-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Final build of Sonic Xtreme found, leaking as we speak
- Thread starter Krejlooc
- Start date
lostinblue
Banned
Is this a marketing stunt?
(I know it's not)
Seems like the best timing for everything to come together, I mean the "sonic boom" being considered for X-treme all these years ago part.
Whoa hold up.
From Senn's LinkedIn
"■ Geist - Sega Technical Institute - Sega Dreamcast FPS game * unreleased
Managed art production for this single player action game. Designed database to improve communication between design, art, & engineering. All art tasks ahead of schedule"
I see some information on an unreleased game called Geist Force which clearly wasn't an FPS.
There WAS a Geist FPS for the Gamecube though but I don't think Sega had anything to do with it.
weeee-urrrd
I feel gross mucking around in someone's LinkedIn :X.
From Senn's LinkedIn
"■ Geist - Sega Technical Institute - Sega Dreamcast FPS game * unreleased
Managed art production for this single player action game. Designed database to improve communication between design, art, & engineering. All art tasks ahead of schedule"
I see some information on an unreleased game called Geist Force which clearly wasn't an FPS.
There WAS a Geist FPS for the Gamecube though but I don't think Sega had anything to do with it.
weeee-urrrd
I feel gross mucking around in someone's LinkedIn :X.
On the Saturn's case, that was the only advantage. Even the number of vertices wasn't a big deal, because it wasn't necessary to calculate 6 vertices to draw a quad with triangles: you could just reuse two vertices. The Saturn quads required far more circuit logic to render than triangles, the rasterizing was quite more complicated and expensive and to make it worse the time needed to raster a quad varied not only based on how many pixels it covers but also on how "distorted" it was, because the Saturn had to redraw some pixels multiple times to fill gaps on distorted quads. Also, the texture coordinates were limited to rectangles, which essentially made modern organic modeling techniques very hard to implement on the Saturn.
Vipershark
Member
Vipershark
Member
Another update from JollyRoger:
lostinblue
Banned
First part sounds very gruelling, I'm sorry to hear.
Whatever path (no pun intended) the individuals in this project choose to go down with... you have my infinite thanks for even trying, I guess this is where the community comes in, I mean... Not like we can accomplish a lot on the sidelines, but we're the "end customers".
I assume this surpasses simply "playing Sonic Xtreme" for dev people involved, so if there was no end costumer for it you would just drop it. Just like I drop some pet projects, because I am the costumer.
Krejlooc said it before, but they've spent money on this and they want to release it, I don't think a lot of people realize just how generous that is. Specially the ones going out and about demanding things.
Might as well play the sane guy here. I never thought we'd get something like this so anything's a plus, really. And I hope in the end you guys feel it was worth your while.
Whatever path (no pun intended) the individuals in this project choose to go down with... you have my infinite thanks for even trying, I guess this is where the community comes in, I mean... Not like we can accomplish a lot on the sidelines, but we're the "end customers".
I assume this surpasses simply "playing Sonic Xtreme" for dev people involved, so if there was no end costumer for it you would just drop it. Just like I drop some pet projects, because I am the costumer.
Krejlooc said it before, but they've spent money on this and they want to release it, I don't think a lot of people realize just how generous that is. Specially the ones going out and about demanding things.
Might as well play the sane guy here. I never thought we'd get something like this so anything's a plus, really. And I hope in the end you guys feel it was worth your while.
So, I mentioned a while back that people were sending me angry emails because we "weren't releasing the NV1 SDK which could be used to further saturn emulation."
Well, as I clarified before, no, this SDK is pretty much useless for anybody looking to build a saturn emulator... or really anybody without an NV1 and an ancient development environment in general. But I also said that the NV1 SDK wasn't our leak, and that it's been passed around the hands of people "in the know" for a while now.
See, the NV1 SDK leak wasn't our thing, it was Stiletto from VOGON's thing. And thus, the culmination of 12 years worth of research on his part, the NV1 SDK is finally publicly available. Officially released 2 days ago:
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=706
Included are a bunch sources to never-before-seen NV1 demos including one called SegaGP, which is pretty much what it sounds like. The only built demo shipped with the SDK is called Shapes, which, again, is pretty much what it sounds like. Also some neat manuals with CONFIDENTIAL written all over them as these tend to have. Pics:
Absolutely useless to 99.999% of people out there, but hey we got death threats over this crap so here ya go.
Well, as I clarified before, no, this SDK is pretty much useless for anybody looking to build a saturn emulator... or really anybody without an NV1 and an ancient development environment in general. But I also said that the NV1 SDK wasn't our leak, and that it's been passed around the hands of people "in the know" for a while now.
See, the NV1 SDK leak wasn't our thing, it was Stiletto from VOGON's thing. And thus, the culmination of 12 years worth of research on his part, the NV1 SDK is finally publicly available. Officially released 2 days ago:
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=706
Included are a bunch sources to never-before-seen NV1 demos including one called SegaGP, which is pretty much what it sounds like. The only built demo shipped with the SDK is called Shapes, which, again, is pretty much what it sounds like. Also some neat manuals with CONFIDENTIAL written all over them as these tend to have. Pics:
Absolutely useless to 99.999% of people out there, but hey we got death threats over this crap so here ya go.
Silphonica
Banned
Is this a marketing stunt?
(I know it's not)
Seems like the best timing for everything to come together, I mean the "sonic boom" being considered for X-treme all these years ago part.
I thought sonic lost world was considered the modern re-trake of sonic x-treme or have I missed something?
lostinblue
Banned
Not really.
Lost world was a "me too" love letter to Mario Galaxy. Also, in retrospect a Sonic Colours sequel gone bad.
Already discussed but Sonic X-Treme and Mario Galaxy are very different games, Mario Galaxy being very based on gameplay variety with several gameplay mechanics being everywhere for segments. Sonic Xtreme really wasn't anything like that, also nothing like more "open" designs of the time like Mario 64, so it's something else.
But not really Mario Galaxy'ish, which was what Lost World was aiming for. Such a shame it sucked balls though.
D
Diggeh
Unconfirmed Member
Get that garbage out of here. These guys are working really hard to get this running. They don't deserve the dumb fan art post that typical Sonic threads get.
http://www.senntient.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=2173&p=4andrew75 said:Okay guys, Time to dust off one of the oldest .def files that I could get my hands on. a Version 03 Def file to be exact! Dated 12/28/95. Time 14:26:42. Just so you can imagine the scope of all of this, the latest .def file we know of is Version 042 and dated 12/29/1996.
It took about 2 days of trial and error modeling this over and over again using the 003 def file as a guide. Its very primitive compared to the later files. There are no slope blocks in this .def file whatsoever.
But I think that I got this down now for the most part! I'm sure that there may be something wrong with the UV's on the side of the blocks , they should be rotated 90 degrees, but ehh I'm to tired right now to fix that!
There may be other discrepancies with accuracy , especially since there are no screens to compare with.( I'm flying blind here !)
So Chris what can you tell us about this level? Can you remember it ?
Why are there so many Sonics ?! (maybe that Sonic texture is in the incorrect directory?!)
I love the fiber optic like lights ! Very very nice touch !
Without further delay , May I present you with this very important new level ! ( named Level01) ( there are a lot of LEVEL01s by the way)
Notice that there are 2 sprite sets for the rings , Horizontal and vertical.
The circled blue thing moves around following an edge and also hurts Sonic according to the .def information ( ow!) its animation includes a spark attack.
I figured that this needed posting, it's super impressive.
To explain what needed to happen to make these pictures exist, a Sonic Xtreme level is made up of a DEF file (which among other things) defines block definitions and a PCX file (an old image format) where each pixel corresponds to one of those block definitions. Andrew apparently put this together by hand in 3DS Max, neither SANiKs or my level viewer did much in the way helping by the sounds of it. So yeah, apparently he did a lot of work to make this happen.
Vipershark
Member
Two more quotes from the Retro thread:
Another, more interesting quote:
Meaning that he's now able to use the Saturn pad with the development computer as intended.Jollyroger said:
Another, more interesting quote:
Andrew75 said:Jollyroger is Breaking it down!
Kind of a recap of what's going on. The code we have here is like a snapshot in time caught in the middle of an engine overhaul, and because of that many aspects for the Editor/engine are broken.
JR states that One example is the code that calculates the shading of polygons based on their distance to the camera. When they are far enough from the camera they are supposed to fade to black but the original programmer forgot to initialize a variable, so ALL the other polygons were rendered with a pretty much random value.
That value turns out to be completely transparent most of the time... it doesn't make sense at all for them to be all alpha blended, it is a waste of processing time, JR will eventually change the code to blend only the polygons that actually need blending.
The editor has essentially two modes, in one you navigate the level with the mouse and you can edit the level, one block at a time or by strips of blocks.
In the second mode sonic is playable. Sonic can jump, run up and down slopes, He can even run loops inside the long tunnel in the map.
There is also a separate build setting which lets you build only the engine, with no editor. (gameplay only)
You guys may recognize this area from one of the magazine screens. although the camera and sonic are off to the right of that magazine screenshot.
Popping back in to restate: Is there anywhere we can donate to this project?
I'm sure this is taking up a lot of time/effort on your part.
Anything we can do to grease the wheels a bit and take a load off of your shoulders by throwing money at you, let us know.
Shit, I'll buy you a pizza if that's what you need.
I'm sure this is taking up a lot of time/effort on your part.
Anything we can do to grease the wheels a bit and take a load off of your shoulders by throwing money at you, let us know.
Shit, I'll buy you a pizza if that's what you need.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
Just now reading through the thread, but:
What the fuck!? Why would you do this, like you were competitors instead of co-workers?
hotnheavyload
Banned
This is so interesting! The game itself doesn't look like a whole lot of fun.
lostinblue
Banned
Naka wasn't there for the demo. He was always removed from Sonic Xtreme development.
I didn't know this, thanks for the info.
Vipershark
Member
Jollyroger is busy irl and hasn't had time for another update yet.
It'll come when it comes.
I've been refreshing this thread and threads on two other forums about this daily and if anything interesting happens, I'll definitely try to post it if Krejlooc doesn't.
It'll come when it comes.
I've been refreshing this thread and threads on two other forums about this daily and if anything interesting happens, I'll definitely try to post it if Krejlooc doesn't.
Vipershark
Member
Here's something that I thought was interesting enough to post:
Andrew75 said:Okay guys ! I'll keep this short but sweet.
Here Sonic can run around and have some fun in this now famous area. (I like to call it the Gold Tile level myself, as the name is referenced in the .def code)
Its running in version 37 Engine/Editor which does not seem to have Fisheye functions.
Enjoy !
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
Quick, someone build an NV1 emulator!
lostinblue
Banned
Any news!? :3
ConanTheKing
Member
This is fascinating, work ends soon but I'll be reading this tomorrow. Dang I need to go play a Sonic game now. Hope that this is still going and discoveries are still being made.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Jollyroger has apparently gotten the game up and running in a very basic state on real Saturn hardware using his Cartdev system
He is also using the source code to re-write the renderer to output using OpenGL, meaning a PC version of this tech will be playable on modern systems eventually, without needing an NV1 card
Cave Johnson
Member
Jollyroger has apparently gotten the game up and running in a very basic state on real Saturn hardware using his Cartdev system
He is also using the source code to re-write the renderer to output using OpenGL, meaning a PC version of this tech will be playable on modern systems eventually, without needing an NV1 card
OMG, it's totally happening.
Honey Bunny
Member
Exciting stuff
ConanTheKing
Member
And many thanks for being open, sorry for quoting your old post but going through this thread is like a great story that brings the Sonic community together, I hope there's a happy ending and that your NV1 is safe.
EDIT: Wow what a crazy journey this seems to have been. Krejlooc, what about that un-announced never before seen Sonic game you apparently found? Did it turn out to be that Sonic Boom level editor in the end? Shame you were getting threats, this is an exciting project and the negative people don't seem to realise just how much effort needs to be spent on it.
Reading through this thread has been fascinating, could this Jolly Roger (He's the guy doing the coding right?) guy make a video?
Vipershark
Member
A new update from Jollyroger!
Updates on windows 8.1 port of the NV1 engine by Jollyroger !
Here we have textures, but lacks effects like fog, no perspective correction, no transparency, improper UVs and no proper lighting system.
and UV progress update:
EDIT:
Skype Quote:
EDIT: The level is also missing some textures because JR has not converted to the 24bit textures yet. (So They are not loadable at this point.)
A little more in depth explanation. The textures are converted on the fly via code. At this point in time He has done the conversion of the 8 bit textures. But not the 16 to24 bit ones. It'll be a simple mater for Master coder JR to handle.
This post is being updated on the fly as info comes in.... (update to show how fast this is going.)
EDIT
16 to 24 bit function functional while posting the above!
Vipershark
Member
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maa1ezK0f3A
It's getting closer...
It's getting closer...
shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit this is incredible.
Jollyroger has apparently gotten the game up and running in a very basic state on real Saturn hardware using his Cartdev system
It blows my fucking mind that this thing is still up, running, and being used.
Dragon1893
Member
Yeah, I almost wore those screens out with my eyes.
Then I'd play the 3D level in Sonic Jam or Christmas Nights with Sonic and cry myself to sleep.
Used that Sonic drowning tone as a phone alarm for about a week, waking up to that was the creepiest most awful thing, I kept thinking I'm having a stroke or dying while waking up.
lostinblue
Banned
What is the current plan regarding level design for the game?
Level-design-wise "as is" it's clearly unfinished, and needs some structure to go along with it. They were clearly getting somewhere with the engine and afterwards the game would shape up and follow suit. As is, it's a good curiosity artifact but... We all know this won't be the Sonic X-treme that could be, unless someone does levels using the assets in place? perhaps encompassing what exists into something grander? dunno.
Level-design-wise "as is" it's clearly unfinished, and needs some structure to go along with it. They were clearly getting somewhere with the engine and afterwards the game would shape up and follow suit. As is, it's a good curiosity artifact but... We all know this won't be the Sonic X-treme that could be, unless someone does levels using the assets in place? perhaps encompassing what exists into something grander? dunno.
Andrew75 (I think) is developing a 'finished' version of Sonic Xtreme using another engine. It looks identical to the original version but with finished levels and gameplay mechanics.
CreeperBlocks
Banned
Holy Smokes! I can't wait.
lostinblue
Banned
Why use a different engine?
I realize that project probably started of sooner, but using this codebase you get an usable Saturn version as well.
Used that Sonic drowning tone as a phone alarm for about a week, waking up to that was the creepiest most awful thing, I kept thinking I'm having a stroke or dying while waking up.
Scariest tune ever!!!
Similar threads
- Poll