The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

The Retro Sonic Development Kit version 5 that's used for Mania is quite different to RSDKv4 that was used for S1/S2, and RSDKv3 that was used for CD.

 

In what regard? Do you think it would necessarily affect the likelihood of SEGA licensing it for these remakes, or is it simply a correction of my lack of knowledge surrounding the Retro engine?

 

tbh I'd be happy with ports of the older games to v5 too. CD for instance, which is actually available on PC unlike 1 & 2, has issues with modern machines/framerates making the game run hyperfast unless you go into your GPU settings and force vsync/a hard framerate cap on it. It's not something I deal with with the fan decomps of the mobile versions for instance, or Mania.

 

I mean, you know there's a decomp for CD too, right?

 

I recall Stealth mentioning somewhere that Sonic Mania is a complete re-write with little compatible with each other. Something about the original game using a lot of scripting, while Mania used hard coded stuff? Been a while.

Anyway, on another topic. Was looking through some old SEGA Video Magazines, and spotted this one:



At the end there seems to be a 'Sonic & Tails' competition of some sort, with like a code that comes up? Was this a special cart that had this code appear to show your time?

 

Sonic & Tails Kattobi Saisoku Technique

 

RSDKv4 and prior use a custom scripting language (normally compiled to bytecode, but the PC port of CD does contain a text parser), while Sonic Mania converted those scripts to C++. It was intended that the converted scripts would be held in a separate DLL file, allowing for a neat distinction between the Retro Engine itself and the game code, but Sega's idea to slap Denuvo on it meant that if they used the dll, most of the game's code wouldn't be covered by it. So they shoved it all into the main exe. Thanks Sega.

Also noteworthy vis-a-vis RSDK versions, v4 and prior use 16x16 tiles and 128x128 chunks to construct levels (effectively merging the original games' tiles and blocks into one unit), while v5 uses 16x16 tiles directly in the level layouts, allowing level design to be more intricately detailed and freeform.

 

So, a tweet brought to my attention that Sonic actually builds the gold statue of himself in Casinopolis after getting 5000 rings. I wasted 40 minutes to find it's built in stages. No I didn't get all of the shots or keep a Ring count, Jax.



This version of the statue doesn't have the red flashy bit on his foot for Knuckles to break.

 

That was a fun detail by the devs. It took me a while to notice it.

Speaking of which, since the statue is fully built by the time you enter the level as Knuckles, does that mean Sonic canonically messed around in Casinopolis until he amassed 5000+ rings?

Sonic has a gambling addiction confirmed?

 

Sonic has a pinball addiction confirmed, otherwise he would avoid being constantly slammed inside those machines.

 

The Sonic statue in Casinopolis in Sonic's stage is named "O SONZ", and has 5 states, depending on how many rings you've stored in the vault.
If you've put less than 200 rings in, nothing will be shown.
If you've put in at least 200 rings, but less than 1000, the models casi_nc_kin_soni01s.nja and casi_nc_tetubo01s.nja will be shown, showing Sonic's shoes and part of one of his legs (unfortunately I cannot render the models together, so they're shown here separately):

If you've put in at least 1000 rings, but less than 2500, the models casi_nc_kin_soni02s.nja and casi_nc_tetubo02s.nja will be shown, and they've built both his legs and half of his torso:

If you've put in at least 2500 rings, but less than 5000, the models casi_nc_kin_soni03s.nja and casi_nc_tetubo03s.nja will be shown, which is now just missing his head:

And then when you put 5000 rings in the bank, the entire statue is casi_nc_kin_soni04s.nja:


Knuckles' version is named "O KSONICZO", and before you demolish the work of art that Sonic spent 5000 rings to build, it consists of two models, casi_es_kin_sonic.nja and casi_es_kin_hib.nja (yes the glowing spot is a separate model):

Collision around the base of the statue is handled by a dedicated model, casi_cl_soniasicl.nja:

After smashing, it renders 168 unique models for all the fragments of the statue as it falls apart, which I will not be posting images for.

Filenames come from the PDB file that was included with the prototype of the Xbox 360 port.

 

A few years ago I made a thread about this but I stopped posting in it since I kinda lost interest in making constant update posts for it.
So, instead, I'm just going to post this here and whoever is interested in it I hope checks it out.

I've been working on an archive for Sonic video (and sometimes other stuff) media that includes high-quality (mostly .mov files) press trailers and other promotional content.
It's taking a long time to post everything I have so there's a vast quantity of stuff not on there yet, but there is a lot already up.

Archive Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1Poy2upW_47Vt_fGidhNqFKg8qNusqXIm

Currently, I've been busy with Sonic Movie 2 content since that's hot at the moment. There's ProRes trailers, interviews, Spots, and more.
Please take a look and spread the word to help raise awareness that this exists.

 

I have that uncompressed Sonic Riders video floating around somewhere... it was on Sega's FTP and it was considered a massive download for it's time...

 

I have some Riders stuff but just to make sure, I'd appreciate it.

 

A video I've been looking for for a while is the original asset for this:



The "They Call Me Sonic" music video. This video is apparently on this Music CD: http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(album)

Obviously it's online, but I want whatever the original AVI was on that CD, so that it's not spent years being compressed and compressed on various video platforms

 

I did that years ago and thought it was fun. Maxed out my rings doing it though, and the payoff is just...doing it again.

 

Was browsing through Pluto TV late last night and noticed a familiar name on their Forever Kids channel... turned out to be the SatAM series! Not sure what time they will run it again, but they do have the show on demand to watch anytime for free. They have Christmas Blast on there too, if anyone cares about that one. =P

 

This is completely unrelated to any topic that is currently on the board... does anyone actually use B as the action button on Sonic Adventure 2? I've been replaying SA2 on the PS3 out of boredom or something. It made me remember how the game always suggested the button on the right of the diamond layout when available (though I think I remember the original GCN ports said B instead of X). Just wondering.

 

Random bits :

SONIC CD is featured at the "I love Japan" exhibition in Liege, Belgium, which opened on April 2nd.