Sonic R's "Impossible" Fading

[@timothythompson4144]

I am really enjoying watching these a second time, I could hear this guy talk about his coding exploits all day.

[@CaptainWardi]

Same

[@chrismanning5232]

Need new content! This guy is a wealth on knowledge but you can rip through his videos in a few hours :(

[@StormBurnX]

Why were they all re uploaded?

[@sloppynyuszi]

StormBurnX he is separating his content. He wants to use gamehut for more personal stuff. This channel will have coding things for games he hasn’t worked on

[@Knuckx117]

wait why is all this being reuploaded?

[@lindsaywheatcroft8247]

The fact that these fade like sprites explains why I like the effect so much more than a mundane polygon fade. Such a weird time, where workarounds generated a distinct look that often aged better than the orthodox technical approach

[@timothythompson4144]

Jon "We wrote it in software" Burton.

[@Wockes]

solution to everything

[@megalyth6322]

F*ck it! We'll do it live!

[@sloppynyuszi]

In fairness some of them are just animation and layout tricks. Which is very clever.

[@mypkamax]

[0:29-0:34] _"If Sega themselves couldn't do it, how did we?"_ Jon Burton's clever coding, that's how...

[@lustechsource5197]

Your videos did a much better job of helping me visualize how the Saturn did 3D. I always read that Saturn used quads instead of triangles, but when you mention the quads being distort-able sprites, I all of a sudden "got it!" Granted I definitely don't know the complete details, but you do a great job of at least letting me visualize it in my head.

[@melficexd]

Wanna see Saturn's Tomb Raider using non distorted sprites? 😉 kzbin.info/www/bejne/fH6WlISqYpiefa8

[@KeyFactory]

yeah me too! i always wondered, why it was hard to do polygon programming with the saturn. but mentioning sprites explains a lot.

[@ShinoSarna]

What is brilliant is that polygons losing shading actually already gives it a look as if it was fading.

[@tehberral]

I love hearing stories about the workaround programmers have to do to make even the seemingly simplest things happen. This stuff is genuine genius.

[@SlaughterDog]

Cleverly achieving things that weren’t intentionally supported is awesome, and I’ve got mad respect for you and all the others who rendered “impossible” things back in the day!

[@Gunbudder]

fading effects are something i was always interesting in for some reason. all of my games involve some kind of weird and unnecessary fading of at least one sprite. there are just so many ways of doing it, and they look subtly different

[@VorpalStorm]

This is brilliant. I feel like programmers don’t have to do stuff like this for a lot of game development in recent years. What an exciting time to be a video game programmer!

[@jamesg4631]

I wonder how sega reacted when they saw this technique!

[@marcfuchs6938]

I am pretty sure they knew about it. I don't think they were THAT incompetent to not know, what they own hardware can do. I only think it wasn't used often, because A) it comes with a lot of additional coding effort and B) goes with the cost of performance. Calculating transparencies always does. However, this cost is certainly worth it. Flat pop-ins are ugly as shit.

[@THENAMEISQUICKMAN]

Probably went "oops" and then redid Daytona USA Saturn.

[@TechRyze]

Travellers Tales were already in Sega's goodbooks due to their Megadrive prowess. Toy Story etc. Same with Treasure & Gunstar Heroes, and later Lobotomy with Duke 3D & Quake.

[@Mernom]

@@marcfuchs6938 it's one thing to know what your hardware can do, and another to come up with a way to use that to achieve what you want.

[@GeekHour]

Did Sega every give this guy a raise for the amazing work he did?

[@seronymus]

Traveller's Tales* and probably not

[@seronymus]

@Fox Tunes Sonic X-Treme...now there us a name I've not heard in years. [shudder] TT is a shell of its former self

[@tomkandy]

Coding Secrets is the founder of Travelers Tales, he's worth in eight figures lol

[@coastaku1954]

@@seronymus You sure? Cause they made the Lego Star Wars games, AKA Perfection

[@alecaquino4306]

Based on their track record for making poor decisions, I would guess no.

[@SeeASquaRE]

It's amazing seeing early implementation of hiding pop-in with fading objects in. The Saturn hardware certainly made things unnecessarily complicated but it's always interesting to see work-arounds.

[@Delroify]

This has been an amazing find so far.

[@TubeHeader]

You should watch his main channel game hut

[@AnAngelineer]

Glad that some people are showing the reality of those times on KZbin. The angry mobs of AVGN imitators who say everything is shit really needed a counterpoint, and from a guy who actually worked on some of those games no less. Video games were built on experimentation by people like you. It isn't always successful, but it's what really moves the world forward. rather than complaining and bitching like 99% of people do. So, in short. thumbs up. Those videos are great, and as an amateur dev, they represent all that I stand for when it comes to educating people about how complex and "miraculous" video games really are. Full support there!

[@KomradZX1989]

I was born in June 1989 and grew up a SNES and 64 kid only to fall in love with Sega as an adult. You and people like you made the 1990s the golden age of gaming. Thanks for giving my childhood so much fun!!!

[@JeffersonHumber]

This channel is awesome. I love all the coding hacks from back in the day, so smart, so clever. Keep 'em coming

[@pixeldragon6387]

Watching these, I can’t help but wonder what amazing games might’ve come if Jon had a first party job back in the day. Probably would’ve been able to get a proper Sonic Saturn title

[@TechRyze]

They should have drafted these guys and Treasure in to help design the Saturn hardware in the first place. Them and AM#2 could have advised on efficient 3D hardware. This setup reminds me of the PS3 - over complicated and unfocused. That's the Saturn.

[@codmott286]

The Japanese were fiercely protective of their IP. The developer of Nights threatened to pull the entire game and quit when he found out AM2 was using his engine to make the first Sonic 3D game. Nobody was ever willing to work with each other, and the consistency is saturn quality showed.

[@ralphhoskins2115]

I love these Saturn videos!!! The 90’s were the best times to be a gamer,, so exciting,, next gen that actually blew you away when you looked at it... the fights over Nintendo and sega,,, and eventually Sony!!! Just great times....

[@soggywaffle3487]

god sonic r is one of my fav games. i actually speedrun it in fact. so seeing the interest that people have in it, its just great

[@RadicalEagle]

Sonic R is hands down my favorite Sonic game. I honestly think it's the best 3D sonic game in terms of speed and physics. Thank you for all the great work you did both on the game, and with these explanation videos.

[@Lovuschka]

"The two competing machines at the time, the Playstation and the Saturn" *sad N64 noises*

[@CSDragon]

Well, he's sort of right, there were two competing consoles at the time. But the Saturn was absolutely not one of them. Sony had 68% market share, Nintendo had 23%, Sega had 7%

[@thegamingconnoisseur4151]

Joke aside Two competiting CD based consoles

[@RealCaptainAwesome]

Solving problems like this are why I became a software developer.

[@guywithknife]

Do you solve problems like this or are you stuck making websites like many of us? :| But yeah, same, I love stuff like this, clever hacks and interesting solutions to seemingly impossible problems!

[@PaulRezaei]

Thanks for walking us through your creative processes!

[@sgtsavage2011]

That is such a clever workaround. You guys did an amazing with what you had.

[@TheSteveTheDragon]

Thanks so much for sharing your coding sorcery! I knew there were some amazing exploits being done in many games, but to finally see what's happening behind the curtain is an absolute joy.

[@KomradZX1989]

I absolutely LOVE ALL YOUR VIDEOS! If I had to make one critique it would be that I think that your videos are just a little on the short side. Personally I love deep dives on hardware and coding and I think the sweet spot for time for you would be around 10-15 min with a 20min video now and again. I get that it is more work but I think adding more insights into your coding knowledge would only gain you more fans. Keep up the amazing work!!!

[@JonnyProsser]

These videos are so insightful, Fantastic work!

[@Tadesan]

I’ve had one experience like this. It was amazing.

[@CaptainNow2]

My new favourite channel!! Superb work and thankyou for the insights!

[@baardbi]

I absolutely love these videos.

[@QuizDecks]

I think remember seeing this video explanation a year or two ago. Nice seeing more videos on the topic.

[@spritesensation]

close your eyes and listen to the music. I dont know what it is about this song, it's just so nostalgic-creepy

[@rars0n]

This is such a more elegant-looking solution than just having sudden pop-in ala Daytona USA. I can only imagine how good THAT game would have looked using this method!

[@maiers]

This is fascinating, watching it for the 3rd or 4th time already, please share more sonic R, this game is so misunderstood its criminal

[@ZPdrumer]

I love watching your videos. such great information and clever solutions for problems great work as always

[@sideswipe1261]

Why would anybody give this a “thumbs down”? Jealous programmers? Potentially better programmers? Nintendo fanboys? I love watching this stuff! I’ll never be a coder, just not in the cards, but I sure do enjoy the rewards coders like this fella bring to screens! And I do learn and retain some of this *way over my head* tech jargon and nuts & bolts! The more videos you watch, the more an osmosis-type effect activates. It’s like subscribing to a print magazine about a topic you know virtually nothing about. If you keep reading/Re-reading for several months, so many complexities will, in enough time, start to gel/meld in the background of your noggin- and *presto*! (Kinda), 6 months in such abstract concepts start to come together and make sense! Joy! I wish I had Sonic R!

[@matheusrios4223]

I like all the videos from jon talking about how they did all the impressive stuff in sega hardware (specially the nightmare incarnated named saturn).

[@mastersystemgamemaker9272]

I'm big fan of this game and I'm also a coder. I really enjoy your videos. Thank you for this wonderful game.

[@the_gravity_dragon3275]

Love that effect It's mesmerizing

[@PrinzessinRamode]

I think it would easier to have graphics pop in and out of existence and have a small bubble / sky box around the character that follows the character and have the objects fade in and out of existence as the sky box moves around the stage. I guess that would distort the background though.

[@gcomastah]

God damn i would love to see what you could've done with the Super FX chip or the 32X

[@midierror]

these videos are fascnating! Thanks so much for sharing

[@UnitSe7en]

"The Saturn was originally called the Mars, but here's how I changed it's name."

[@fluffy_preacher]

With some of these secrets explained this well, i really wonder what would happen if you could go back in time when development was taking place and point this out and solve it back then what gaming might be like or if this could have possibly saved Sega's demise

[@chillnspace777]

In reality nothing could stop the thunder that Sony had. This would be reinforced with the slow death ( also mass pirating) of the dreamcast. Once ps1 set Foot Sega had no chance. I do admire the different types of game Sega was doing at the time. However, I know what your saying though.

[@marcelcevani5688]

Great video and great coding skills ❤️😎

[@SDK2K9]

Look at this guy doing something that Sega themselves couldn't pull off. Good job. ^_^

[@XX-sp3tt]

I loved Sonic R, and the music.

[@miasuke]

I would love to see Sonic R re-released to the today's systems, but ported from the original source code, and not ported/emulated from the PC version, like in Sonic Gems Collection. By the way, did you help with something in the Sonic R port for Sonic Gems Collection, or the port was done by Sega itself, Jon?

[@CodingSecrets]

We ported to PC using the original code

[@miasuke]

@@CodingSecrets Yeah... But it is the classic version for use in old versions of Windows, who have a lot of issues to run on modern systems (but patched by fans to solve this problem). But the truth is Sonic R is not available on Steam or any other digital store. So, a modern re-release of Sonic R done by TT could be cool, keeping the "Retro/Saturn visual style" in high definition, changing the aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9, etc... But the question is: Sega and/or TT have interest in re-release an old game for today's systems and standards? After all, I think TT have a lot of other works to care about, and Sega could not be interested in publish it, even if the game could be digital-only. And two things more: 1) Thanks for the attention, Jon; and... 2) I love Sonic R. I have my Saturn disc since back 1998... ❤️

[@shny_scott]

miasuke The "patch by fans" wasn't created by fans, it turns any copy of the 1998 PC port into the (extremely rare) 2004 PC port. The patcher itself is custom, but the result is just what you would have gotten if you managed to find a 2004 install disc.

[@miasuke]

@@shny_scott Nice to know. I would love to see a new PC port on Steam and other digital stores. It don't need to have new, updated 3D graphics... Just keeping the Saturn style in high definition and being widescreen is just enough. But Jon still have the original Saturn (and PC) source code? Can Jon and his team be available to convert the code? Will Sega be interested in publish an old, underrated/underappreciated game, even it being digital only?

[@ralphhoskins2115]

I just want the man to port doom to the Saturn,, so after 30 years ,, we can finally have a Saturn version to brag about...

[@randomlifts]

The original school coders at work. Awesome. +++ATH

[@solarpellets]

ah yes, let's make a triangle by moving point 2 to point 4 instead of point 2 to point 1. That makes tons of sense. Either this was explained inadequately in the video, or tons and tons of people never realized you could move where one point was drawn to make a triangle.

[@tomyyoung2624]

Yes even the genie can take this kind of magic head-on.

[@stormxjp]

I love it! You should also compare it with the current consoles, like PS4. Looks like it's very easy to do theses effects nowadays.

[@IpfxTwin]

If only you had worked on the Saturn version of Castlevania Symphony of the Night. Love your videos!

[@carlolalattacosterbosa5821]

Impressive and super entertaining at the same time... NEW SUBSCRIBER HERE!

[@enjoylife6374]

amazing channel!

[@trollycart2397]

I hope you're rich as hell, you're a freaking GENIUS

[@jameswise9171]

We don't do this anymore We don't have hardware limitations that require this kind of special trickery to get around And frankly, I feel that the gaming industry suffers from it

[@alxjones]

On the contrary, at least the indie gaming scene largely exists because of it. The accessibility of modern game dev tools and the overabundance of power compared to what's needed for a fun game means that smaller and less experienced game dev teams can make full games that are both fun and look really good, without having to spend years in the industry learning and developing tricks to work around hardware limitations. Some poorly optimized AAA games are a sad consequence of it, but I think overall the benefits outweigh the costs by a lot.

[@CSDragon]

0:35 don't forget about the N64. There were 3 consoles in that generation.

[@mittensfastpaw]

Man every level even behind the scenes the Saturn was a mess!

[@stephandolby]

Great effect, though I wouldn't use Daytona in such a comparison :)

[@gdkey8025]

wow awesome stuff

[@robotnikkkk001]

=RELATION OF SEGA AND PREFERRED SONIC DEVS ALWAYS WERE DEEP IN CORRUPTION,THAT'S WHY SONIC R GOT SO AMAZING PROGRAMMING....JUST BECAUSE OF SATURN HARDWARE DEVELOPERS WERE SENT TO TRAVELLER'S TALES TO WRITE CODE THAT USE FULL POTENTIAL OF SATURN .......SADLY,THE REAL SONIC TEAM ALWAYS WAS IN VAIN AND WAS FIRED AFTER REFUSING TO MAKE WHAT BECAME SONIC 2006.....

[@danielm2142]

So from what I understand is that the fade only works for fading to a VDP2 layer, not from sprite to sprite, that's a shame, it could've been a solution to the Z-sort issue where any VDP1 sprites drawn behind an alpha texture would be culled, Nicole's cape in Guardian Heroes being the most well known example (I can't remember the specifics off of the top of my head, but it has something to do with the composition of the frame, whether back-to-front or front-to-back, not sure which one the Saturn used), though I guess it's something inherent to the hardware, with the only solution being render everything in software, where the negatives heavily outweigh the possitives.

[@chrisdickens4862]

Brilliant!

[@prpredatorz310]

I'm curious, it was said that you crush all polygons under a transparency so they couldn't overlap, yet the bubble over sonic and the water on the waterfall both maintain object behind it.

[@zanmaru139]

Interesting. I'm pretty sure now in 2021 WoW still handles player energy shield effects as sprites. Seems that technique has aged well.

[@BoffinBrain]

It would've been interesting to see a comparison of what it would look like if you just applied the fading levels to the polygons without removing the Gouraud shading. Also, couldn't you have have done simultaneous fading of the texture and the shading?

[@televisionandcheese]

The shading isn't a texture, and can't be made transparent like that , or of course, that's what they would have done haha

[@BoffinBrain]

@@televisionandcheese From what I gathered, you could still use the mix ratios to have the geometry textures fade into the background, but the Gouraud shading would still influence the result. Exactly how much, and what that would look like? That's what I'd like to see. So, for example, he could have set up the fading steps so that they start fading into the background when the shading has been reduced by 50% instead of removed fully, and then stuff that's far away wouldn't look so flat and bright before disappearing.

[@totaltotalmonkey]

I think the Gouraud shading doesn't fade. Therefore, leaving it on would mean the far objects wouldn't look faded but like there texture is fading. Also, it would mean objects would pop into view but with faded textures. Or put in another way the Gouraud highlights and shadows would look too strong for far off objects - like shiny grey blocks. You can sort of see this at 3:10, but it would be cool to see what this would look like in game.

[@gustopheles]

Mind blowing

[@caseycu]

It’s too bad more developers didn’t think out of the box like you did; so many just decided “meshes and pop-up it is!”

[@SerBallister]

I thought lots of PS1 and N64 games used fog to hide pop in ? It was common back then. Nice thing here is they can blend into skyboxes instead of solid fog colours like most other games did.

[@sunpy7908]

Wait, Saturn was all sprites? Is this why the Saturn was more ideal for 2D games than any other console at the time? Also the shaded polygons makes sense.... I remember Saturn games sometimes had a "dirtier" look than most PS1 games. Thank you for all you done, I've grew up on most of your work and Sonic R for Sega Saturn was one my favorites despite being so short.

[@Zekium]

Hmm... since the Saturn use quads instead of tris, wouldn't that be easier to "just" model the objects using quads (not faking it as tris) so the regular semi transparent could be used ?

[@Shadowwand]

So if lines draw between points 1 and 2, couldn't merging the points 1 and 2 together work to make a Triangle.

[@quaxky326]

Mr Sega? I-I don’t feel so good...

[@babygiraffeman]

Brilliant

[@unrealdevon]

If only this way to render was used alot back then.

[@Sinn0100]

Very sweet! Question, couldn't you make many bubbles like in Sonic R and give them coordinates so they essentially run into each other? I mean for a bigger space of transparencies for the Saturn. Then maybe place pixels, textures, or shading over it to hide what you don't need?

[@land3021]

God the music in these videos is 'stupid irratating' -(can't believe I'm using that string of words to describe it), but the stuff being discussed is somewhat intriguing...

[@--i-am-root]

Weird, I wasn't subbed to you. Could have sworn I did that way back- Oh this isn't gamehut lol. Well, I'm subbed here now too.

[@alxjones]

I was wondering about that too! I thought he just changed the name of the channel.

[@ezrawyvern6795]

The Saturn's hardware may have a been a borderline-broken, jumbled mess, but this video makes me think of an alternative future where Sega better handled the development of the Saturn, and thus got more people to make games for it. Quite a different future I must say. Though I'm lost as to whether or not there would still be division between the U.S. and Japan branches on part of the latter.

[@marcopfeiffer3032]

I didn't quiet get what would happen if you applied shading to a square that had color calculation applied. If the shading just wouldn't react to it, why wouldn't you use less intense shading at the same time as the color calculation? Then the fade would look seemless wouldn't it?

[@nelsonianb1289]

So lucky unity exists. So lucky this exists to know how lucky having unity exist is.

[@SirJonSoda]

That was so clever

[@Xisiqomelir]

20th Century programmers were gods

[@UltimatePerfection]

Did any other Saturn games used such fading tech?

[@xeostube]

I guess you wanted to fade in the shading too, otherwise there must have been an option to turn off the shading effect completely.

[@RamonAlonsoLopezMartinez]

Did you work with Josh Rose? He has a plaque as first third party Saturn Dev...

[@forgot7en]

It's such a shame all this coding prowess ended up being wasted in such an awful game. So much respect for your work, Jon. Quick question, how do all these programming techniques from back then compare to the last game you worked on, Lego Worlds? (According to wikipedia)

[@cromulence]

I genuinely don't think its hyperbole when I say that if you were advisors to Sega when making first party games, things could have turned out very differently for the Saturn. There's a lot of insanely clever stuff you've pulled off that SEGA simply didn't think or care about.

[@JohnWayne-bm1ty]

One idea, could you translate this videos to spanish? There are a lot of peaplo that don't understand this magic

[@Cyberfoxxy]

Let's just take a moment to appreciate the fact that neither the PlayStation nor the Saturn were meant to do 3D.

[@nicklespale22]

Just downloaded the Sonic R updater patch a few weeks ago. It fixed a number of graphic and basic issues aside from the fact that I couldn't use any controls and it would x out the menu selections as if there were no cd in. Now, there is NO issues with the game and it looks better than I've ever seen it. It seems to be created fairly recent, so by any chance have you worked with the guys who got it made?

[@seronymus]

Wow how did these steps not consume a lot of RAM? And how do the vertexes even know how to color/shade

[@seronymus]

Pls help

[@GabePuratekuta]

They went to night school?

[@jacksputrid]

Sooooo. Yes? And thank you?

[@-reunion-4224]

Me watching while only understanding 100 words in this video 😎

[@grantexploit5903]

I know this would have been taxing, but would it have been possible to use the CPU to predict how the polygon would be overdrawn, then change the texture on the fly to allow for more proper transparency?

[@SerBallister]

It may be possible, but it would be simpler to use a software renderer in that case and avoid the overdraw problem completely. One other issue is that the polygon size and texture size are rarely the same, there is some scaling involved, and for screen space pixels these won't map 1:1 to texels in both scale and orientation, so which texel do you modify ?

[@sonicmastersword8080]

Were there any advantages to the sprite manipulating over triangles?

[@ali32bit42]

nope. it was done because they didnt have time to make a 2d console 3d capable.

[@supernintendo182]

@@ali32bit42 I think the 3DO also used quads. The PS1 was the first console designed specifically to do 3D (the Jaguar could do 3D too but couldn't do it well).

[@TetsuDeinonychus]

@@supernintendo182 Which is why Saturn did 2D games (like Street Fighter) better, and PS was generally considered better at 3D. Actually, here's a pretty interesting comparison... segaretro.org/Sega_Saturn/Hardware_comparison#Graphics_comparison_table

[@ciredecgellar8232]

@@supernintendo182 The Model 1 and the first 3D PC cards also used Quads, the Saturn is as Hideki Sato had thought, taking into account an heritage inspired by the technology of existing arcade boards. Sega wanted from the start of the Saturn project that the console can manage real-time 3D but did not want to sideline developers who did not have the equipment, means or knowledge to develop 3D games and who accounted for a large part of the industry in Japan. We can find the result not very harmonious at the end but the process is quite logical when we have an overview.

[@ciredecgellar8232]

@@TetsuDeinonychus it doesn't mean anything at all "better at 3D" according to what criteria?

[@tillerGeneric]

Maybe I'm a product of modern limitations, but does this alpha fade method affect performance? Would it run better without having to calculate the alpha channel?

[@Destructor2007]

Did fading have any noticeable change in frame rate / performance?

[@andrewholmes3116]

I heard Sega is looking to port a bunch of games to PC... have your phone nearby