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SCHG How-to

Difference between revisions of "Import Levels Into Sonic Generations"

From Sonic Retro

(Finale Part 2: Creating and importing collision into Sonic Generations: Cleared a section)
(Finale Part 1: Importing the geometry into SonicGLVL)
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* Open any stage in SonicGLVL and load the terrain groups. After it's all loaded, clear all terrain geometry (it's under the terrain section). This may take a while, so please be patient. Once it is done, under the terrain section, click Import Ogre .scene as geometry...
 
* Open any stage in SonicGLVL and load the terrain groups. After it's all loaded, clear all terrain geometry (it's under the terrain section). This may take a while, so please be patient. Once it is done, under the terrain section, click Import Ogre .scene as geometry...
 
* After you select the .scene file, generate the terrain groups under the terrain section.
 
* After you select the .scene file, generate the terrain groups under the terrain section.
* Back in SonicGLVL, go to the Spawn/Helpers category, and place a SonicSpawn object wherever you want it to be. With the object selected, go into the Stage Menu, and make the selected object the Active Spawn. You should also put in [http://www.mediafire.com/?0za69953u30i2c2 this file] into the cache/<stage>/data folder to remove the grass if you're importing over Green Hill Zone.
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* Back in SonicGLVL, go to the Spawn/Helpers category, and place a SonicSpawn object wherever you want it to be. With the object selected, go into the Stage Menu, and make the selected object the Active Spawn. If you're importing over Green Hill, then you need to go into SonicGLVL's cache and delete all of the data in the Instancer.xml file to remove the extra grass.
 
* Finally, you must go under the file section and repack the terrain geometry, leave the options as default if you don't care about the specifics yet.
 
* Finally, you must go under the file section and repack the terrain geometry, leave the options as default if you don't care about the specifics yet.
  

Revision as of 21:03, 21 August 2012

(Original guide by Sky The Destroyer)

SCHG: Sonic Generations
Main Article

Objects
Collision Properties

File Index
BB

BB2
BB3

How-To
Import Levels

Create Breakable Objects
Create Splines

This is a tutorial on how to import custom levels into Sonic Generations.

Required Tools

Additional Notes: You can use any version of 3DS Max from 9 to 2012 for the purpose of exporting terrain geometry. The only reason you'll ever need a version like 2011 or less is due to the Havok Content Tools, that need to be of that specific version to work fine in the game(otherwise you might get some crashes). Do notice Max 2012 and 2013 can save Max files that are backwards compatible with Max 2011 if specified.

Step 1: Finding the stage

  • You can go on The Models Resource and find stage rips there, or you can use Google. You can even create your own stages, or you can rip stages from various video games yourself.

Step 2: Importing into 3DS Max

  • First and foremost: Make sure the units are set to meters! This is crucial. Go into Customize and go into Units Setup and set it to meters. Also go into the System Unit Setup menu in the Units Setup menu and set it to meters as well.
  • Use the import function by clicking the top left icon in 3DS Max. Select your file type and import the stage into 3DS Max. You then have to make sure the import options are like the following images if this appears: Image 1 Image 2
  • If that does not appear when you import it, export it as an .obj file and reimport it. This will give you the options as shown above, which are required to import the stage, otherwise the collision will be off.

Step 3: Scaling the stage

  • The next thing to do is to scale the stage. The easiest thing to do is create a box that is as big as Sonic. His dimensions are 0.5m x 0.5m x 1.0m. You can use this box as a reference.
  • Scale your stage by selecting all the objects in the stage and then in the right clicking and selecting scale. Make sure you don't scale your reference object!
  • On the bottom of the screen, you should see the three axes: X, Y, and Z. They all should say 100, which is the scale percentage. If you set them to 50, your stage will be 50% of its original size. If you scale it to 150, it'll be 50% bigger than it originally once was.
  • For open world maps, be sure to upscale it a lot if it isn't big already for Sonic's size. When the map may look big, it won't be as big in game. This is because Sonic's speed is very high, and thus making the map feel smaller.

Step 4: Rendering GIA

  • N/A

Step 5: Exporting the level geometry

  • After you've finished with all that, it's time to export the level geometry.
  • First, you must download the Easy Ogre Max Exporter for 3DS Max, which is above in the required tools. Make sure you download the correct one for your 3DS Max version(x86 or x64).
  • Import the plugin by going into Customize > Plug-in Manager... then right clicking anywhere in the box and selecting Load New Plug-in...
  • Select the file that you downloaded and it should load into 3DS Max as an export option.
  • Click the top left icon and click Export. Have it export it as a .scene file. Make sure to export it into a separate folder so you can keep everything that you exported organized.
  • Here are the options that you should have.

Finale Part 1: Importing the geometry into SonicGLVL

  • Open any stage in SonicGLVL and load the terrain groups. After it's all loaded, clear all terrain geometry (it's under the terrain section). This may take a while, so please be patient. Once it is done, under the terrain section, click Import Ogre .scene as geometry...
  • After you select the .scene file, generate the terrain groups under the terrain section.
  • Back in SonicGLVL, go to the Spawn/Helpers category, and place a SonicSpawn object wherever you want it to be. With the object selected, go into the Stage Menu, and make the selected object the Active Spawn. If you're importing over Green Hill, then you need to go into SonicGLVL's cache and delete all of the data in the Instancer.xml file to remove the extra grass.
  • Finally, you must go under the file section and repack the terrain geometry, leave the options as default if you don't care about the specifics yet.

Finale Part 2: Creating and importing collision into Sonic Generations

  • You must download Havok Content Tools 2010 2.0, as it says in the required tools section. Install it to your Autodesk 3DS 2011 directory (it should auto-select the directory it for you).
  • Go back into 3DS Max 2011 and select all of the objects that you want to have collision. Go to the right and hover over the icons and find the one that says modify. It should have a rainbow icon.
  • In the modifier list, select Havok Shape and Havok Rigid Body. All you need to is set the Shape type to Mesh, which is the most accurate type of collision.
  • You then must go and select Havok Content Tools on the menu bar and export it with these settings: Order Create World Transform Scene Create Rigid Bodies Write to Platform
  • You can select the path to save your HKX to wherever you think is the best place to have it ready for importing.
  • Once you've put all those settings in, run the configuration. Errors might appear as you're generating the file, but just ignore them.
  • The final step is here: importing the collision into Sonic Generations. If you're replacing it over Green Hill Zone Act 2, you need to open Generations Archive Editor and open #ghz200.ar.00 and replace ghz200_col.phy.hkx with the newly generated one.
  • Other stages will have different collision file names, but you can easily find the collision file that you need to replace by looking for the stage's name and the file extension .phy.hkx tacked on (#ssz200.ar.00's collision file is ssz200.phy.hkx).
  • After you've saved your collision file, you can launch Sonic Generations and test out your newly imported level.