How Sonic Adventure character mod for Sonic Generations was made?

Luke94

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How Sonic Adventure character mod for Sonic Generations(highpoly Sonic model and animations-including level map textures) was made? Especially that 3D model animations of Sonic the Hedgehog from Sonic Adventure 1 including higher-resolution textures for Sonic Generations? I'm asking because I think I want to such thing with Jazz Jackrabbit,but with exception of shooting his gun projectiles in Hedgehog/Havok(kind of Hero Mode of Custom Avatar in Sonic Forces) game engine,but I still don't know how to do it.? So I'm asking you for a help.
 

FAST6191

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The short version is likely to be artistic skill combined with some light hacking skills.

Longer version. First that search everything you reasonably can to see if there is an existing high res version of the model and any related textures out there -- remakes, other region releases, cutscenes, demo sections (if I wanted high res Mario 64 model I would get the face pulling thing at the start for instance), CGI films, advertising, leaks, base textures*, guest appearances in other games...
Hopefully one of those is better than the baseline but if you only have what is in the game then so it goes. Jazz Jackrabbit is one of the things that did not make the leap to 3d very well and has languished ever since (give or take the GBA version there has not really been anything since).

One of said later appearances, apparently there was a thing in fortnite as well but that looks like an in game poster rather than anything useful



Import this (and maybe several if there are multiple options you want to merge) into a more conventional 3d model editor however you will. This tends to be within the realms of ROM hacking as you have to figure out the format, though maybe you get lucky and find someone has already built such a thing.

So now you have whatever low poly count model was used in your editor. Might want to get whatever sprite work and print advertising of the 2d stuff also available as a reference.

Magic make it look better button is not yet a thing (AI just about does 2d images these days). Certainly try obvious things like the subsurf (turns what is nominally a few points on a line into more points but splitting the difference) to see what comes up there but you are likely to be sculpting a lot of things. Same for textures which is where the 2d and other reference material will likely really shine.

This is also where artistic talent comes in -- realism vs artistry is ever the fun discussion in these sorts of things, especially for a comedic animated character. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/Lemming_animation.gif is 2d very small spritework but illustrative of what some comparatively small changes make.

You now get to export it to something the game uses, possibly not without first having to rig animations (I don't know what your host game uses on the mesh vs bones front and what its general ordering and pivot point list looks like, as well as distances between them (though Jazz Jackrabbit has fairly human proportions save the feet), match it or alter the game to use it.


*a favourite video at times like this
 

Luke94

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I'm just only wondering would it be possible to add new custom stages in Sonic Generations likewise in Jazz Jackrabbit 2: The Secret Files or just only swapping/replacing them in Sonic the Hedgehog.
https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/sonic-generations-hacking-and-more.25598/page-243
I guess he gave up with making fanmade,unofficial game patches for Jazz Jackrabbit 3D unfortunetely.
https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/sonic-generations-hacking-and-more.25598/
I'm just wondering who's in charge currently,recently speaking right now of modding tools for Sonic Generations on Microsoft Windows 11 PC OS after Andrew75? As it seems nobody on Jazz2Online,Sonic Retro Forum,Old Unreal Forums,Unreal Engine Forums made such tool(as for Unreal Tournament 4 Forum went down being indefinitely closed for good possibly permamently.
https://www.unrealsp.org/forums/vie...2&sid=76a51fb0cc8001f1259c0d5e400a4aae#p78252
https://www.jazz2online.com/jcf/showthread.php?t=19325
It is still unknown when Victor Albert Delacroix will decide to help with unofficial,fanmade,opensource,homebrew,fanmade revival of Jazz Jackrabbit 3D(third videogame installment after release of Steele Dawn as Unreal Gold Game Mod.
 
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FAST6191

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Possible? I don't see why not; generally if the device can theoretically do it then that is all that possible means*, in this case you are presumably going to operate within the existing game's own general framework (though the option to expand it could be tempting to have mega level or something). Whether there is going to be nice easy tools like some things or you are going to have to roll your own, which for 3d things is rather involved compared to a lot of 2d stuff, is the real question and I doubt Jazz Jackrabbit has a large enough fanbase of the 3d efforts (it really was a casualty of the early move to 3d) to do anything there.

As far as "in charge" then nobody is ever in charge; the fun of being a ROM hacker is you get to move to the beat of your own drum. If you want to remake things, make things or hack things, possibly beyond what is already done, then do it as nobody is going to stop you.

*I usually break it down into various levels.
1) There are nice high level tools available.
2) Possible as it is within what the game already does.
3) Possible but will take skilled coders a reasonable amount of time.
4) Possible but is only possible in the technical sense, anybody attempting it even if they are massively skilled will take years to achieve much.

Releases of source code, be they leaks, decompilations, official, more conventional recreations, engine equivalents (a lot of old games did not have source released but as they ran on the Doom engine which did then yeah) and people with skills making tools can change where a given project might land in that list, as will remaking things for more powerful devices (be it porting to PC rather than an old console, or using Lua in an emulator).
 

Luke94

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Maybe I would even add Jazz Jackrabbit in Sonic the Hedgehog(2006)in Sonic Generations,Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1,Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 2. It looks like Special Stages in Sonic CD,Jazz 1 were never officially fully recreated in 3D highpoly aesthetics. But how to do that?
 
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