Sonic CD backgrounds?

How convenient, I was at just the right kind of website. Try here, but watch out for fancharacters.

(I can't spell~)

 

Use qiuu's data extractor to make SonED2 projects of Sonic CD zones, then use SonED2 to export backgrounds as PCX files.
I did that with the foregrounds to make the level maps I uploaded on the wiki. I'd do that for you but I can't right now (not on my main computer). I will look into doing that if you want, though.

 

I figure you could also use the old SonEd to rip them from a PC version :P

 

I'll try to do that in the next 18 hours. If you don't see me posting in this thread by then, then you have to install windows, yes.

 

Now, I could be misinterpreting what you're saying... but are you trying to make this? qiuu's already split the level layouts and set them up for SonED2, and made it public to boot.

 

SonED 2 doesn't work with WINE.

 

I'm totally not running SonED2 in WINE. Nope, not at all.

Yes, you do need a windows install, but no it's not because it doesn't run. It's because it doesn't do what you need it to do. You can load projects, take screen shots, and edit and even save layouts!

But trying to export the level to an image crashes it. Since all you want is to export the level background to an image, this is not the behavior you want.

Also: make sure to disable any composting window managers you happen to have (compiz/compizfusion/beryl/whatever else exists), as they cause massive lag when trying to run SonED2 in WINE.

Also also: It gives you an error about it not running and needing to close, but if you "OK" past that error, it works just fine? (Well, image exporting aside).

When running from a console, the debug output it gives while running the program is something along the lines of being unable to create some registry entry. When it finally crashes, it outputs:
fixme:d3d_surface:surface_init Trying to create a render target that isn't in the default pool.
fixme:d3d:WineD3D_ChoosePixelFormat Add OpenGL context recreation support to SetDepthStencilSurface
wine: Unhandled exception 0xc000008e at address 0x7d77e068 (thread 0009), starting debugger...
intel_tex_image.c:355: intelTexImage: Assertion `texImage->RowStride == postConvWidth' failed.
First chance exception: assertion failed in 32-bit code (0xb8007424).

And then starts dumping registers/stack/backtrace information.

I'm not sure if this is a problem with SonED2 (it IS old software, bit rot perhaps), with the way wine deals with / emulates DirectX (Most likely cause, wine implementation is not perfect), or some third thing I can't think of.

But as this is a you looking for backgrounds thread and not a me-posting-my problems thread, I'll fire up my XP VM and rip those backgrounds for you!

Edit: Done. Best place to host files? They're all in a 7-zip archive. Holy shit that is some good compression, 40MB of PCX images compressed into a single 1MB archive.

 

New post so it's easier to find:
The download link:

http://www.filedropper.com/scd

It is a 7-zip archive containing the background data as exported by SonED2 - so it's full of PCX image files.
You will need some method of extracting 7-zip archives (http://www.7-zip.org/download.html - has versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Linux users can also check their favorite repositories)

As for opening (and converting) said PCX image files, you're on your own. I know for a fact that ifranview can do it, pretty sure any other decent graphics editing program (Read: not mspaint) can handle it.

Best of luck in whatever endeavor you wanted these files for.

 

EDIT: Nevermind, forget this post...

 

Pity the second backgrounds of Quartz Quadrant weren't included, but this is fine as it is.

Interesting how in a couple cases the bad future is just a replica of the present background with signs of decay added in and how in other cases the present is its own style and the other time zones are something else entirely.

 

What do you mean the "second backgrounds"? It's been forever since I've sat down and played all the way through Sonic CD, and I rarely pay much attention to the backgrounds as-is.

At any rate, in my opinion anyway, most of the backgrounds are similar or otherwise close to identical for all the time zones (the gimmick being that shit changes gradually over time). But considering that each time zone has a different background and on at least one (and possibly other occasions), the different Acts can have slightly different backgrounds, I'd imagine that they cut corners at some points and neglected to change some backgrounds that drastically. We're talking about four different backgrounds per zone, sometimes per act!

 

There is a background for the outdoor areas and a background for the indoor areas. Pretty much like in Ice Cap zone in Sonic 3.

 

I'm not sure if these are still needed or not, but the latest version of Sonic Extractor CD Mix can export background graphics.

It'll even do the exterior Quartz Quadrant backgrounds, but you'll need savestates made after they've been loaded into memory.