Zelda 64 Beta stuff

I wish! I hardly have the time I used to but one day I'd love to dig into another game that sparks my intrest. Believe it or not I knew next to nothing about Zelda and learned almost everything while I was making these videos. Definitely exhausting, but I was glad I was able to string together a lot of the information out there and make it accessible enough for people to enjoy it!

 

You don't like OoT and you did a video on it? What game would you choose next? Why aren't you on TCRF? lol

 

Aww man, Zelda 64 was like the holy grail of unreleased games back in the day. I'd really love to be able to play it someday.

 

it's been out since like 1998 - you're in for a treat

 

Sorry about that, I just came up with the name when I registered. It almost seems like a coincidence since I joined not too long ago and now you joined and thought of the same username. When I saw you pop up I thought that maybe you tried to use my username and had to come up with an alternative.

 

To this day it remains my single most desired prototype content. Pretty much anything from late 96 through early to mid 97. Maybe someday...

 

Fun fact: one of the N64 gurus said that if OoT protos from before SM64 was found they would not work on an N64 (because of some microcode issue don't ask me). We could still extract art from them.

 

Where was this posted?

 

Forgot but it was Zoinkity who said it.

 

Y'know, I'm kinda in the middle with Earthbound 64 and the prototype of Zelda 64.

 

Yep.

Agreed again.
Going in depth shouldn't be U64 priority IMO.

Just dig out new material and write a few lines of the known info available.

 

Wohoo, my first post since i've been lurking for years.

Hope this thread is right for my 'finding'.

To start with very old stuff, i think most of the people here know that old video clip of link entering that icy? dungeon room, opening the treasure chest and receives the triforce.
People took notice that link's character had realtime shadows and it was marked as a precomputed video. Later, as maybe some of you know, someone discovered an actor for realtime shadows, if i remember correctly. But it was said this feature has been completely stripped from the game.
But i just noticed that the final release version indeed had realtime shadows in it, too. Just not on link. Not sure if this has ever been mentioned or is even relevant of any sort, but:

The final boss Ganon seems to be using a -or- the (lowres) realtime shadows actor.

It's just not easy to see or notice, since it's only best visible when a lightning strikes. Also his tail does not seem to be included in the shadow. I would >ASSUME< because his tail is a seperate actor? and the shadow actor can only be linked to one other actor? And having two shadow actors active bould be to much for the N64? (I'm putting "?" there because i do not know these things for a fact and maybe someone else here does)
So it seems realtime shadows is not as much of a tested beta / or trailer video only feature that was completely removed from the game for performance reasons.

Searched through youtube for a video taken from a console, no emulator, where it can be seen quite well. Just keep an eye below ganon (if time-link doesn't work, imo best seen at 4:00+):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FrgHmbGO28#t=243

okay, also checked the TCRF for this:
http://tcrf.net/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Ocarina_of_Time/Unused_objects#Shadow

I'd say debunked! Well in case with "it is not used anywhere in the game" they mean the shadow actor in general not only for link,
what i'd assume since it's just called 'shadow' not 'links shadow' and 'anywhere in the game' not 'anytime in the game' because where else then below links feet would it be?

 

Welcome Fuzzy, I find it hard to believe that dozens of people have missed that lol, now I feel stupid. There is a chance that ZSO knew about it before, but record keeping for OoT's proto crap only began a while ago and there are things that have been lost because people didn't bother documenting well. The dungeon you refer to is not an ice one. The blue blocks harken back to the first game. Is it me or does Link's detailed shadow in the ROM look nowhere near as good as it is in in the trailer?

 

Thanks,

the things i find on ZSO are:

http://zso.netau.net/beta/EarlyTesting/index.html (2nd pic)

and:
http://zso.netau.net/beta/findings/shadow.html
with only giving gameshark codes to activate the shadow actor for link, a brief "what happens" and 3 screenshots.

Well, i have no idea of how frequently they update the page for what they know. Or even to say i'm not sure if these realtime shadow actors are relevant to each others at all, but that's what it seems to me.

But yeah, i was surprised by that, too. Just watched a live stream and then was like: "hey, wait a moment...", because i guess usually you're busy paying attention to other things during that scene.

 

What the fuck someone is hosting ZSO? That site deteriorated many years ago. It is the origins of OoT proto research, but it contains the ramblings of a bunch of teenagers who didn't understand the idea of citations. The only things that are authentic there are the proto pictures and some hacking information. TCRF is where you should do your reading on proto games because fabrication is not tolerated there. Besides the usual articles on TCRF I also recommend this one. http://tcrf.net/User:GlitterBerri/Prerelease:The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Ocarina_of_Time

 

Yeah, a while ago i already read through everything at the page you linked. Sure was interesting.
But finding that screenshot on this sub page only says:

With no reference to the shadow. That's why i linked that Unused_objects - Shadow page in my first post, as the last state of things that i assume is known about this.

 

Glitterberri is still working on that. She aims to make it the ultimate guide for the subject, and she is searching and reading anything she can find. Not only coverage in English but also in Japanese (then translating it), it's no shock that it takes so long. Let the TCRF members now about the shadow, I don't think anyone from there comes here often.

 

The dynamic shadow actor - number 0x13A, ovl_En_Sda - doesn't appear to be loaded during the Ganon battle. While Ganon himself is loaded (obviously) and can be found in the in-memory actor list, the shadow's actor can't be found in it, nor can its data be found in memory, even when it's clearly visible on screen. Also, while searching for the string "z_boss_ganon2" from his file gives 47 results, just like when using a hex editor on it, searching for "z_en_sda" from the shadow actor's gives zero results.

So, unless Ganon's actor manages to load and use the shadow actor without it being in memory, I don't think it uses this particular actor. It probably uses the same technique to draw the shadow, but not the exact same code. I wouldn't mind if someone double-checked this, tho, as I'm not the most familiar with actor overlays and such.

Also, as for ZSO, it has been dead for at least 4 or 5 years and someone just reuploaded it in its original state. Don't assume that anything on there is the last known state of things.

 

TCRF tends to be the final word. Can't remember the last time I read a random blog with questionable claims like in the old days. lol

 

if you guys need another source for seeing the shadows on Ganon, I recently did a speed run of OoT and you can clearly see the shadows in my video. Skip ahead to about 22 Minutes in for the Ganon fight. And sorry for this, shameless plug, but I could always use some more followers on my twitch channel

Video : http://www.twitch.tv/skavenger216/c/5022933