This is a sub-page of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
|
This needs some investigation. |
Work-In Progess Castle Town#
In the cutscene "Death of Elise!?", several pictures appear on the monitor, one of which is a work-in progress screenshot of Castle Town. Several buildings are only white blocks, with the most obvious being the town hall. The building to the left of the entrance to New City is also different here, being much taller. You can also notice two buildings clipping into each other to the left of the tower, and again in the bottom-right of the texture. Several buildings are also different. The layout is seemingly final, and due to the low resolution, makes it hard to make out any other differences.
csc_phot03_dflu_i.png
Early Textures#
In the first in-game cutscene for Sonic's episode, we see a nighttime version of Soleanna that's a bit different to the terrain you actually get to play around in. The event ID for this cutscene is e0031 and has its own separate terrain folder from Soleanna's actual one, containing models and textures that are different. Many buildings are missing, while some are missing sides, probably due to being out of sight. The textures used in e0031 appear to be early counterparts, as they're missing some text and effects, but are also set up correctly, unlike Soleanna's final textures.
Minor Differences
- The most relevant textures are slightly transparent in e0031, which is correct for the diffuse-specular configuration - they are opaque for Soleanna.
- twn_a1brick01_dfsp_b.dds was made brighter for Soleanna.
- twn_a1cring04_dfxx_b.dds, twn_a1cring05_dfxx_b.dds, twn_a1swalk58_dfsp_b.dds, and twn_a1swalk60_dfsp_b.dds were made darker for Soleanna.
Major Differences
|
e0031 |
Final |
|---|---|
|
|
twn_a_h704_dfxx_c.dds was modified to add the word "CAFE" for Soleanna.
|
e0031 |
Final |
|---|---|
|
|
twn_a_h503_df_c.dds was also made darker, but was modified to add the number 15 for Soleanna.
|
e0031 |
Final |
|---|---|
|
|
twn_a_h039_df_c.dds had gaussian blur added to a portion of the texture for where it'd be mapped over a shop window.
|
e0031 |
Final |
|---|---|
|
|
twn_a_h060_df_c.dds had gaussian blur added to a portion of the texture for where it'd be mapped over a shop window.
|
e0031 |
Final |
|---|---|
|
|
twn_a_h097_df_c.dds had gaussian blur added to a portion of the texture for where it'd be mapped over a shop window.
Unreachable/Out-of-Bounds Objects#
|
|
This needs some investigation. |
Unreachable Spring in Kingdom Valley - Section A#
In Kingdom Valley - Section A, there is an unreachable spring at co-ordinates (X: -26241.4, Y: 0, Z: 5035.69) - this spring has a LaunchSpeed value of 0, OutOfControl value of 0, and it targets nothing. It's present in the SET files for Kingdom Valley - Section A in retail and the Xbox Live Arcade Demo, as well as End of the World.
Unreachable 1-Up in End of the World - Section F#
In End of the World - Section F (Amy's White Acropolis section), there is an unreachable 1-Up Capsule at the location that Sonic's normal White Acropolis B starts from.
Leftover Objects in Radical Train - Silver#
In Silver's Normal Radical Train, there are several out of bounds objects, including a rainbow ring, a jump panel, the unused jump board, a dash panel, and some oddly placed springs, as well as some rings.
Misplaced Rings in DLC#
In Omega's Dusty Desert section in the Team Attack Amigo DLC, there is a trail of rings placed on a slanted platform where Sonic's Dusty Desert Section is. Omega does not go here during the section normally.
Optical Camouflage#
This mysterious texture file (en_ocnoise.dds) can be found in cache.arc, sporting nothing but saturated noise. The word "@komatu" is written in the center of the image which could refer to Takuma Komatsu, one of the game's programmers. The use of this file has been cleared up to be used on enemies when they go into cloak mode. The texture is called in render_main.lub and it is referenced as "OpticalCamouflage".
Licenses#
On the root of the disc for both the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions exist BOOST.TXT, LUA5.TXT, and ZLIB123.TXT. These files contain the license information for Boost Software, a collection of C++ libraries, as well as the Lua scripting langauge and the Zlib compression format. Traditionally, the contents of these text files would be placed in the credits, but they're missing, even though the logos (with brief license info) for Havok, Kynogon, and Dolby Digital are all present there. Lua and Zlib are used in almost every file in the game, so it's not like these are left over from an earlier build of the game or anything. The exact text can be found in the Unused Text subpage.
Curiously, two of these licenses (the Boost and Lua ones) are present in the XBLA demo, as part of a promotional image that appears when beating the stage, and are also mentioned in the game's manual. The Zlib one is missing entirely from both places, however.
Internal Filenames#
- The internal naming scheme of the music for stages usually follows this format: stg_(stage id)_(letter).xma. The letter corresponds with which section of the stage in which the music plays. However, Crisis City's tracks don't follow this as closely: the first two tracks are stg_csc_a.xma and stg_csc_b.xma respectively, but the mach speed section's track is called stg_csc_e.xma and the track for the section before it is called stg_csc_f.xma, which may imply both that Crisis City had many more areas in the past and also that the mach speed section was intended to be before that platforming section. The former is unlikely as the game is relatively sloppy internally, but the latter is supported by the fact that the "All" track on the OST uses this order.
- The track "Town Mission" uses the name stg_twn_shop.xma, which doesn't fit the syntax of the other Town Mission tracks. These are named twn_mission_comical.xma, twn_mission_slow.xma, and twn_mission_fast.xma respectively.
- Many of Sonic's internal files are referred to as sonic_new, likely because Sonic's model was changed from the one seen at Tokyo Game Show (TGS) 2005.
- The Rainbow Gem is referred to as Emerald_S in the game's code. Due to this, there is speculation that the gems were originally supposed to be the Chaos Emeralds.
Other#
- All of the textures used in the background of the stages' previews are much wider than they need to be: 2048 pixels. By contrast, they are only 512 pixels tall, since those screens leave space on the top and bottom. The extra space to the right of the 1,280 used pixels is simply black and does not appear to serve a purpose, as the only reason why they would need to be a power of 4 would be for mipmapping, which they don't really need either.
- HUD and voice files exist for the PS3 version in the Xbox 360 version. The HUD file specifically contains both the Xbox and PS3 button prompts within the same file.
- One of the two parameters for input_method within the players' LUB files is input_method_mario64. The parameter is used for most Amigo characters, while Sonic and Shadow use input_method_sonic_v1. input_method_mario64 allows the character to ignore the rotation speed params and turn on a dime, similar to Super Mario 64.
- Editing Sonic's .lub file to use Blaze or Knuckles' homing attack module causes his air dash to follow a downward curve (similarly to the XBLA demo's, but with less weight), and this also allows the player to air dash into the ground to gain full speed. This is likely an early version of the air dash in the demo, which was probably planned to be present in the final game. Shadow and the White Gem lack this behavior.
- Many characters have some of Silver's code in their configuration files, namely the line psi_power, which determines how much power Silver should have for his Psychokinesis.
- An early version of Sonic's .lub file can be found alongside Tropical Jungle and Dusty Desert's scene files. It has some unique properties, such as Sonic's top speed being 20m/s compared to the final's 17m/s, and lacking any of Sonic's gems, indicating they were a late addition. It also lists several unused parameters, with c_run_algorithm being the most interesting. Listed under it are 6 parameters that go up to 3 each, c_run_gear_1_spd and c_run_gear_1_acc, which indicates a scrapped movement system.
- An unused shader called DepthOfFieldFilter.fxo can be found in shader.arc. As the name suggests, Sonic Team planned for the game to use a depth-of-field effect, much like the one seen in Sonic Unleashed.