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Sonic 3D Glasses

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by MarkeyJester, Nov 25, 2013.

  1. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    This is another one of my little experiments, because you know... why not! If you'd like to take part then go and grab yourself a pair of 3D glasses, I'm not talking about those new shaded ones though, I mean the standard Red and Blue/Cyan ones.

    This experiment is to test the old 3D double image effect on Sonic 1. It uses various effects which include; different colour shades, different image displacement types, and different drawing modes. It isn't perfect as, clearly speaking, the levels are not designed to handle the effect, but the individual modes do help to find a near appropriate type.

    WARNING: The ROM features flickering colours that may cause eye strain, and may not be suitable for anyone with past/known symptoms of seizures\epilepsy.

    Download

    You will need a 6-button controller for this, as X, Y, Z and MODE buttons control the effect in various ways. This list is as follows:

    • MODE = 3D mode (00 Off, 01 Frame, 02 Scanline)
    • Y = Distance mode (00 Normal, 01 FG Stretch, 02 Reverse, 03 Reverse & FG Stretch)
    • X = Red colour (00 Filter, 01 Push, 02 Bright)
    • Z = Cyan colour (00 - Filter (Blue), 01 - Pushed (Blue), 02 - Filter (Cyan), 03 - Dark (Cyan), 04 - Darker (Cyan), 05 - Pushed (Cyan))
    Each level has different varients of colour, so the effect may need adjusting depending on the level's colour. I must also point out that "3D mode" will be 00 Off by default, which will do nothing obviously.

    I find the effect works sometimes in some places, but not all the time. It can also depend on how far away from the screen you are standing/sitting, as Flygon noted in one of the tests, he had his back against the wall of his room being really distant from the screen. While I on the other hand, found being up reasonably close helped, so be sure to try looking at the screen at different distances. I also found that where you focus can have an effect on the 3D display. For example, in GHZ if you look at the background directly, it tends not to work, there as if you are standing on a platform object, and focusing on Sonic and the platform itself, the effect becomes a little more noticable.

    Other things that may effect the visuals include the type of TV screen and hardware/simulator you run the game on. Flygon reported spots of colour bleeding on a CRT screen. The region frequency is another thing to note, 60hz and 50hz may have different visual results, and you might get more flickering on the 50hz PAL mode. Another note about flickering, lag in a few possible places can cause this, especially on 02 Scanline MODE, so please keep that in mind.

    LazloPsylus and I have gone through each level checking out various modes, and our recommended modes are:

    • GHZ 0 2 3 1 or 0 1 4 1
    • LZ 1 2 2 1 (When concertraighting on the background) or 0 2 2 1 (for a darker background)
    • MZ 0 2 4 1 (OK for the grass area) 1 2 2 1 (best for the underground parts)
    • SLZ 1 2 2 1 (Generally for the bottom part)
    • SYZ/SBZ 1 2 2 1
    We have found that 1 2 2 1 does generally work the best, with 0 2 3 1 being a darker version. 0 2 0 1 works quite well but is very dark, so you may have a tough time seeing it. What's really interesting, is that GHZ of all levels, was the one that didn't seem to turn out very well. It seems that levels with backgrounds that have very little parallaxing, and enough foreground coverage tend to work the best.

    A very special thanks to Flygon and LazloPsylus who did a fantastic job being my eyes while I didn't have the glasses until recently, the effect would not work as well as it does in most levels, without their assistance helping to tune it right.
     
  2. Blastfrog

    Blastfrog

    See ya starside. Member
    Damn, I wish I had any pairs of red/cyan glasses.

    I always thought a decent solution would be to have an emulator run two ROMs in sync with the same player input, with each ROM having its own camera offset. I wonder if that's how the 3DS version handled it, or if it was running natively without weird tricks like that.

    I have an Oculus Rift, maybe I should give that a shot with a custom build of Gens/GS for that purpose.
     
  3. TmEE

    TmEE

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    I need to get/make some 3D glasses ! The premise is really cool :)
     
  4. Overlord

    Overlord

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    OK, that's pretty damn cool. Had a quick play with a pair of 3D glasses I had lying about and this actually works really well. How'd you even think to make this, inspiration from the recent 3DS release?
     
  5. Josh

    Josh

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    This is cool, but lacking any 3D glasses, I'm wondering...

    Would it be possible to use splitscreen to mimic side-by-side for 3D images? I actually tried an experiment where I took apart two pairs of "theater"-style 3D glasses and gave each one two of the same lenses. When I enable the on-top view on my 3D TV, I can use them to give each player their "own" screen in splitscreen games. The effect works best in Sonic 2, where the graphics are normally squished... like this, they're not! It's a pretty awesome effect.
     
  6. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    Well actually, no. When I finished making Sonic 1 The Ring Ride (the original drunk one), MegaGWolf did a play-through on YouTube. One of the comments mentioned the effect having double vision, similar to the 3D effect, and wondered if it'd be possible to pull off.

    And it works... sort of. There's a lot of "requirements" though, such as sitting distance from the TV, the type of glasses worn, stuff like that. That sort of kills it unfortunately, but it does work given the conditions are met.
     
  7. doc eggfan

    doc eggfan

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    [​IMG]

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    hmmm? :v:
     
  8. redhotsonic

    redhotsonic

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    For me, 0 2 2 1 seems to work best for every level. Your suggestion on 1 2 2 1 for every level also is good but makes it a bit more brighter. Preference I suppose. Either way, this is neat stuff, awesome work. I might put this on real hardware tomorrow so I can play it on the big screen. Next job, Stereoscopic (SBS) please =P
     
  9. Flygon

    Flygon

    Member
    Just a small note on the colour bleeding, it was mainly such a problem due to only having composite cables available. Anyone using RGB cables shouldn't have such problems.

    Also.