Sonic Lost World (PC / Wii U) Hacking & Resources

Use Paint.Net and save as a dds then set it to DXT5 compression. Paint.net is more convenient that way since you can just open it up by double clicking the file. Also you need to use DXT5, otherwise it would just give you flashing circus lights.

Edit: As far as transparency goes use alpha maps where black is invisible and white is visible.

 

I'm curious... How would Lost World look with Generations' textures? Just an idle thought, cause of course Lost World is a lot more basic in the lighting department. I'd just like to see what Windy Hill was like if the Green Hill textures were, like, not shit.

 

I'd normally get around to that since it sounds quick for the most part but I don't really have time to mess around with Lost World for the rest of this month.
And as a side note, you can force FXAA and Anisototropic Filtering through Nvidia Control Panel. You can also force Ambient Occlusion and SGSSAA through Nvidia Inspector, both sharing the same values as Generations does. I don't really touch Nvidia Inspector because reseting the control panel settings would possibly mess things up, but now you know. I'm not sure about AMD, last time I owned an 'AMD' card was back in like, 2005 when they were called ATi but I'd assume Anisotropic Filtering and FXAA would still work.

 

Ecckk, more assistance needed.

So I unpacked the pac file, changed the textures I needed, and then recompiled the pac file. Now for some reason the level hangs. Any reason as to why it might do that and how I can fix it? I notice that when the pac file recompiles the set up is different than when it was originally packed, so instead of having 10 pac files it has grouped them into 9 instead. Does that have something to do with it?

 

I read in a few places that the maximum file size you can have for a pac file in Lost World is around 12-15 mb, otherwise the game freezes. That could be what's reducing the amount of pac files you have? If not, just upload them so we can quickly see what's wrong first hand since Lost World's files aren't very big anyway.

 

It looks like it's packing too much into one file, as w1a04_trr_cmn.pac.02 is 12,181 KB. Just not sure how to cut that file in half, since pacpack just does it automatically.

The only texture changes I made were altering colors. Outside of that though everything is the same as it was before.

 

I noticed some levels won't load in SonicGLvl. For en example, "xsea02" (Lava Mountain 7-2). It throws out an error.

Code (Text):

1.  
2.  
3. Reading ../cache/xsea02/data/xsea02_obj_00.orc
4. orc requested object that has no template: PointMarkerAir
5. Reading ../cache/xsea02/data/xsea02_obj_01.orc
6. Terrain Folder: ../cache/xsea02/resources
7. Water slot more than 1? Unhandled case.
8.  

 

Lava Mountain 2... I wouldn't know how to fix this either way, but does it load Tropical Coast 3 alright? The error log mentions a water slot, and LMZ2 and TCZ3 are the water tube/rail levels, so...

 

It does load, Dario just set it up so it pauses until you've read the error. Press enter in the console window and it will continue.

 

Yeah pacpack has to have things in a certain order for it to load, but also it needs to be below a 13mb since the biggest file in the game is 12.2mb. I'll try looking into pacpack to see if it can be split up better, I did make one for splitting up things easier but that requires you to have the SDK all set up to compile it. I don't feel like we need multiple versions of pacpack.

And I think the reasoning why is because the game has no streaming for terrain or compression for anything in this game. Curious though since the game has a zlib.dll if we were to zlib compress a .pac file would it still load it. Stupid idea but worth a shot.

 

Two questions:
1. Has anybody attempted to place new files into the sonic2013_patch_0.cpk to see if it loads those files as well. (For example, placing new SFX acb files into the patch cpk to see if it will load those over the originals.) I'm wondering if this is possible because it'd make audio swapping modifications much easier than re-packing the original cpk, which takes an eternity and a half.
2. I'm attempting a model swap, and I got most everything working. When I change the color of the spinball, the color change doesn't appear in game. Is there a specific format I'm supposed to save the .dds file as? Or am I wrong entirely and I should be doing something else?

 

Could it cap the max at 10 or 11 mb instead of 12, so that way it doesn't run into errors? Or is there a way you could make it so it compiles into the same number of files it had originally?

 

1.) Yes, you can add files to sonic2013_patch_0.cpk. Even the Lost World Mod loader takes advantage of that (also, start using that mod loader It's a LOT more convenient than having to re-make the .cpk files every time. Just make sure your current sonic2013_patch_0.cpk is the original un-altered version first.)

2.) Are you actually editing the correct .dds file? The spinball model has 4 textures, (chr_sonic_spin_dif, chr_sonic_spin_e1, chr_sonic_spin_fal, and chr_sonic_spin_spc.) You need to change the colors for the dif(diffuse,) e1(reflection,) and spc(specular) textures to make the colors show up correctly in-game.
Also, there isn't any specific compression format you NEED to use for the .dds files. Generally, the best options are to use DXT1 compression if there's no transparency/alpha channel, DXT5 compression if there is an alpha channel, and "8.8.8.8 ARGB" if you don't want the texture to be compressed (though using no compression ups the file size by quite a bit.)

 

So when editing the reflection and specular files, how do you know what color they're supposed to be? Should you alter the colors by the same value you altered the diffuse texture by (So for example, if the hue went down by 180 on the dif, the same would be done to the e1 and spc file right?)

 

I can, but I rather try to take note and do what MainMemory did for the AR packer for splitting things. I'll have to look at that sometime to try it that way.

 

Whatever works best for you. I appreciate you making it in the first place.

Also random but I just really love this mod:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nbbiZmuhuI&index=24&list=PL_JgN0znRlhgkTCr1MnYst1v2nTS0PW_a

 

Okay hold on why hasn't that character model swap been done for Generations??

The Sonic the Fighters model could be great as well.

 

Good question, but I imagine part of it has to do with the fact that this art style works with this model, where as it'd majorly clash with generations.

 

Hello there! I gave cpkredir an overhaul that should make it compatible with more PC games that use CPKs/CRI middleware. I tested it with Sonic 4 Ep. 1 & 2 and it worked. It didn't work with Street Fighter 4, because the CRI libraries used in that game were too old and therefore too different. Unfortunately, I don't have Lost World yet, so I can't test it, but I'm quite sure that it'll work.
Download coming soon...

Nice, but it still has to rebuild a cpk, even if it's a small one. And it obviously uses original CRI middleware cpkmaker for that, which is probably illegal to redistribute in this manner.

 

Since the spinball's diffuse, reflection, and specular maps all use the same general hue, making the same color change for all of them is generally the right idea.
When making similar changes to other non-diffuse textures, it's always a good idea to pay attention to what colors they use in comparison to the diffuse map so that you can get an idea of what color changes you should make to them.

Nice! I can't wait to see if it works for Lost World!