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SADX/SA1 Hacking/Modding

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by MainMemory, Aug 15, 2009.

  1. PkR

    PkR

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    SADX Dreamcast Conversion, The Emeralds' Awakening
    Just updated. I haven't been posting on Retro recently, but I'm preparing updates for DC Conversion and the palette editing program, which should hopefully be out before the New Year.
     
  2. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    That was fast, much appreciated :thumbsup:
     
  3. BlazeHedgehog

    BlazeHedgehog

    A "Community Enigma"? Oldbie
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    So am I crazy or do the DLC mods only change Adventure Fields? Specifically like, the Rebook DLC. I never saw any shoes in Emerald Coast and I played through Emerald Coast in both Adventure and Mission mode.

    Or did I have the mod loading order goofed up? The DLC mods were always at the bottom of the list. Do they need to be at the top? I always forget the load order.
     
  4. SF94

    SF94

    Tech Member
    https://twitter.com/SonicFreak94/status/946595757045424128
     
  5. Lanzer

    Lanzer

    The saber calls for its master... Member
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    Living life.
    So all these little mini mod restoration porjects are gonna go into some huge DC Restoration Mod right?

    You guys are doing fantastic work restoring DC SA1 btw, can't wait to see this game fully back to the way it was.
     
  6. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    I doubt it, it would take a lot of effort to combine the mods into one DLL file.
     
  7. Dissident

    Dissident

    Sami Member
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    Looks great Morph, thanks. :)
     
  8. Shaddy the guy

    Shaddy the guy

    Professional Internet asshole Member
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    Why even bother? Just to only have to click one tickbox? I thought a quick and simple way to get it all in there was the reason PkR made the installer.
     
  9. Lanzer

    Lanzer

    The saber calls for its master... Member
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    Thats fine, then hopefully the installer comes with all of them. it would be a bitch to hunt down all these little mods long after the project is done.
     
  10. Dissident

    Dissident

    Sami Member
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    I mean are there really that many that the installer doesn't automatically update? The DLC and motion blur are the only ones that come to mind really.

    Speaking of though, it's funny how well the motion blur works in game- when I first tried I wasn't even sure if it was on lol, it's definitely more apparent in screenshots and blends surprisingly well in motion. SA1 was pretty ahead of its time for sure.

    Edit -
    Btw, for anyone who's been looking in the DC restoration thread, I've been working on taking high res screenshots of some of the game's environments just out of admiration for the original DC aesthetic. I have an album available here (some in 4K, some in 1440p, and some in like crazy 8K, I'll try to normalize that over time to just 4K): https://www.flickr.com/photos/128926944@N03/sets/72157664134172118/with/38504112695/

    I'm going to try messing around with disabling the HUD, but I'd also like to ask if anyone here as any idea how the camera works in this game. I can get some decent angles in a lot of locations, but the camera is still very limiting as is and any way to control it a little more liberally would be awesome. Help a brother out. ;)
     
  11. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    I've just added a "Hide HUD" cheat code to the mod loader that should remove just about all UI elements that appear in gameplay.
     
  12. Dissident

    Dissident

    Sami Member
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  13. PkR

    PkR

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    SADX Dreamcast Conversion, The Emeralds' Awakening
    New release of my PL Tool, lighting palette editor for SA1/SADX Lantern Engine.
    This is a major update with lots of new features, including a streamlined UI, much better gradient generators (sliders and SADX Preview style) and a lighting preview feature. You can also check for updates from the Help menu.
    Changelog
    [​IMG]
    Download PL Tool
    I also took some time to document the basics of the SA1 lighting system so that new users of my tool can understand how to use it easily. The guide is available from the tool's help menu, here's a direct link:
    Sonic Adventure lighting guide
    For the preview feature you need 2 screenshots - a fullbright one and a lighting mask. I've created masks for most levels, which you can download here:
    Download level masks for the preview feature (open folder)
    There isn't a usage guide for the tool itself yet, but the interface should be self-explanatory enough, and there are tooltips scattered throughout, so it should be easy to pick up.
     
  14. Do you guys know who was ripping SA models and levels to upload them on models-resource.com? I've tried downloading Sky Chase' egg carrier and found out how texture mapping was screwed, most likely during export to OBJ since render that uploader has provided is clean.
     
  15. Chris Highwind

    Chris Highwind

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    Oh man, I just found this hilarious mod that replaces all the music in SADX with Windy Hill (Windy Valley 1), in order to recreate those old pirate copies of SADX where all the music was just that one track.

    https://gamebanana.com/sounds/40036
     
  16. MainMemory

    MainMemory

    Kate the Wolf Tech Member
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    Too bad he's done it by literally replacing the music files instead of using the mod loader's ReplaceFiles functionality to do it. He fixed it, but only because I handed him the exact data to put in mod.ini.
     
  17. Exant

    Exant

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    Hello SonicRetro!
    I've been making a Chao Garden expansion mod lately and I decided that this could be my first release of the modpack (with other stuff soon to come)
    Download
    The base mod contains: -random mouths and eyes
    -character chao evolution (had a lot of fun when I was making that)
    -shiny jewels are transparent
    Monster evolution - same as in the SA2 CWE
    Color Mixing - colors get mixed on breeding
    *credit goes to DarkyBenji and ChaoGardenBuster for the original mod*

    About Shiny Jewels being transparent, I just edited the transparency color. But lately a member of our community (LimitCrown) has been looking at the GameCube version and he found out that those colors are the same,
    the only difference is the game reads them in a GBAR format. (here's his documentation: documentation).
    I might port those colors over to the mod someday, but currently I'm taking a break from the project.

    Enjoy!

    Edit: turns out the monster evo and color mixing isn't working, patch coming out *soon*
    Edit again: Fixed it. No more edits, I promise.
     
  18. PkR

    PkR

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    SADX Dreamcast Conversion, The Emeralds' Awakening
    I'm about to update all my mods to support new Mod Loader functionality as well as make them compatible with the integrated "Dreamcast Conversion" mod that is coming soon.

    About DLC mods: since they can no longer detect which version of the level (DC or SADX) you're using, there's now a manual config option to toggle between Dreamcast and SADX object placement for the DLCs that need it. So if you're using SADX Station Square, you'd need to switch the DLC mods to the "vanilla SADX mode". All DLC mods that have configurable options have also been updated to support the Mod Loader's config editor.

    In the next couple of days the rest of my mods will receive minor compatibility updates, then HD GUI 2 will receive a large update, and after that I'll start rolling out the unified Dreamcast Conversion mod. I'll post about it separately on ModDB and in the DC mods topic.

    Also, I gotta say that Chao stuff is really nice! I've been hoping to see some Chao development in SADX and I'm glad it's happening. Looking forward to more of this.
     
  19. PkR

    PkR

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    SADX Dreamcast Conversion, The Emeralds' Awakening
    Posting here since the DLCs mod works with and without other Dreamcast mods.

    The individual DLC mods have been integrated into a unified "Dreamcast DLC" mod that adds LOTS of configuration options! Here's a list of what you can do:
    • You can make it load a single DLC every time, or load a random DLC on every startup, or even load specific DLCs on specific weeks!
    • For the Samba GP DLC you can enable the Super Sonic Racing tune for all characters and select which character goes to which track (out of 6 total).
    • This is minor, but you can force the menu narrator to be a specific character like on the Dreamcast, where you could do that with character voice packs on the VMU.
    • Unlike the separate Dreamcast Launch Party DLC mod, where you had to select the region of the event, you can select each region as a separate event. So now you can run the US Dreamcast Launch in early September and the Japanese one in late November if you use the Seasonal DLC mode.
    • There's an option to make the characters say "SEGA!" when the game starts up. It uses slightly altered code from Morph's SADXFE. If you select a specific character to voice the menus, the SEGA screen will be voiced by the same character. The voice will be randomized like in SADXFE if you don't have a specific character selected in the menu voice option. If you use Japanese voices, you need to select Japanese for the SEGA voice separately because the game doesn't know which language you're using as the save isn't loaded on the SEGA screen.
    You need to remove ALL of the individual DLC mods to be able to use the updated single mod version. You no longer need the individual mods because the unified mod contains all of the DLCs.
    If you don't use Dreamcast Station Square, you need to enable the "Vanilla SADX mode" in the mod's config. This isn't automatic at the moment because there's no easy way for the DLCs mod to know whether or not you have Station Square enabled in the Dreamcast Conversion mod.

    Also, you probably remember that in the original game and older DLC mods certain DLCs could interfere with the story - e.g. the tree from the Christmas 1999 DLC would block the card needed to enter Speed Highway as Sonic. To avoid issues with the story, this mod does the following:

    1) When playing as Sonic, one of the Christmas trees doesn't spawn if Speed Highway is not cleared
    2) The Reebok DLC doesn't load if Emerald Coast isn't cleared
    3) The AT&T challenge for Sonic doesn't load if Speed Highway is open but not cleared

    You can get the updated mod from this direct link or by using my installer. Please report issues if you run into any.

    Also I'll be adding Japanese assets (created by Jmtshaw and Windii) to HD GUI, so expect a pretty big HD GUI update sometime soon.

    Have fun!
     
  20. Exant

    Exant

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    Did we ever create a Chunk Model struct exporter? (NJS_OBJECT->NJS_CNK_OBJECT I mean) Would be really useful, I tried messing around with "converting" the vertex struct from the regular NJS_OBJECT type to Sint32 but didn't really work. (I mean, that was expected but atleast I tried).