Sonic RDX Update

if you could both be so kind, I'd like to throw some clips together and mix your footage with some of my blooper footage.

Did you try the updated set file?

 

For your personal amusement, some of my better moments while making this mod.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDc2zvGBQeY

 

moar bamps

 

stuff I didn't write:
guide to the model format

Stuff I did write:
I'm going to start posting more of my incomplete findings... mostly for completeness sake.

Earlier tonight I stumbled upon the loading cue, if you will, for special-use geometry in emerald coast. By special use, I mean sky boxes, death planes, water, etc. Anything where the code goes beyond simple "render this, read collision data". The problem with this is that I think its mostly program instructions and not variables, and even the tiniest alterations are crashing before I can even note their effect.

I also found three references to the skybox - which corresponds to the amount of times it is used (once per segment), they reside at:

Code (Text):

1. keyed pointer value 17019504
2.  
3. Instances:
4. 1011372
5. 1011775
6. 1012025

The loading function seems to process things in chunks (obviously), and interestingly enough it uses the byte 0x68 to determine where the end of one chunk is, and where the beginning of the next one is. However, it isn't consistent whatsoever, and editing things inside of the chunks isn't doing anything productive at all (even copy-pasting data from similar objects is causing the loader to crash) I think this is where geometry objects that are instanced (ie: more than one copy of exactly the same thing). Also, the examples I listed above are pretty simple, but still confusing the hell out of me. I know it works a little something like this:

Code (Text):

1. chunk marker
2. pointer to seg struct
3. unknown (seems to be one byte and two shorts?)
4. chunk marker

Now I realize I'm probably the only person who gives a damn about this game, but I'm at a block here with the loading routine. If someone else could take a look into it, I'd be very appreciative.

Objects that don't fall under the special use category aren't listed here, but rather go under the collision structure (which is what I'm using for my level edits btw) How the game calculates collision (and also surface properties) is as follows:

start with 3 coordinates for an origin. Use the 4th float as a radius, and make a detection sphere using this data. The game constantly checks to see if sonic is inside this sphere, and if he is, it'll run the following surface properties. You can set basically any object to from non-solid to solid by making the flags read 01001080

Code (Text):

1. Collision data
2. Unfinished
3.  
4.  
5. Struct Collision Data 0x24
6. Float X position; //
7. Float y position; //
8. Float z position; //
9. Float Spheresize; //
10. Float Unknown; //
11. Float padding; //
12. Dword Objectpointer; // points to OBJECT struct
13. Dword Unknown; //
14. Short Unknown flags; // 01
15. Short Surface Flags; // These can hurt sonic, support sonic, take traction, etc
16.  
17. Unknown flags
18. 0 - no collision
19. 1 - default
20. 2 - weird alpha
21.  
22. Surface flags (first byte)
23. type
24. 1x = can land on
25. 2x = push
26. 3x = push
27. 4x = Kill sonic
28. 5x = no alpha, no col
29. 6x = water
30. 7x = lighting
31. 8x = Stage Specific on/off (EC footprints)
32. 9x = normal surf
33.  
34. behavior
35. x0 = normal
36. x1 = hurt
37. x2 = low traction
38. x3 = hurt
39.  
40. Surface Flags (second byte)
41. Visibility
42. 1x = invisible (still solid)
43. 8x = visible
44.  
45. Alpha blending
46. x0 = normal
47. x1 = blending mode 1
48. x2 = blending mode 2

Also, here's some tidbits on the player starts

Code (Text):

1. =========================
2. Spawnpoints - better known as 'player starts', these define where in a map to start the player. Spawn point entries are always 0x14 bytes long
3. =========================
4.  
5. short x_rotation; // rotation values might not really be stored here, just a guess
6. short y_rotation; //
7. short z_rotation; //
8. short segue; // seems to affect how the spawn point is interpreted. Editing this can cause the player to start at 0,0,0
9. float x_position;
10. float y_position;
11. float z_position;

Code (Text):

1. And Sonic's 'attack' state. This address jumps around, so I'm not going to list it until I find a pointer address.
2. 00 - completely vulnerable, no jump ball.
3. 05 - attack mode, can't be hurt by enemies, but not invulnerable. Jump ball will show if this is active
4. 02 - light dash charged and holding, sonic will glow.

Code (Text):

1. Material Struct -  keep bugging me to update this, so I'll actually do it
2. ================================
3. Byte Blue_Diffuse; // This is the amount of blue light to add to the diffuse (texture) channel
4. Byte Green_Diffuse; // This is the amount of green light to add to the diffuse (texture) channel
5. Byte Red_Diffuse; // This is the amount of red light to add to the diffuse (texture) channel
6. Byte Alpha_Diffuse; // This is the transparency for the texture channel
7. Byte Blue_Specular; // This is the gloss or specularity, blue channel
8. Btye Green_Specular; // This is the specularity, red channel
9. Byte Red_specular; // This is the specularity, green chanel
10. Byte Alpha_specular; // This is the transparency for the specularity
11. Float unknown; // seems to act like a float most of the time
12. Byte TexID; // this is the pvr to load... not a gbix - I think the gbix is interpreted somewhere in the pvm caching function
13. Byte SomethingImportant; // crashes when put to FF
14. Byte unknown2[3]; //
15. Byte unknown3; // seems to be Ax (x being a variable)
16. Byte Spheremap; // first bit - U clamping, second bit - V clamping. Set to 21 to get normal uvs, set to 66 for screen mapping
17. Byte EndOfStruct; // always 94

edit: More structures added

 

I'm A SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK, SUCK MY DIIIIIIIIIIIIICK

 

Stuff in the BG isn't showing up because my of my video card's poly limit... srsly its that bad. So those floating objects won't be floating on the average person's pc. Yes there's a platform there those things are sitting on. Also, what do you guys think of the sonic texture?