Random hack/Mini project thread

For those who really hate Sonic CD's jump sound.

I'll just quote the description here:

Yes I know the bit about the Z80 accessing the 68000's address space is a gross oversimplification, but you try explaining that kind of stuff to the YouTube comment section =P

 

I already praised this on Retro, but I hate the original Sonic CD jump sound so much that I feel like praising this twice. It's about time someone did this.

 

Masochist.

Seriously, though, PSG sound effects sound far better than the awkward quality of the FM versions. Probably with some adjustments, the rest of the weird ones could also be fixed.

Probably not worth the effort, though.

 

The rest? Going by ear, I only recognised two FM-ifications. If there are others, they should be easy to restore.

 

So why does the ring sound effects sound awful now?

 

Every time the player collects a ring, the ring sound plays on a different speaker, alternating between left and right. Sonic CD's driver has a boneheaded way of doing this. In Sonic 1/2/3, there are two separate ring sounds. The driver itself catches that a ring sound is about to play, and selects the correct sound as needed. What's special is that both versions of the ring sound are different: each one plays on a different speaker (of course), runs on a different FM channel, and one of them even plays for slightly longer.

If the two sounds were to use the same FM channel, then you could only ever hear one of them at a time. This means that if you were to grab two rings in quick succession, then instead of hearing the ring sound in both speakers, you'll only hear it in one.

This is what Sonic CD screws up, but the reason behind it is the real dumb part:

Instead of the driver alternating the ring sounds, Sonic CD makes the sounds themselves do it. Now, whenever a ring sound plays, it always tries to play the one that uses the rightmost speaker. The right sound then uses a custom command which I've named 'smpsDoRing':

Code:

; FM4 Data
RingR_FM4:
   smpsDoRing
   smpsSetvoice        $00
   smpsPan             panRight, $00
   dc.b   nE5, $05, nG5, $05, nC6, $1B
   smpsStop

What this flag does is force the game to start playing the left ring sound every other time the command is ran. This has the effect of making the left ring sound play every other time a ring sound plays.

This should work, right? Nope.

Because every attempt to play the ring sound will first cause the right ring sound to play, and it's only when the right right sound starts to play that it tells the driver to play the left ring sound instead, the developers needed to make the right ring sound stop playing so that the right ring sound doesn't play every time the left ring sound plays. To do this, they made both ring sounds play on the same FM channel. This causes the two sounds to always cancel each other every time they play, meaning that it's impossible to collect two rings at once and hear both speakers play the ring sound.

This issue is at its worst when the player quickly collects a line of rings, as each ring sound will be abruptly cut off by the next one, meaning that the only ring sound that you get to hear finish is the last one. This can be heard as early as the start of the first level. In Sonic 1/2/3, a ring sound can only be cut off by itself, meaning that ring sounds get cut off every two rings that the player collects, not one.

Anyway, I've added a fix to the driver now.

 

Well, that's one thing fixed about Sonic CD.
Now, if only we could fix everything else....

 

Indeed, I thought I was the only one who noticed that, though I later checked in Sonic 3 for real and I seem to remember that they fixed that (but it's been years so I might be wrong).

 

Sonic 2 "Forces Edition"

Thanks to MotorRoach for the extra Tails sprites. It was also his idea, so blame him. :V
Also, thanks to Clownacy for the Sonic 2 Clone Driver, just so I could use vladikcomper's Mega PCM driver in Sonic 2 easily :VVV

 

This just goes to show how easy it is to take tails for granted. He's really damn helpful in Sonic 2, normally.

 

Wow, guess my hacks are so bad that Sonic just decided to leave. Nah, I made him disappear (Didn't mean to, though...) This hack doesn't add much, just a few changes and other small things. Now, how I made Sonic disappear, I'm not sure of. Sonic disappeared after I added the Dual PCM driver, so I assume it might be the driver's fault. Anyways, before I start crediting everyone for bug fixes and stuff, here's the things I changed: Spike behavior fixed (Not because it's annoying, because it's unfair, being invisible, and all.) Speed cap removed (don't worry about going down S tubes too quickly though, fixed that too) Added double jump and stomp (double jump is activated by holding a direction, then pressing A after a jump. Double jump is activated by pressing C after a jump.) Water skimming, just to make Labyrinth a bit more easy. Infinite lives, because you will die a lot. Title screen is changed in a joking way. New (not really) Sega screen. Goggle and Eggman monitors have been added (In code, not levels) And a whole lot of other bug fixes. And those are all of the noticeable changes I can remember. As of March 21, 2018, I still need to remove some of Sonic's art and text, to extend the whole missing effect. Also, might remove the laser ball things in Final Zone, just to make it a bit more easy. Also need to put Goggle monitors in Labyrinth, so player won't drown so often.

Finally, credits:
vladikcomper, redhotsonic, OscillateNumInit, MarkeyJester, FraGag, Quickman, Cinossu, Clownancy, Mercury, Tweaker, Puto, shobiz, nineko, Selbi and Ziro. They basically did everything that is in this hack, except for Sonic being invisible in game and on the title screen.

Video:


Download is attached.

Might enter it into SHC's Expo this year, just as a joke hack.
Any suggestions and feedback, I'm open to!

 

This hack is really strange. I'm not sure what convinced you to release it, as on a surface level, it's mostly just vanilla Sonic 1, but with major graphical issues. There are some mildly interesting things in here (the custom moves seem alright), but they're completely overshadowed by the obvious issues that were left in.

Perhaps the most confusing part, however, is that you just seemed to slap in as many guides as you could find without much thought. The Shield and Invincibility art, for example, have been changed by a guide which frees up some VRAM. However, you don't actually use that VRAM for anything, so not only is the guide pointless, but it introduces another bug; the shield and invincibility art themselves don't load, and render garbage instead:


You also claim to have added the Dual PCM driver. Why? Do you have any idea what it does? And if you do know, why did you add it? It's features don't appear to be used at all! I have nothing against these guides, or using guides in general, but there's no point in following them if you don't actually use them for anything!

I'd recommend starting from scratch, and thinking more carefully about what your doing. Don't just add as many guides as you can. Instead, read the guide, and decide whether or not you even want to use it. If your not sure what it does, just don't use it.

Also, the idea of invisible Sonic 1 isn't anything new; someone has already done that before. From what I saw in that thread, most people weren't too fond of the idea either, so it probably isn't the best direction to take things...

 

Well, the initial plan was for this to become Sonic Redemption, but after the bug that caused Sonic to become invisible, I basically gave up and decided to just brand it as that. Also, as for the issues with the sparkles and shields, it seems to be a bit random whether it triggers or not, after I built it several times with some minor changes, the shield and sparkles should have disappeared outright. So Redemption is going to have to start from square 1, but I see some potential in Sonic Is Missing, it's just going to have to take a bit of time to work with some of these issues. So either, SIM get's expanded, or it get's scrapped.

EDIT: So yeah, I decided that this hack is a bit simplistic. It probably would have been better if I had just made some sort of fix instead of being lazy and just leaving it as it is. So, after I finish a decent demo, this will just become the Sonic Redemption thread.

 

You should probably change your hack's title. It's a bit bland anyway.

Also, here's some proof this hack has been done before:

 

Well, I guess Sonic Proven would work. Guess all the cool Sonic hack names were taken. And besides, I was told that Sonic Redemption sounds a bit strange. But Proven sounds even more odd. I'm not sure about my hack's name. But I just want something that's like "Oh, yeah, this is to make up for my past mistakes."
Maybe Sonic Fixed, but that sounds like it's just Sonic but all the bugs are fixed. :/ I'm open to suggestions for my hack's title, honestly not too picky. And for SIM, yeah, I knew there was a likely chance that someone had already made an invisible Sonic hack.

 

I think that the name might be one of the less important things to resolve for your project. For example, what is the main focus and/or designed goal of the hack? From what you've shown, I can't really tell.

 

Well, plans for the hack aren't too big, improve a few sprites. Use beta levels from 2, CD and Mania. Add a few new air moves. And possibly new characters, debating whether to add Metal or Shadow, or even both. Might seem ambitious for someone like me, but I see it as something that I could do. Sure, I might only have Sonic, or Blue Print Zone can't be added. But I'll try, and learn from my mistakes. That's how people develop their skills, after all.

 

Again, you shouldn't try to make such complex efforts in such an early stage of development. Just expirement overtime, until you're comfortable, or have a strong understanding of what you want to accomplish.

 

Considering the fact that you are currently struggling at Discord to just import a single stage from one game to another, shows that you aren't ready enough and that these things are too big for you.