SADX/SA1 Hacking/Modding

The fact that this bat file was left on disc really shows off just how lazy SonicTeam was when porting the Adventure games. This is off topic, but does anyone know if the PC release of SA2 also suffers from these bad texture conversions? Without looking into it, my guess is yes. The Steam version of SA2 seems like more of a port of SA2B than the original DC release.

 

It does. All the data, SFX aside, is identical to the GameCube. It byte-swaps it all on load.

 

And so on.

I was just kidding, didn't want to make everyone go off-topic. I paid around 2€ for SADX, so it isn't a great support. :v:
I wanted the Game Gear titles in it, though.

 

If you already bought the Steam version, look up BetterSADX. I have the original PC release, so I can't really vouch for it, but BetterSADX is basically supposed to convert the Steam release to the original PC release, game gear games and all.

P.S. Thanks for the info Morph. Looks like there needs to be some SA2 DC mods made.

 

Don't use betterSADX, use PKR's installer.

 

Last time I checked, they patched the game so no one could add the Game Gear titles back. It was just out of curiositiy, anyway, emulators are still there for me.

 

I'm inclined to believe the jungle assets are the same between the GC and PC versions as far as the actual geometry goes, however it's another case where a combination of material colors (that are in most cases ignored in console versions of the game, but oddly enough not in the PC version) and poor alpha compositing results in visual differences. Here's what a quick material color edit looks like:

Spoiler

Note that this is with the Lantern mod. It looks flatter with original lighting, though the models seem to have retained their vertex colors, which would normally be used for lighting. I suspect the lack of shading has to do with the way the PC version renders the jungle - rather than having the models as landtable pieces, it renders them separately using an awkward queued model callback function.

I could probably put together a mod that forces the default material color on the jungle and adds a dynamic fog feature like in the Dreamcast Mystic Ruins mod, but that wouldn't really be a "fix" since all the transparency issues are still there. As for making a "Dreamcast jungle" mod, there are several reasons that wouldn't work out quite well, namely the requirement to use the lighting mod (otherwise it would look awful, especially in the evening and at night) and compatibility with other mods.
One thing to try is reimporting those jungle models into the landtable with proper sorting to see if the lighting comes back. I may try that at some point.
I'm tempted to start working on a mod that adds back missing stuff into SADX but is less invasive than the Dreamcast mods, i.e. it would retain most of the "stylistic" changes made in SADX. I've been contemplating the idea for a while now, and this may be something I'll work on when I run out of things to add to the Dreamcast mods. If I ever start working on it, the Emerald Coast enhancements and the jungle will be among the first things to be included in it.

Well hey, everyone should use whatever they like of course, but thanks for mentioning it. I haven't posted about the installer here because I thought people on Retro don't need it, but anyway this installer is meant for people setting up the mods/Mod Loader for the first time. The main differences between this and BetterSADX are a different selection of mods, focus on downloading the latest versions of things (can be configured to work offline if needed), general lightweight-ness (the installer itself is less than 600KB), more flexible configuration (you can pick which mods to install, as well as resolution/framerate options before installation), and a more universal approach to installing things (e.g. you can install it on any version of SADX, Steam or non-Steam, with or without the Mod Loader). The selected mods are properly sorted after install. It even downloads the correct sonic.exe and CHRMODELS.DLL for you in case yours have been modified. Oh, and it can install all Mod Loader dependencies so you'll never have any runtime errors with any mods.
BetterSADX, on the other hand, targets Steam users specifically, has a speedrun-friendly option and installs the sound and movie resources from the 2004 port, while my installer converts the Steam version's resources to make them work with the 2004 port.

 

Well, I wouldn't mind having to use the Lantern Engine mod. But I can see why you would want your mod to be independent of it. And hey, a mod that merely fixes the jungle and the fog would be just as good.

Anyway, if you end up making that mod that adds the missing stuff back while keeping the SADX visuals, I for one would fully support it. I know most people here seem to prefer the DC environments, and I don't mind them myself, but I also like the extra details Sonic Team added to some of the areas in DX, most notably Station Square.

 

Has anyone tried to fix the textures in this cutscene?

Spoiler

Those circular thingies around E-101 and the cylinder on top use the wrong texture, so they're miscolored and look like they're full of holes.

For comparison, this is what they're supposed to look like:

Spoiler

There's also the issue of the red textures next to E-101's eye, unless it was an intentional change made after they created that flashback pic.

 

The drills and big cone thing at the top are different, too. I think nobody's retextured them because A. this is a one-time cutscene you never see again (meaning it's not as common to notice inconsistencies) and B. It is actually like that in the original. Plus, I dunno if the correct textures are even in the game.

 

I'm aware it's like that in the DC version as well. Good catch on the drills though, I hadn't noticed it.

Anyway, I was able to find the drill texture and swap it. Sadly I couldn't find the circular gizmo's texture in any of the Egg Carrier or E-101 texture files, despite going through the PC, DC and AutoDemo files. It may not exist in the final assets. So I recreated it based on a similar EC texture from the DC version:

Spoiler

Here's my fix:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/fdc0vf8b2obaj3l/E-101_cutscene_fix.zip

Haven't thoroughly tested it, though. So be warned that if any other objects use these textures, they may look broken with this patch.

 

It's going to be a good week.

From ItsEasyActually's Twitter which you should definitely follow:
https://twitter.com/ItsEasyActually



EDIT:
For clarity, announcement regarding Dreamcast Models?

 

Tried this one with the Steam version and most of the FMVs (apart from the Sonic Team logo and intro) got converted to 240p, they appear in the upper left cornet, no matter what FMV fill mode I choose. Copied the original FMVs from the 2004 release and all was fine though.

Also, has anyone tried to do something about the mouth animations? The lipsync was only done for the Japanese VOs and looks rather weird when playing in English. I suppose we could write a script that sets correction animations depending on the voice clip pitch, kinda how it's done in TES games for example. If there's enough understanding of the cutscene animations format.

 

Sorry about that, it was a codec error on my part. My FMV conversion script didn't force the output resolution to 640x480, which SADX 2004 apparently requires, so the videos stayed in whatever resolution they originally came in. Anyway this issue was fixed a couple weeks ago, so you were probably using an old version or something.

 

Those wild messes of animations were supposed to sync with the Japanese audio? I'm a little skeptical about it, but I think I want to look up some videos of the game's cutscenes while the Japanese audio is being used and see if that makes them look any degree closer to not being unintentionally hilarious. Were the mouth movements the same in DX? It's been a while since I saw them, but the ones on the Dreamcast version don't seem to be anywhere as erratic as I remember DX's being, not that it's much of an achievement.

 

The DX ones actually sync up with the Japanese better, IIRC. The DC mouths don't sync up with anything.

As much as I'd love to see a cutscene reanimation project or something of the like, I'm not sure it'd be worth it with the way characters animate. I sometimes wonder if the devs were phoning it in there, or if they literally were so limited in the cutscenes that they just did what sort-of worked with what they had.

 

I mean I'd just like the characters to not run in place after they're done talking.

Makes me wonder if it would have been more worthwhile to put more effort into less cutscenes than to making alternate cutscenes of the same event (After Chaos 4, After E-102 v. Sonic, etc).