Sonic Adventure 2 Hacking

Why can't you put the mod manager in your SA2 install folder? All the files it uses have to be there anyway.

 

Ok this may have actually been my mistake and I feel silly now.

What I did:

What I have now:

That's what I get for trying to be too tidy with my files.

Thanks for the heads up man.

 

You know what this means? Now we can have generations esq character replacement mods in SA2 :specialed:

Someone, quick, release a mod where Shadow replaces Knuckles, Tails replaces Rouge, and Chaos replaces Sonic. Why? Because why not that's why

 

Tails doesn't have the same skeleton, so that wouldn't work. Actually, I'm not sure about Rouge either?

 

What about Mechless Tails? Rouge tit physics might make her a bit different though.

Oh god someone swap Amy with Rouge...

 

As far as I'm aware, the characters can be organized into groups like this:
Sonic, Shadow, Amy, Metal Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, Tikal, Chaos, Super Sonic, Super Shadow
Eggman
Mech Tails
Mech Eggman, Big
Chao Walker, Dark Chao Walker

 

Mechless Tails also works, but is prone to crashing for some reason.

And no, Metal does not have jiggly boobs :p

 

Those bat wings almost kind of work on Metal Sonic. They look metallic.

 

Meh, somebody just replace EVERYONE with Sonic and release under the title "SONIC Adventure 2" already.

Actually, I might do that sometime if I get off my lazy butt and learn what to do.

 

I have added a new tool to the SA2PC folder of the SA Tools package: PAKEdit.

Just imagine that says "PAK" instead of "PVM".
It allows you to export textures as PNG, and import from PNG, JPG, GIF or BMP.
It does not support GVM files. If you want to edit a GVM, you can use GVM2PAK to convert it to a PAK file first.

 

Question, what would I use to extract the sound files from the same?

 

The sound effects and voice clips that play in gameplay are stored in the MPB (voice) and MLT (sfx) folders as CSB files, like other recent Sonic games.
Voice clips that play in cutscenes are stored in the event_adx.afs/event_adx_e.afs files, just like the Dreamcast version.
Sound effects that play in cutscenes are stored in the event/MLT folder as CSB files.

I know that extractors exist for both CSB and AFS, but I don't know where.

 

The latest version of SA Tools includes a new version of the SA2 Stage Select Editor. This version asks you to select the sonic2app_data.ini file, and loads all the data from there. However, simply using the StructConverter program to generate a mod with a modified stage select will not work currently, as it does not replace the pointers the game uses to determine where the data ends. I'll have to make a special case for that.

 

I just came across something kind of interesting. Look at this old SA2 hacking thread from 2004, in Google's cache. Press Ctrl+F and search for "default". Look at those last five lines of code (seven if you include blank lines) in that code block. Now look at this screenshot from one of the game's cutscenes, flipped upside-down:

Spoiler

What's going on here?

 

Transcribed to the best of my ability:

Code (Text):

1. <option>
2. base_scale 1.000000 #all?trans rot type A
3. bace_position 0.00000 0.000000
4. bace_angle 0.000 0.000(degree)
5. global_scale 1.0000 #not convert
6. motion_type ASTT
7.  
8. <original>#Don't touch#mousefront1#####
9. Translation
10. OBJECT(mousefront1) [
11. TRANSLATION (-7.084425, -6.379205, -6.211783)
12. ROTATION ( 0.262809, -0.742947,  2.936508)
13. SCALING ( 1.000000,  1.000000,  1.000000)
14. PARENT(NULL) CHILD(NULL) SIBLING(NULL)
15. VERTEX_COUNT(185) POLYGON_COUNT(195)
16. POLYGON3(195) POLYGON4(0) POLYGONN(0)
17. CENTER(0.935226, -0.549113, -0.000458) RADIUS(1.4
18.  
19. DEFAULT_START
20.  
21. #ifndef DEFAULT_OBJECT_NAME
22. #define DEFAULT_OBJECT_NAME object_e0017e_null6_
23. #endif
24.  
25. DEFAULT_END

The texture cuts off the end of the line with RADIUS and the DEFAULT_OBJECT_NAME definition.
It's definitely something related to a model, but it doesn't look like a model definition itself. e0017 refers to the cutscene between Pyramid Cave and Death Chamber, where the heroes are all looking at the big door.

 

Long time, no see. Glad you're back though.

One thing I've recently been pondering is how to rip the sounds from the MLT files. You mentioned here that you managed to, but it was never expanded upon. Any insights/updates on that?

 

Hey darkspines35, I remember years ago having a little bit of luck opening the MLT files in GoldWave. I was never able to get perfect quality sound effects, but I could get a static track where you can sort of hear sound effects. Interesting thing I remember finding, was an unused sound effect (If I was hearing correctly), but this sound effect is used in Sonic Unleashed when you touch the Goal ring. But again, mostly static-y mess. Hope this helps

 

I feel this little find is worth noting here. After some boredom mixed with thinking today, I ended up looking into SA2's 1ST_READ.BIN and found some models worth noting. The Chaos Drives were in there, so were some musical notes, but nothing quite beats this:


Looks like a camera. And it could be for camera visualization/debug purposes. Here's the address if anyone wants it: 0xEB774