Sonic X-Treme (BARF) Sourcefiles released

http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=18538

ScarredSun of Sonic Retro recently released a lot of the source materials for a later version of Sonic X-Treme, including textures & definitions. It's interesting, I hope some saturn fan gets busy with this and somehow makes it function.

 

Bah...No one seems to get it.This was never intented for the Saturn.This is what's left of from the PC version or what Chris Senn has from the PC version.

 

It might be from the PC version but it's still pretty cool to see all the resources. Wasn't the idea to take a pc version and port the engine over to the saturn? It gives a good glimpse of what the game looks like, full explorable levels etc.

Definetly worth a download and a look if you're interested in sonic xtreme

 

Definitely!But when they did it was running at 2 fps due to the engine being so processor intensive(with all the fish-eye effects).
So they tried to pitch it to Sega PC,the PC group,but they were unlucky because Sega PC only made ports of already established Sega games.So it was eventually scrapped(actually the Saturn version was scrapped months earlier,around September-October 1996 I think).

 

With the saturn's 3d capabilites it doesn't suprise me, it would be interesting to see how these levels played though. It's a shame the game was scrapped, but you can understand sega's uncertainty with it.

Could have been a nice mix though to mix these levels with the boss levels that were on the saturn protos.

The DEF files look easy enough to pull information from, maybe next weekend I might have a go at taking the levels and making them playable in some form. Do need to get my game engine coding up a step so could be an interesting challenge. Maybe try and use the physics mentioned in the sonic retro physics guide and apply them to sonic... could be fun A few classic sonic sounds... well on the way! I'm sure quite a few will do this too though.

 

Without good dev tools, it was nearly impossible to port that engine to saturn and make it run or fly at 30/60fps.

By the way, the Saturn can do much more than that, BURNING RANGERS anyone? Or the same Coffin boss engine.

Anyways, a cool release!!!!

 

See now a burning rangers proto... that's my dream come true right there. To play the 2-player mode and see how the game developed. There's so many variations of the hud, even the one thats in the final build hints at things that were cut out... I played that game for hours upon hours.

 

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i saw this on some random sonic forum when googling something completely unrelated lol

 

Don't want to try and hijack the thread to be about burning rangers, I admit the game wasn't exactly the sexiest thing ever, but for the saturn it had a lot of detail - as for controls and camera movement, I don't remember having any major issue with either.

I think the only reason people jumped on the transparencies was down to previous devs claiming it to be impossible on the saturn. Isn't that one of the reasons behind Tomb Raider 2 being cancelled for the sat?

Either way I loved BR and no one will ever change that! ^_^ crappy 3d engine and all!

 

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And the lazy ports (such as Castlevaina) really show the failings of second rate teams.

-hl718

 

Great words Druid II.

 

One of the very first Saturn games to use transparency is Welcome House. It's also on the PlayStation but I don't know which is a port of which or whether they were both made exclusively for each hardware set. Saying that it does look like the sort of game that the PlayStation had a lot of.

Yakumo

 

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I didn't think it *was* impossible, just that it was a reason that devs claimed at the time as to why TR2 didn't appear. I'm sure some of the official saturn mags stated that when reviewing & previewing BR a look what this game can do! kinda attitude. I'm sure it probably was a deal with sony but it wasn't what was originally stated I don't think.

Have to say I don't remember any Panzer Dragoon though, I think there were objects that had textures that had pixels that were either transparent or a colour, but can't remember any translucent objects. Which BR had a thing for in the last level...

Anyway - pulling things back toward the sonic xtreme data, looking at the def files... anyone got an idea how to read the hexdump data or am I being thick. lol, its early....

 

Yeah, but they are 2D sprite effects. The ones in Welcome House are polygons. The Saturn could do 2D transparency effects no problem. It was making something in solid 3D that seemed to always be the problem. Even most of Sega's in house games didn't bother. I've been playing Saturn since the japanese launch days, well a day later to be honest and the first 3D transparency I can really think of is Welcome House. If there's anything else please let us know. Something may have passed me by.

Yakumo

 

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Here's a quick comparison:

PD1
Low resolution
20fps
Real time transparencies

PD2
Medium resolution (with 16:9 support!)
30fps
Improved distance fogging

Was the trade-off worth it? Team Andromeda may have later adopted a lower resolution again with PD Saga, but at least in-game transparency effects made a spectacular return!

By the way, is anyone else waiting for SSF to support Die Hard Trilogy? I can't wait to see how this one looks with the emulator's transparency mode enabled - hopefully it will finally be a closer match to the PlayStation version!