrew75 said:

Stuff
Click to expand...

Context please?

Covarr · Apr 23, 2015

Finally, the finished-but-never-released Sonic R 2. I've been waiting for this.

Andrew75 · Apr 23, 2015

Sonic Xtreme related !

akirahedgehog · Apr 23, 2015

The long lost Saturn port of Sonic's Schoolhouse?

Xeal · Apr 23, 2015

Andrew75 said:

Sonic Xtreme related !
Click to expand...

All right then.

+ - *waits for thread to collapse into a guessing game* :v:

Andrew75 · Apr 23, 2015

Xeal said:

Andrew75 said:

Sonic Xtreme related !
Click to expand...

All right then.

+ - *waits for thread to collapse into a guessing game* :v:/>
Click to expand...

This is a long lost Link!

360 · Apr 23, 2015

Obviously a build of Sonic Xtreme capable of running on Saturn hardware. The main question is how different is this going to be to the PC releases and thus how significant. I love hyped up announcements like this though so I'm excited nonetheless. I wish my fifteen year old self had kept a hold of his Saturn.

Andrew75 · Apr 23, 2015

360 said:

Obviously a build of Sonic Xtreme capable of running on Saturn hardware. The main question is how different is this going to be to the PC releases and thus how significant. I love hyped up announcements like this though so I'm excited nonetheless. I wish my fifteen year old self had kept a hold of his Saturn.
Click to expand...

We'll Explain more as we get closer to the 6th! Yeah, I also think topics like this are fun!

Shoemanbundy · Apr 23, 2015

No harm in a little hype

If the previous issues of not being able to really load any more than what was it, two textures, has been fixed and we'll be able to play most PC levels on the Saturn port, that's some great news indeed.

All I know is this hype can't be just for the tech demo still being limited to that demo room, so it must be good :D

Spinksy · Apr 23, 2015

Well this thread has made my morning significantly better :-)

TimmiT · Apr 23, 2015

Don't we already have a thread about this?

Kiddo Cabbusses · Apr 23, 2015

There is one build that is playable on Saturn as it is...

... But....

Is it possible that this is the Metal Sonic build? That would be a real mindblow. I think the blurred image hints of it, with the black-and-greys having a resemblence to the iconic eyes and facial structure Metal has.

TheKazeblade · Apr 23, 2015

Kiddo Cabbusses said:

There is one build that is playable on Saturn as it is...

... But....

Is it possible that this is the Metal Sonic build? That would be a real mindblow. I think the blurred image hints of it, with the black-and-greys having a resemblence to the iconic eyes and facial structure Metal has.
Click to expand...

...Dangit, now you have me seeing it.

High Fidelity · Apr 23, 2015

Hype! Love it. Now if only I wouldn't have sold my Saturn years ago for twenty quid (with Virtual On!) what a buffoon.
Looks like I'll have to hunt down another on eBay...

Awesome work Andrew & Jollyroger!

TimmiT · Apr 23, 2015

Kiddo Cabbusses said:

There is one build that is playable on Saturn as it is...

... But....

Is it possible that this is the Metal Sonic build? That would be a real mindblow. I think the blurred image hints of it, with the black-and-greys having a resemblence to the iconic eyes and facial structure Metal has.
Click to expand...

It sure would be nice if Andrew would let us now instead of needlessly teasing and attention whoring.

Flygon · Apr 23, 2015

But the Internet runs off that!

Cinossu · Apr 23, 2015

Hey, as fun as hype is, this really is somewhat useless discussion on speculation. Plus, one-liners for a page or two does not a productive topic make, especially when this is finally shown and it has to be hunted down within.

Let's lock this thread for now and we'll unlock it when the date arrives or is just a little bit closer, hm?

EDIT: :v: and we're closer now. Unlock~

Andrew75 · May 6, 2015

Okay guys its out ! Please read the first page for info!

Lanzer · May 6, 2015

This is trippy, seeing SX on an actual Saturn. thanks for the release man!

Never before seen build of Sonic X-treme Leaked!

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