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---== Sonic Engine To End All Sonic Engines ==---


saxman

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Alrighty, it's been a long while since I hacked, so I am going to ask this question:

Where is the solidity data in memory for Sonic 1? Is it even in RAM or is it read directly from the ROM? I found the solidity/slope table in the ROM which will help in porting solidity/slope information to ProSonic, but I don't see any table for telling it "for this block, I want to use data A, for this other block I want to use data B, etc". I know where it is for Sonic 2, but can't find it in Sonic 1.

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Alrighty, it's been a long while since I hacked, so I am going to ask this question:

Where is the solidity data in memory for Sonic 1? Is it even in RAM or is it read directly from the ROM? I found the solidity/slope table in the ROM which will help in porting solidity/slope information to ProSonic, but I don't see any table for telling it "for this block, I want to use data A, for this other block I want to use data B, etc". I know where it is for Sonic 2, but can't find it in Sonic 1.

From that I've gather in Sonic Cult, Sonic 2 used the same engine as Sonic 1. However, I think DW maybe the best person to ask.

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Well you're right in that it does use the same engine. But some of the data is located (and sometimes handled) differently between the games. The solidity data between the beta and commercial versions of Sonic 2 are actually located in different places in RAM, and apparently the same is true for Sonic 1 (if it's in RAM at all).

Looks like my ProSonic project got a little more serious as of now. A company located in California wants to use my ProSonic source code, level editor, and me to give them documentation on the level formats so they can port Sonic 1 to a particular cell phone platform. Sonic 1 has been ported to cell, but that was possible because those platforms had enough memory to handle it... this platform they're working with now is more limited and so they need to change how some things work to make the game smaller. What this means is I will likely have to focus my time on getting the editors working with the Sonic 1 format before I focus too much on some other things.

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Nobody has to buy anything. They want to see my engine code as a reference for some of the knowledge I have of the original game engine. I brought it up as a point to say that it might take my focus off some other things I've been talking about in the engine for the moment.

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That's the plan. It'll eventually support both 8-bit and 16-bit color. They won't be used interchangeably though. What you'd do is be able to say if you want to make a game using 8-bit or 16-bit color. Once you have picked, all the files created after the fact will be formatted accordingly.

In my opinion, I see 16-bit color as sort of pointless (in most cases) for a Sonic game. I think 8-bit color is enough for everyone, but I understand at this point that most SFGHQers are used to having more, so I'll go ahead and meet that demand. But if anyone requests 24-bit color, I'll break in their house in December and burn down their Christmas tree!

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The only purpose for having high amounts of coloring is for special effects which makes me wonder, even though it's an engine replicating the old style Sonic games, will you have the option to include special effects like ring glow when you collect it?

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Lord, people are so picky.

At any rate, I prefer 16-bit for the whole model support thing, since shading would be better with the extra colors. though the problem would be figuring out how to manage all those colors for shading it while retaining the main pallete of the level. though I'm sure you'll think up a solution to that, like allowing colors to be "locked" if they are dynamic colors, that way they can't be interfered with by the shading system.

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I don't know about those kinds of effects you all are talking about. I'll probably leave that up to programmers. I'm more interested in some of the other things I've been talking about. This isn't supposed to be a super hi-tech totally 3D Sonic game here. There are going to be some advanced things about it such as polygons, but I don't have much interest in making it look like your typical PS2 or XBox game. People can modify the source code to the engine if that's what they want. Graphically, I don't have much desire to make it look better than most 32X games. It's gotta be able to handle Chaotix at the most advanced level... but beyond that I don't have a whole lot of interest. There will be some advancements you don't see in many Sega 16-bit games, but they won't be totally mind-blowing. You don't see some of the things the engine already does in many MMF/CNC/TGF games, so that at least counts for something I hope.

The way I see it, an engine that tries to be too many things all at once is an engine that will never see the light of day.

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