Basic Questions and Answers Thread

Discussion in 'Discussion & Q&A' started by Malevolence, Jul 7, 2009.

  1. JoenickROS

    JoenickROS ROS (bug fixing in progress) Member

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    Alright I got the ring saving the position the best I can, so ill be moving on to reviving the Sonic 3 big ring art, but I have never added Uncompressed art, or DPLCs to an object before, so I have no idea what kind of commands have to be put in. Can anyone give some information on how all of it works, I only know how nemesis works.

    Edit:The Sonic 3 big ring art data is already converted to Sonic 2.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 9, 2013
  2. Rezeed

    Rezeed Dataspirit and Dream Traveller Member

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    I'm not sure if this was answered, but I had to ask:

    Since in nature most sonic hacks use roms(of course) of existing sonic games, is it possible to actually extend a rom hack's length by, lets say for the sake of the question, the first four sega genesis sonic games(1,2,3, and knuckles.and maybe sonic CD)?

    I was thinking in theory, that maybe it's possible to actually connect said sonic games into one hack or do something to really expand and enrich the experience of the 4-5 sonic games.(Sorta making it the MUGEN of sonic minor hacks in a way.) Something like this could hold a lot promise.

    If it's not possible to do this with genesis roms, could it be possible to do this kind of thing with Sonic CD?
     
  3. nineko

    nineko I am the Holy Cat Member

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    ... now I feel bad for being the one who noticed you've been forgetten into Limbo for one year.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 15, 2013
  4. Misinko

    Misinko Oh SHIT it's the Biolizard! Member

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    Merry Christmas: 

    http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_3_in_1
     
  5. nineko

    nineko I am the Holy Cat Member

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    I think he meant something like a hack where you can play from Green Hill Zone all the way to the Death Egg Zone (the one in S&K, not the one in S2). Such a gigantic hack gets suggested all the times, I think all of us thought about connecting Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 at least once since the opening of the latter looks just like a continuation of the ending of the former (even if the manual says that there is a time interval of several months).


    Technical limitations aside (we now know it is possible to break the 4 megabytes barrier, and it might not even be needed), there are some plot implications which should be addressed, the chaos emeralds and the special stages for example, not to mention the big rings. But this was discussed so many times in the past it's not even fun anymore.
     
  6. Misinko

    Misinko Oh SHIT it's the Biolizard! Member

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    Doesn't Classic Heroes span both Sonic 1 and 2? So, adding 3&K shouldn't be tol hard to add, and even easier with the Mega CD add on. Combined with the fact that there have ben other hacks that shatter the limitations of the MegaDrive, this question should be a no-brainier even if the hack doesn't exist.
     
  7. Rezeed

    Rezeed Dataspirit and Dream Traveller Member

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    I my mindset was with what Nineko and Speedy is saying. I am mostly curious to see how far hacking can go for a sonic game in terms of content. Not just in stages, but also playable characters. The most I've seen with unique playable characters are 5 and Sonic Classic Heroes is the longest I've seen it go. I think something like that could lead to a fun and interesting experience. If anything, it could the definitive experience to play the classic main series sonic games(not counting 3D blast and spinball) if worked right.
     
  8. ScoutCDTen

    ScoutCDTen Newcomer Trialist

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    I am editing the special stage background by deleting the fish and birds and bubbles to make the special stage use only clouds background.I deleted the line of code of fish and birds loading but it shows garbled graphics of fish and birds,2nd try was removed some line of code that i found out it removed the fish and birds,but when i try to enter special stage from giant ring i get purple screen crash (making special stage work only on level select).

    How i can completely delete the fish and birds from special stage and how to make special stage background animation only clouds?
     
  9. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester ♡ ! Member

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    In the routine "loc_48E2" you will find:

    loc_48E2:
    movem.l d0-d4,-(sp)
    moveq #7,d1
    moveq #7,d2
    bsr.w ShowVDPGraphics
    movem.l (sp)+,d0-d4This is responsible for writing the map tiles to VRAM for the birds and the fish, simply remove them.
    Next up, in routine "PalCycle_SS:", you'll find:

    move.w ($FFFFF79A).w,d0That is (in a sense) a counter, it reads up from a table in order to work out; what it should display, how it should display, and for how long. Change it to:
    Code:
    		moveq	#$0C,d0
    This will ensure that the counter is always 0C (always reading the cloud scrolling data and never the bubble scrolling data).
    Because of how the software is written, the colour palettes are faded in after the white palette fade out, so you'll find the clouds will start out as black in the centre. Go further down to routine "loc_4992:" and find this:

    move.b (a0)+,d0
    bmi.s loc_49E8
    lea (Pal_SSCyc1).l,a1
    adda.w d0,a1
    lea ($FFFFFB4E).w,a2
    move.l (a1)+,(a2)+
    move.l (a1)+,(a2)+
    move.l (a1)+,(a2)+

    locret_49E6:
    rtsThis is responsible for altering the palette of colours from bubbles to clouds and back, but it only tampers with the currently displaying palette buffer, not the main palette buffer, that and it doesn't run through immediately.
    To sort this out, change the above to:

    lea (Pal_SSCyc1).l,a1
    lea $18(a1),a1
    lea ($FFFFFBCE).w,a2
    move.l (a1)+,(a2)+
    move.l (a1)+,(a2)+
    move.l (a1)+,(a2)+

    locret_49E6:
    rtsOne important thing you need to understand though, is that the above technically doesn't remove the birds, fish and bubbles entirely, they're simply not in display and that is all.
    It's all hackish crap, but whatever, it does what you want it to do. Just don't rely on it if you plan on further background changes. You'd probably be better off rewriting the whole thing from ground up.
     
  10. Bejitto

    Bejitto Newcomer Trialist

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    Could anyone tell me what the best sound drivers for Sonic 1 are?

    I don't like how the S1 sound driver sounds...
     
  11. DevEd

    DevEd A lol who occasionally doge nothing Member

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    Y'know, it *IS* possible to make music that sounds good using the Sonic 1 sound driver... If that's what you're after, then I would suggest looking into mid2smps or xm3smps/oerg.

    If you're trying to replace the sound driver (which is what I assume you are doing), then I don't know what to tell you. You COULD try porting the S3K sound driver over, but I'm not the kind of person who knows a lot about sound drivers. I'm sure there's somebody who knows a lot about sound drivers, though.

    If you're talking about changing the drum samples, though, I would suggest MegaPCM. It comes with Sonic 3 drum samples, and you can change them to whatever you want.
     
  12. Rezeed

    Rezeed Dataspirit and Dream Traveller Member

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    I just I'd ask this more for curiousity sake than any other reason I have for this question. I noticed that there are close to no hacks for sonic 3(that isn't sonic 3 complete and "the challenges"), Sonic and knuckles, and the game locked on together. Is there any particular reason people avoid doing work on that particular trio of games? I mean, it's THE most popular sonic game for the Genesis/Megadrive. I'd figure there would be at least a handful of "[insertcharacterhere] in Sonic 3 and Knuckles" or at least minor handful hacks that hold a unique form of gimick to enrich the experience of said game. Are sonic 3/s3k hacks harder to work with or something? Are there not many useful means to hack these games as well as people can for sonic 1 and 2? Pardon my ignorances if I am missing something. This whole thing just leaves me puzzled since Sonic 3 and Knuckles is a great game and it's the least touched game for hacking.
     
  13. Bejitto

    Bejitto Newcomer Trialist

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    I think it's not that people don't want to, but there's less knowledge on how everything works,

    but on the contrary about it being the most popular Sonic game? No.

    That would go to S1 and S2, not in terms of gameplay and such but sales.

    Everybody has seen or heard about Sonic 1 and know it's a great game.

    Hope this was a good answer. :)
     
  14. SuperEgg

    SuperEgg I'm a guy that knows that you know that I know Member

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    Yes, Sonic 3 is a bit more difficult to work with. Sonic 3's engine takes everything great about the past two games, and basically says ok, lets improve it. Because of this, S3K's engine is the most solid. Unfortunately, that also means that a lot of things have been optimized and changed to the point that one must actually, and hold your horses on this shit, learn and study the code. Another thing is that the HG S3K disasm is pure shit. These guys you've listed use personal private disasms than the ones seen in public. Just a bit of food for thought.
     
  15. Bejitto

    Bejitto Newcomer Trialist

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    Does anyone know how to change solidness on SonED2? (if Sonic runs behind a tile or not)
     
  16. Guest

    Feels weird answering something rather that asking for once. anyway Dont know if anyone does this different than how i do this but...

    • In whatever level you are editing, within the chuck selector, move your courser on the block selector.  
    • click that and choose whatever block you wish to edit
    • within that block you should see a white square moving when you move your courser.
    • right click twice on which ever 8x8 tile with in the block you want to edit and where it should by default in your case say's low plane should be two small arrows next to it
    • use those arrows to switch from low plane to high plane on the tiles within the block you want to edit (Low plane = Sonic will not run behind tile) (High Plane = Sonic will run behind tile)
    • Profit......
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2013
  17. Bejitto

    Bejitto Newcomer Trialist

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    Thanks a lot!
     
  18. Bejitto

    Bejitto Newcomer Trialist

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    I'm sorry about bothering you all so much but after (seemingly) importing the

    Sonic CD Palmtree Panic BG to Sonic 1's GHZ in SonED2, it's kinda looks like this...

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Is there any particular reason this happened?

    Doesn't Sonic CD use 256x256 chunk loading too?
     
  19. Devon

    Devon Down you're going... down you're going... Member

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    Bejitto, The reason why that is happening is that:

    1. Make the title screen load its own art, so there is no problem in that. Here's a guide. (Thanks DevEd for pointing that out.)

    2. You need to fix the blocks and chunks for the art. You can't just port the art in and expect it to be automatically working. Right now, the chunks and blocks have the original mappings from GHZ, you'll have to fix it to make it less GHZ and more PPZ.

    3. The parallax scrolling needs to be fixed. This one post in a thread should help on how they work.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 29, 2013
  20. DevEd

    DevEd A lol who occasionally doge nothing Member

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    Or you could make the title screen load its own BG.

    that way you can completely avoid having to do anything related to pattern load cues #lazycoder