I post random stuff to do with Sonic games, usually the Adventure series but sometimes others. I also do YouTube videos from time to time! Discord: speeps
After a plenty long wait, the Event and Specular update is here! Finally adding long awaited graphical features, such as specular highlights
Render Fix 1.5 by Shaddatic for SA2 PC is now released. This is a huge overhaul for SA2's graphics that fixes a ton of errors.
This also means that my old mod, Cutscene Revamp, is now obsolete - Render Fix ported all the events from the Dreamcast version and overhauled the renderer to play them correctly.
My mod lasted 5 and a half years. It was a great run, so we had to give it a good send off.
CR is back and better than ever!... A Sonic Adventure 2 (SA2) Mod in the Events category, submitted by HedgeWedge
For anyone who misses having Sonic's normal shoes, Amy's eyeliner, or any of the other customizable options CR had, there's now a mod by HedgeWedge and Mars23 that adds them using Render Fix's event system!
At several points in the game, the game uses characters to show you where cutscene triggers are. These are the same object as the character NPCs you can interact with (Big in Station Square etc.), just without any text since you're not supposed to be able to walk up to them.
For Sonic and Tails, NPCs of Amy and Eggman spawn when the flag for clearing Sky Deck is enabled, but since the cutscene they're meant to accompany begins as soon as you enter the area they can't be seen normally.
The monitor near Sky Deck's front entrance changes depending on whether the character you're playing as can enter it.
You can't see the second (closed) line normally, since only Sonic and Tails can get to this area. Plus, the only way to enter this map is via the monorail, which is disabled until the ship is reverted in the story.
There are two oversights related to this line, though one is the result of changes made for SADX.
It doesn't account for SADX's "lock stage until clearing the next" thing, due to it only checking for you being Sonic or Tails. Granted, you have to go pretty far out of the way to come back here.
In celebration of the recent Sonic Live In Concert tour announcement and as someone who has frequented Sonic events for the last few years, I've put together this handy map! Have fun!
The Egg Carrier's monorail follows the rest of the line into the second hole after it leaves. I found this years ago by stopping the stage transition, but it turns out this thing has more to it:
Unlike the train, the monorail checks if you're actually in it before it does the stage transition when it starts moving:
ObjectECMonorailAPart: 0x520CC0 (PC)
It can't leave on its own like this, but if it's hacked to do so it functions normally: You can still move and the monorail station is disabled until the monorail finishes its path around the map.
There's an orphaned GetEntranceNumber() in it's init mode, which is a function that checks where you're entering the map.
Usually this is passed to a variable or used as a condition. Functions like this on their own are an indicator of removed code, and sure enough I checked the AutoDemo and it part that was removed, though not much else:
ObjectECMonorailAPart: 0xC936F00 (AD, in ADV01.PRS)
This thing isn't even placed in that version.
The interior version is a different object so I checked that one as well. It had its own entrance-based code that wasn't removed:
ObjectECMonorailCPart: 0x529EC0 (PC)
However, you don't see this in-game because the entrance ID for entering via monorail is 2, not 9.
Forcing the player to enter with this ID reveals that running this code is pretty broken:
You get stuck with disabled controls while the monorail plays its full path behind you (without stopping), then disappears.
Presumably, the plan was to have the train next to you and leave if you entered this way, but it was never finished.
Make Sonic Adventure your playground. (Again)... A Sonic Adventure DX (SADX) Mod in the Other/Misc category, submitted by SPEEPSHighway
Big update for the Meme Maker 2 (1.2) is out now!
Changelog below:
CAMERA OPTIONS
Added the ability to queue cameras and play them back as a sequence. For each node in a camera sequence, you can set the number of interpolation frames and whether it moves at a fixed speed or smoothly. In addition to adding and clearing the queue, you can choose to only clear the last camera added to it, so you won't need to remake the entire thing if you don't like how it looks.
FACES
face.txt has been expanded to have one line for each player slot. However, this only applies to global binds. If you're using it from the face menu, it'll still only read the first line.
ANIMATION PLAYER
Animation queues are no longer erased after playing them.
It's now possible to play a single animation while storing a queue.
As with the new camera queue system, you can now remove the last entry in the animation queue.
EVENT FLAG
Uncommented some flags. You can't edit them much, but I need them.
GENERAL
New global key binds that allow you to trigger animation, camera and face playback. The binds are as follows:
SHIFT+P: Play Camera
SHIFT+[1-8]: Play Animation for Player [1-8]
CTRL+[1-8]: Play Face for Player [1-8]
CTRL+P: Play Camera + Animation for all players
CTRL+SHIFT+P: Play Animation+Camera+Face for all players
Added some more quotes to the top left.
Thanks to Jehtt for the feedback while making this.
The names used by SA1/SADX's debug models were something we talked about in X-Hax at the end of 2024.
Most of these are unreferenced because they were part of debug build functions. They're all simple shapes and can be viewed in the
(Left->right list in order)
object_hakoirimusume
object_harataira3000
object_maruyama_namie
object__miho93_miho93
object__rie84_rie84
object__hideo16_hideo16
There's nothing special about the models themselves, but since a few of them had real Japanese names (found via leaked symbols) we speculated for a bit if they could be references to anything.
Take everything below with a grain of salt, it's easy to draw connections that aren't there for this sort of thing.
hideo16 is possibly a reference to a 1990s baseball player, Hideo Nomo, who at the time played with the number 16:
The other two are bigger guesses but I want to mention them anyway:
Rieko Kodoma (Credited as Phoenix Rie) was a Sega developer who started working there in 1984. She didn't work on SA1 though according to Sega Retro.
Miho Takayanagi is credited on SA1 under Field Art Support.
Why is the Developer Level Select blank in the U.S. 1.1/EU/International versions? And why does entering it from the TGS menus close the PC port?
iirc it was overwritten by the code for animating the title screen. I haven't tried it on PC, but if I had to guess it'd be because the PC version crashes in situations it can't load things where the DC would just suck up and load garbage instead, like textures.
The description on shorts isn't immediately visible so I'll repeat it (with some extra details) as it explains what's going on.
If you move far away enough from the cannon at the start of Sky Deck (Roughly the other end of the platforms you run along) for it to despawn, you can go back and re-enter it as it respawns in its original state.
As Sonic, this doesn't do a lot. However, if you do it as Tails, Sonic will be at the end of the stage by the time you finish being fired.
This is because going back in causes the cannon to warp Sonic to it, but due to the distance it takes him this causes his opponent AI to think he fell of the stage, so on the next frame it warps him back to a few steps ahead of his last known location (The advancement is to stop him getting stuck above pits)
Kell gave me a camera hack from his multiplayer code to focus on AI Sonic as it did this, showing how fast he moves.
NOTE: I had to hide the frames Sonic was at the cannon to avoid a ridiculous amount of flashing.
This is really cool. There's a well-known list of level slots in the game's data that names the (empty) stage 11 "MUSHROOM", which I assume is what the one piece of art with Sonic in is showing.
The one with Knuckles in an unknown area I want to believe is another one of the scrapped stages, "JUNGLE". At least, the concept art for the stages that made it to final have some tell for which stage they're supposed to be, but that one doesn't match any of them.
I got Windii to translate the images with text, here they are:
Cool things from the text:
They specifically wanted the NPCs to look American
The text about climbing not being allowed and needing to use scaffolding to climb is exactly how the large cylinders in Sky Deck 1's cannon area work in the Autodemo, albeit in a different way to the one depicted in the artwork.
I recall that Twinkle Park 2 and 3 had camera data for areas far out-of-bounds of the regular play area. How likely is it that at least one of the "unknown" areas in the reveal footage was originally meant for them?
I've heard about a few stages with old camera data in (Final Egg is another) but you can't get much out of them other than the direction you're going.
It could be that, or something entirely different, like how Final Egg 4's object layout is a copy of the test level, or how White Jungle in SA2 has pre-E3 2000 Green Forest in.
Hello. I usually hate to make posts like this, but my partner and I are really profoundly struggling. I am suffering from professionally-diagnosed mental illness (depersonalization/derealization, OCD, delusional thinking, major depression and anxiety) and I am unable to work consistently. My partner @pumpkinium is barely able to keep a roof over our head. We live in a rent-controlled community and moving is simply not an option in our situation.
Our apartment complex has suffered multiple emergent flooding incidents in the past month which have extremely negatively impacted our quality of life; loud, industrial dehumidifiers have been installed all throughout our floor as well as within our home itself and they're making the whole place inhospitably hot. Restoration workers are also moving in and out of our unit as often as multiple times a day at short notice. We literally cannot even be in our living room, hardly, and we feel like we have zero privacy.
On top of that, we have now spotted signs of a potential bed bug infestation in our unit. We are doing everything we can to get it treated promptly, but both me and my partner are really suffering terribly with this and could use any help we can get. We're already hardly making rent as-is and this is going to empty our wallets even faster. We've already had to throw out lots of clothing, pillows, furniture etc. in hopes of containing what we have seen.
Here is my partner's Ko-fi. Thanks to anyone who reads this. Again, I really hate to ask but I'm at the end of my rope.
In the 1998 Dreamcast version of Sonic Adventure, Chaos 0 makes Chao noises when he attacks the echidna tribe that were removed from later releases. However, I've always questioned whether or not it was ever intentional, as it seems strange that the developers would remove it (especially seeing as Chaos is meant to be a mutated Chao). Relevant code would be in EV0160.
I opened both the original J and International file and compared the sound IDs used by EventSe_Oneshot (J->Int):
Looking at this I think it may have been intentional when they decided to add more background rumbling sounds (0x4CA) and an extra unholy scream (0x4CB).
To add the chao sounds back to international (Might work in normal US, haven't checked), decompress EV0160 and change the following bytes:
00000FF6: Change from 0xCA to 0xC9
00001208: Change from 0xCB to 0xCD
I checked the PC version (different IDs) and they're still there - 1335 for Chao 1 and 1339 for Chao 2.
Here's a few things I learned about Final Egg's objects.
E102 Claw Destruction
Gamma's bullets can destroy the claws that only appear in Act 1. This is notable because supporting this requires a call to a specific function (E102KillCursor) to work.
Maybe it was done in case they thought they wanted to put any in his level.
Act 2->3 Double Transition
In Act 2 the act transition is done with an invisible cube (CollisionSceneChanger):
However, the elevator itself can also do the transition when moving down. It doesn't trigger because Sonic touches the cube at -1800.
The elevator's transition has more requirements - it checks that it's moving down and Sonic is standing on it, so you can't do what you can do with the cube by spindashing down the hole and skipping the elevator:
It would be perfectly fine to remove the cube-
Unused Collision
eggkanban_colli_info: 0x1AC4634 (PC)
ObjectFinalEggDrum (Unused exploding barrel):
cinfo_explosion: 0x1AC43AC (PC)
Incorrectly Rotated Objects
In Sonic's Final Egg 1, these grids (After the large L-ramp) are facing the wrong way:
Here's how they should look, which is how they appear in Amy's stage (Also they can be destroyed):
Wrong Warp
In the section where Amy must choose from 5 doors, the doors and their warps are mismatched - the doors are ordered (left->right) 1->5 while the warps go 5->1.
The object editor text for the warp object is also wrong. It says the following:
In actuality, this is determined by its ANGX [0-4].
This bug causes the door you see after being warped to be different than the one you took (except for the yellow one because it's in the middle, so it's still correct).
Unused Warp Room Door
In addition to the coloured doors, there's a white one that isn't used:
It was possibly intended for the entrance to Amy's door room, as the entrance is only doorway in that shape without a door, and it can't be used for the inactive doors in the next section. (To be exact - the formula for selecting the inactive door can't result in 0 - the white door's ID)
Emerald Coast object
Small note:
This is copied from the elastic bridges in Emerald Coast 1.
Small Object Editor difference
The debug string for the doll targets' angle is slightly different in the xbox version:
(Xbox left, PC right)
Not sure why. Maybe they search+replaced Angle with NJS_Angle.
