Advice on fixing some bugs in my hack

Hello. I'm Pwned, and started hacking Sonic in April. I won't write more, because I'm angry that my long post was erased, after I clicked the submit button.


My current project is "SonicPwns", a Sonic the Hedgehog 1 hack.


There are few bugs to fix, and I don't know how to do that myself.


Easy:


The E button in SCORE is still yellow (it wasn't in hud.bin of the disassembly)


After moving to Sonic 3 sound driver, spindust became inaccurate


Medium:


How to remove PSG voice samples from the music file? Remember, I have Z80 driver sound format.


The video of a prerelease version here:



Thanks in advance!

 

The E is stored in hud.bin in the artunc folder, as uncompressed art. What do you mean by the spindust becoming inaccurate? Also, I liked the port of the Chaotix track.


As for the PSG voice samples - I think they're stored in files named PSGxx.bin in the sound folders.

 

1. Yes, you are right, there was 2 HUD files. Thanks.


2. About the spindust, you can see here: http://i9.fastpic.ru/big/2010/0829/fb/ec40...b4baef7a9fb.png


3. No, I don't want to remove the PSG samples from the driver, only from the single music file.

 

For your PSG problem, look at the music header in a hex editor. The header's globally the same for the Sonic games, so you will see an 0603 - change it to 0600 if you're wanting to remove the PSG in a song easily.

 

Yes, that worked, thank you. But what about DAC ones? (I still have "common!")

 

For the spindash dust, I guess you put your sound driver right before "Art_Dust: incbin ...blablabla" so the last line before that is another "incbin". If so, just add an "even" after the last sound (and therefore it should be right before Art_Dust). The problem should be fixed.

 

@SpirituInsanum, thank you (damn, I can't give points).


So, in my second beta I made PLZ (GHZ) Act 2, but I still have some issues. On all levels I use the egg prison, but when you press a button, it warps Sonic too fast to the end of the level, but not the camera. That results in dying... So, I need to make another object, or modify the prison that way, so screen won't go in the end of the level.


Another problem, is that the Door Into Summer music makes some other tunes wrong (just random sounds). When I restore Angel Island music back, it works. Maybe it has something to do with the header. I need to fix that aswell.


And maybe the little problem, that isn't so necessary to fix, but still. On Act1, 2 Egg Prison sprites are all :S, instead of a regular gray prison.


If it's needed to record the video, I will do it.

 

Already taken care of, 2 points.

 

I don't know about the first problem (the camera), but for the music, you may have to fix all the pointers (which are absolute addresses in the s3k driver) in the other musics of the first music bank. If your new music isn't exactly the same size as the one it's replacing, all the other musics will be shifted and the absolute addresses will be wrong. There's a tool that helps for that (music pointer fixer, in the utilities).


For the egg prison, make sure the art loads at the end of the level. You have to use the right "pattern load cue" (you may have to modify or create a new one) and the right address in vram. So check the "pattern load cues", the signpostartload routine, and the prison object itself in case the address you're using for acts 1 & 2 isn't the same as the original.

 

Yes, I know about Music Pointer Fixer. However, it didn't work for me:


1. SonicRetro says I need only check "fix the header". It saves the file, but I have the same problem.


2. I have split disassembly, not a raw ROM. So, why does the size matter?

 

Size matters because data shift can still occur and cause things to bugger up. Check your pattern load cue requests and make sure that the locations match the art tile x 20 (so for example E123, you'd cut off the E and do 123 x 20 = location)

 

The size matters for Music on the S3 driver because it is banked, and running on the Z80, and it expects Music to be at a specific point in that bank. Else, data shift will occur and any tracks after the added one will not play in most cases.