Sonic Generations: PC Discussion

[Badnik Mechanic]

I figured I'd ask, has anyone had any luck at all playing the 30 second trial mode? I still can't play it at all and I've had this game ever since it came out on day 1. 

 

If this is for the console version.

 

You might have too many friends on your friends list. You have to remove a huge chunk.

[goku262002]

Soo Twlightzoney non-chalantly posted this 2 days ago:
 

Was able to get cutscenes working for the most part few hitches here and there that I would have to actually edit the animations. Since you cannot hide a mesh or state when their animation begins playing at or stopping. Unleashed's cutscene defining had a lot more going on with it.

The deal with cutscenes not working before is that we had no way of editing the file that controlled the Scene info. They decided to use a compiled file instead of just straight up xml like in Unleashed to define everything. And Dario helped me figure out the rotation and position from the 4x4 Matrix that Unleashed used since Generations just uses XYZ and Y rotation.

http://youtu.be/Ne8cftvgpmE



You might get something nice, or you get this.



Don't mind the shader issue, apparently in Unleashed they had a shader that refixed their laziness. Making a gloss shader section into a specular. Who puts a specular in the gloss map anyways??
Thats why models look a bit messed up. And Chip is missing his head due to some morpher issue. Working on fixing all these issues to render out higher quality cutscenes in the end if Dario ends up supporting morphers for exporting. Imagine how much fun that would be to add to character mods.

I"m going to have to edit some animations to fix up the timing on these to fit with the animations not hard but time consuming to do. Will be neat to see all the cutscenes in good IQ.

TL:DR - thats a sonic unleashed cutscene in sonic generations.

That is aweeesome. congrats to both Twlightzoney and DarioFF in being able to make this happen.

[Jolt_TH]

...its things like this that make we wish i could run Gens on my computer again

[Celestia]

When I saw the video thumbnail I thought they had somehow figured out porting bosses. Still, that's cool--recreating cutscenes like that is pretty impressive.

[Amomynous]

The amount, and quality of hacks for this game astounds me, which is partly why I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Also check out some early work TwilightZoney's doing on Sand Oasis.

I'm really curious to see just how far these hacks are going to go.

 

EDIT: I found a video of someone messing around in that exact Sand Oasis port.

[goku262002]

So dario made an awesome thing:

Experiment funtimes with real-time previewing in glvl.

Kinda disappointed at the lack of comments, so maybe I didn't show off properly what I meant. :v:/>

Nowhere near done and I have a lot of features to re-implement, but this next update should be really helpful.

Annnnd someone made this hilarious thing:

[Amomynous]

I brought Sonic Generations a couple of days ago and It's pretty darn sweet, I've got a shiny new computer that can run it and boy does it run. It's so much smoother and prettier than the PS3 version; the hedgehog engine is actually recognisable, I swear classic Sonic controls better too.

 

Oh and I downloaded the Unleashed Project, it's a very neat hack and is also prettier and smoother than PS3 Unleashed (less stable though), there's plenty of other hacks I can't wait to get my hands on either.

[goku262002]

This is best mod.

[t0ms0nic]

 

Since it was skipped over... Dario posted another progress update on the new version of SonicGLvl, showing off the Doppelganger ghost with the implemented lighting and shaders from Generations, and having an extensive description of what's new so far:

 

 

Just showing off my progress so far since the last shaders video (2 months ago). Remember that this new branch of SonicGLvl is a complete re-write from scratch, so this version of the editor does not have as many features as the last stable version just yet. Currently I'm trying to finish everything that is related to object layout editing, and once that's done, focus on everything that has to do with Terrain/GI/Materials.

Features that have been worked on since the last video:

• Object Palette and Object Placement
• Object Property Editing: Only common properties will show up if objects of multiple types are selected, and they can all be edited at the same time, making stuff like enabling shadows or tweaking ranges much easier.
• Object Property Interfaces: Each property type is being given much more control with its own type of window pop-ups when editing. Vector and Vector Lists have nodes that show up in the main Viewport and can be dragged around, changes to properties can be easily undo/redo'd.
• Visibility Toggles for Collision/Objects/Terrain
• Graphical Options and (partial) Framebuffer effects support: stuff like water/glass refraction shaders works now.
• UV anim support: animated textures such as sky, objects, waterfall, etc.
• WIP Camera Manager with priority system to handle camera previewing along with transitions as accurate as possible. Still in very early stages, but with enough research into the cameras, it should be possible to get good playback.
• Havok Skeleton and Rigging support for the .model files used both in templates and the ghost. Previously the Ghost's model was just a custom Ogre .mesh. Now it uses the original chr_Sonic_HD.model, which is why his shading looks pretty similar to in-game.
• Omni lights support. Now stages like Chemical Plant with its multiple colored lights look much more accurate.
• Gizmos have been reworked to move much more accurately.
• Paths now properly use the tangent vectors included in the game to give an accurate and smoothly curved representation of the splines in the editor. They're also colored differently depending on their function (2D, Quickstep, Dash, Guide, Grind Rail).
• The ghost attempts to keep track of when it goes through mode changers or objects that affect its current movement mode, since it's pretty much needed to get accurate playback of the cameras. Whenever the player is not affected by a camera, it will try to use the "default" camera that the game calculates for it based on the current movement mode. (If it's in 2D, it'll change to be a sideways camera, in 3D it's a forward camera, etc.)

As always, update coming out "When it's Done" ™ and once it reaches feature parity with 0.5.7.

 

Also, I have something of my own to share;

 

 

We're probably still barred from talking about own things in here (or at least releasing them?), but I figure this will be interesting for people that A: want to get rid of the boost filter, B: allow for Modern Sonic to use Speed Shoes properly (both through equipping Classic's skill in the Generations Skill Edit program or placing item boxes in Modern levels), and C: want SuperRiderTH's method for using custom CPK & CSB files/music containers in the base Sound folder to prevent modded music causing loading issues to be put forward more.

 

The solution for the first two are one in the same due to their hard-coded nature; the boost filter cannot be removed from Modern music and it simply can't have a Speed Shoes variant, and will just kill the music outright because it just loads nothing in it's place. So the workaround is relatively simple: it's just a case of making the music pointer load Classic stage music in place of the Modern stage music, which is as simple as changing Generic to Classic from the Name line of the BGM slot, in the Stage.prm.xml file from a stage physics file. As an example, here is said part from #ghz200.ar.00;

 

  <BGM>
    <IsStream>true</IsStream>
    <Container>SNG01_GHZ</Container>
    <Name>Green_Hill_Generic</Name>
  </BGM>

 

Of course, changing that to Classic would just load Classic Green Hill's music instead of Modern Green Hill... and this is where the third solution comes in; we can also change the Container line to whatever we want, and it will attempt to read from a CPK and CSB set under that filename. So if I were to copy the SNG01_GHZ ones and rename both to SNG01_GHZ_NoBoost, and then edit that Container line to also read that...

 

  <BGM>
    <IsStream>true</IsStream>
    <Container>SNG01_GHZ_NoBoost</Container>
    <Name>Green_Hill_Classic</Name>
  </BGM>

 

... it would load from completely separate files instead of the ones Generations levels normally do, without having to overwrite anything. From there, it's just a case of applying music modding basics from Guess Who's guide; opening the CPK, replacing the Classic music file with Modern's and putting together a track for the Speed Shoes, then repacking them into the CPK file and placing them back in the Sound directory.

 

For the curious, my method for Modern Speed Shoes music is just combining the SA1 Speed Shoes music from the Custom Music option (Add51a_SA1_SpeedUp_44_wav in SNG22_ADD, for the curious) along with the looping part of the Modern track. I don't particularly want to pester anybody to make Speed Shoes mixes of the Modern music just for this.

 

(still re-reading and rewriting bits of this, but it's already been over an hour since I started D: )

[MParks]

Has anyone played the 3DS version? It got worse review scores than the main version. I've already got the PC version but I seriously struggle to sit down with a PC game. Handhelds are so much more convenient.

[PSI Wind]

 

Since it was skipped over... Dario posted another progress update on the new version of SonicGLvl, showing off the Doppelganger ghost with the implemented lighting and shaders from Generations, and having an extensive description of what's new so far:

 

 

Also, I have something of my own to share;

 

 

We're probably still barred from talking about own things in here (or at least releasing them?), but I figure this will be interesting for people that A: want to get rid of the boost filter, B: allow for Modern Sonic to use Speed Shoes properly (both through equipping Classic's skill in the Generations Skill Edit program or placing item boxes in Modern levels), and C: want SuperRiderTH's method for using custom CPK & CSB files/music containers in the base Sound folder to prevent modded music causing loading issues to be put forward more.

 

The solution for the first two are one in the same due to their hard-coded nature; the boost filter cannot be removed from Modern music and it simply can't have a Speed Shoes variant, and will just kill the music outright because it just loads nothing in it's place. So the workaround is relatively simple: it's just a case of making the music pointer load Classic stage music in place of the Modern stage music, which is as simple as changing Generic to Classic from the Name line of the BGM slot, in the Stage.prm.xml file from a stage physics file. As an example, here is said part from #ghz200.ar.00;

 

  <BGM>

    <IsStream>true</IsStream>

    <Container>SNG01_GHZ</Container>

    <Name>Green_Hill_Generic</Name>

  </BGM>

 

Of course, changing that to Classic would just load Classic Green Hill's music instead of Modern Green Hill... and this is where the third solution comes in; we can also change the Container line to whatever we want, and it will attempt to read from a CPK and CSB set under that filename. So if I were to copy the SNG01_GHZ ones and rename both to SNG01_GHZ_NoBoost, and then edit that Container line to also read that...

 

  <BGM>

    <IsStream>true</IsStream>

    <Container>SNG01_GHZ_NoBoost</Container>

    <Name>Green_Hill_Classic</Name>

  </BGM>

 

... it would load from completely separate files instead of the ones Generations levels normally do, without having to overwrite anything. From there, it's just a case of applying music modding basics from Guess Who's guide; opening the CPK, replacing the Classic music file with Modern's and putting together a track for the Speed Shoes, then repacking them into the CPK file and placing them back in the Sound directory.

 

For the curious, my method for Modern Speed Shoes music is just combining the SA1 Speed Shoes music from the Custom Music option (Add51a_SA1_SpeedUp_44_wav in SNG22_ADD, for the curious) along with the looping part of the Modern track. I don't particularly want to pester anybody to make Speed Shoes mixes of the Modern music just for this.

 

(still re-reading and rewriting bits of this, but it's already been over an hour since I started D: )

Speaking of GLvl I can't for the life of me figure out how to use it and import level files into them.

[goku262002]

That Speedshoes mod looks bitchin awesome T0m, keep up the good work!

[Xopax]

I saw a thread here about modding Sonic Generations but now it's locked then i decided to create a thread asking for help.

 

Here's my problem:

 

http://i.imgur.com/7LUmynq.jpg

 

Can anyone help me?

 

Thanks

[Willsy]

I'm not sure if I can give you any advice, since I can barely just soft mod the game myself, but I'm sure that there are some folk here who would be happy to help you.

[Solkia]

That's probably a problem with the mod itself.

 

What mod is this anyways? Maybe I can try to get it running.

[Willsy]

The mod appears to be Sonic's SA1 Dreamcast model. That's actually pretty cool, I've always liked his model in the Dreamcast version more despite it having a lower poly count. 

[t0ms0nic]

Actually, so maybe the topic ought to be merged with that?

 

I'm not into the models part of Generations modding, but from what I've seen of this issue being discussed before, I believe it's a problem with rigging the bones of the model into places outside of the model? Such as attaching one of the leg bones incorrectly, which tends to be the most common problem going by the placement of the blur. It might even require the model being edited to better fit Modern's proportions, considering how different the builds are.

 

Though, as I said, not into this side of modding. Maybe you should see if Daku Neko, Gavin Quach or JoeTE can help, since they're all incredibly skilled in the modelling side and have each helped a number of people out.

[Tara]

Moving this topic so I can merge it with the other.

 

EDIT - Topics merged. ^^ <3 - Please continue all discussions here!

[goku262002]

Actually, so maybe the topic ought to be merged with that?

 

I'm not into the models part of Generations modding, but from what I've seen of this issue being discussed before, I believe it's a problem with rigging the bones of the model into places outside of the model? Such as attaching one of the leg bones incorrectly, which tends to be the most common problem going by the placement of the blur. It might even require the model being edited to better fit Modern's proportions, considering how different the builds are.

 

Though, as I said, not into this side of modding. Maybe you should see if Daku Neko, Gavin Quach or JoeTE can help, since they're all incredibly skilled in the modelling side and have each helped a number of people out.

^^^What this dude said.^^^ In fact I'll PM Joe at Retro and see if he can help you out here.

But please, show us where you got the Dreamcast model. me, GeneHF and a few others at Retro have been looking for it.

[Willsy]

Has anyone played the 3DS version? It got worse review scores than the main version. I've already got the PC version but I seriously struggle to sit down with a PC game. Handhelds are so much more convenient.

I think the 3DS version is okay, it doesn't hold a candle to the main version IMO but I still enjoyed it and it compliments the main version well.

[Joe T.E.]

I saw a thread here about modding Sonic Generations but now it's locked then i decided to create a thread asking for help.

 

Here's my problem:

 

http://i.imgur.com/7LUmynq.jpg

 

Can anyone help me?

 

Thanks

 

When a single material is used for too many parts of a model, the game's motion-blurring effect gets messed up, causing that odd "blurring" effect in your screenshot.

 

To fix that, you need to split that single material into separate materials (with each of the extra materials being completely identical in everything besides their names.)

 

As an example, if a model uses a single material for the Head, arms, torso, legs, hands, and shoes, you'd fix this glitch by splitting that single material into a head material, a torso+leg material, an arm material, a shoe material, a left hand material, and a right hand material.

 

P.S. - I was the first person to discover that this glitch existed. I was also the first person to figure out how to fix it. I even talked about it in the locked Generations modding thread you mentioned.

[goku262002]

I knew you were the perfect guy to answer that Joe! thanks for coming by.

[Xopax]

When a single material is used for too many parts of a model, the game's motion-blurring effect gets messed up, causing that odd "blurring" effect in your screenshot.

 

To fix that, you need to split that single material into separate materials (with each of the extra materials being completely identical in everything besides their names.)

 

As an example, if a model uses a single material for the Head, arms, torso, legs, hands, and shoes, you'd fix this glitch by splitting that single material into a head material, a torso+leg material, an arm material, a shoe material, a left hand material, and a right hand material.

 

P.S. - I was the first person to discover that this glitch existed. I was also the first person to figure out how to fix it. I even talked about it in the locked Generations modding thread you mentioned.

It stayed the same thing  

[Abc_Kodak]

Xopax I Would Like To Help You Much But I'm having the same problem Does anyone know how to fix him? 

[Joe T.E.]

It stayed the same thing

Allow me to provide a somewhat better explanation for what I said.

 

In this picture, each color represents a separate material.

 

As I mentioned before, the "blur glitch" is caused when too many parts of the model use the same material. In this case, there are too many parts being covered by the blue and turquoise materials, so those materials would become affected by the "blur" glitch within the game.

 

In this second picture, I've split the blue and turquoise materials into multiple materials.

 

This second model would not have the blur glitch if it were to be used in the game.

 

 

Additionally, it may also be possible for the glitch to occur if the model's rig has way too many vertices being rigged to way too many bones. If you haven't done so already, look over the model's rig, and make sure that no vertices are rigged to more than 4 bones (which can easily happen if you didn't manually create and/or adjust the rig like I tend to do.)