Sonic 3D Glasses

This is another one of my little experiments, because you know... why not! If you'd like to take part then go and grab yourself a pair of 3D glasses, I'm not talking about those new shaded ones though, I mean the standard Red and Blue/Cyan ones.

This experiment is to test the old 3D double image effect on Sonic 1. It uses various effects which include; different colour shades, different image displacement types, and different drawing modes. It isn't perfect as, clearly speaking, the levels are not designed to handle the effect, but the individual modes do help to find a near appropriate type.

WARNING: The ROM features flickering colours that may cause eye strain, and may not be suitable for anyone with past/known symptoms of seizuresepilepsy.

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You will need a 6-button controller for this, as X, Y, Z and MODE buttons control the effect in various ways. This list is as follows:

• MODE = 3D mode (00 Off, 01 Frame, 02 Scanline)
• Y = Distance mode (00 Normal, 01 FG Stretch, 02 Reverse, 03 Reverse & FG Stretch)
• X = Red colour (00 Filter, 01 Push, 02 Bright)
• Z = Cyan colour (00 - Filter (Blue), 01 - Pushed (Blue), 02 - Filter (Cyan), 03 - Dark (Cyan), 04 - Darker (Cyan), 05 - Pushed (Cyan))

Each level has different varients of colour, so the effect may need adjusting depending on the level's colour. I must also point out that "3D mode" will be 00 Off by default, which will do nothing obviously.
I find the effect works sometimes in some places, but not all the time. It can also depend on how far away from the screen you are standing/sitting, as Flygon noted in one of the tests, he had his back against the wall of his room being really distant from the screen. While I on the other hand, found being up reasonably close helped, so be sure to try looking at the screen at different distances. I also found that where you focus can have an effect on the 3D display. For example, in GHZ if you look at the background directly, it tends not to work, there as if you are standing on a platform object, and focusing on Sonic and the platform itself, the effect becomes a little more noticable.

Other things that may effect the visuals include the type of TV screen and hardware/simulator you run the game on. Flygon reported spots of colour bleeding on a CRT screen. The region frequency is another thing to note, 60hz and 50hz may have different visual results, and you might get more flickering on the 50hz PAL mode. Another note about flickering, lag in a few possible places can cause this, especially on 02 Scanline MODE, so please keep that in mind.

LazloPsylus and I have gone through each level checking out various modes, and our recommended modes are:

• GHZ 0 2 3 1 or 0 1 4 1
• LZ 1 2 2 1 (When concertraighting on the background) or 0 2 2 1 (for a darker background)
• MZ 0 2 4 1 (OK for the grass area) 1 2 2 1 (best for the underground parts)
• SLZ 1 2 2 1 (Generally for the bottom part)
• SYZ/SBZ 1 2 2 1

We have found that 1 2 2 1 does generally work the best, with 0 2 3 1 being a darker version. 0 2 0 1 works quite well but is very dark, so you may have a tough time seeing it. What's really interesting, is that GHZ of all levels, was the one that didn't seem to turn out very well. It seems that levels with backgrounds that have very little parallaxing, and enough foreground coverage tend to work the best.
A very special thanks to Flygon and LazloPsylus who did a fantastic job being my eyes while I didn't have the glasses until recently, the effect would not work as well as it does in most levels, without their assistance helping to tune it right.

 

Wow! Labyrinth Zone looks GREAT in 3D!

Nice work Markey!

You did the impossible again.

 

Just a heads up for those using an lcd screen: after messing with this for maybe a minute and exiting, my screen flickered horribly in just the area of the screen that the emulator window had been. It cleared up after about 5 minutes, but for a while there I thought it had fucked my screen. Pulsing the lcd at a very fast rate is probably not very good for it!

 

That's rather strange, but I'm afraid if it happens outside the emulator, then I cannot be held accounted for that. If you're interested though, Regen has a "smooth animation" option which fuses the odd and even frames together, this removes the flickering (except of course when lag occurs).

 

that´s why you have 3 super emeralds.

 

Actually, Chaos Emeralds and Super Emeralds are handed out according to the postcount, so I don't see how that's relevant to this topic.

 

Well at least we know you're old enough to count.

I though it was handed out by amount of coolness, nvm. I should know better, because if that were the case, I'd have the god damned master emerald by now....

 

can you add a special menú with the 3d option, like in sonic generations?

 

No. Since this is a POC, adding in additional unrelated designs for a menu seems redundant, especially given that the X, Y, Z and MODE buttons are sufficient enough.

 

Idiots sometimes need help with the obvious Markey. For example, using the X,Y,Z buttons. Those little buggers seem difficult to use.

 

SuperEgg - If you're playing on hardware and only have a 3 button pad, then X, Y, Z and Mode become impossible to use, but yeah, carry on being a dick. You're really starting to fuck me off.


That aside, PoC hacks rarely get the bells and whistles of more expansive hacks so this should be taken as is. Just wish I had some glasses to try it out myself.

 

If someone can afford a flash cart, surely they should be able to afford a 6 button controller.

Anyway, trying to play this without 3D glasses = instant headache. I should have known better.

 

That sounds dirty. Somebody better be wearing condoms.

It could be worse, you could've tried playing it on a big screen TV, then played it in the dark. I did that and forgot my 3D glasses in the other room. Holy fuck. That was all I could say. Well that and "ow."

 

That's an assumption on the circumstances of the person in question. Someone may have bought a flash cart at a time they had money, but had no use for a 6 button controller so never bought one. Now, they may have no money to afford one. The flash cart could have also been a gift to a kid who earns no money. My point wasn't that a menu should be added or anything like that, it's fine as it is. My point is that SuperEgg lacks the intelligence to make a point to anyone these days without resorting to insults.

 

So, this is probably not going to be possible, but screw it, I'll throw the suggestion in anyway. Can you get a game of Sonic 2, and with the split-screen mode it has, make the foreground and background do the 3D jittering effect, then with a 3DTV, set the 3D mofe Over-and-under and viola! Sonic 2 in 3D! Possible? I know it's slightly off-topic but relavent anyway so I'd thought I'd ask.

 

i have tried with my 3d glasses, but it doesn't work, and the level  layout is very bugged.

 

Markey, you flippin' genius.

 

Yes. It'd be rather simple too.

 

Nice, I may even look into it myself (if I could be bothered too).