Adding New Characters?

Has this game been locked by the original developer or something that makes it difficult to do a hacked version of? Or is it just not that popular that no one is putting time into doing it? I think it's such a well made game that it surprises me there isn't a whole lot more mods.

YMB9Shinzou wrote:Has this game been locked by the original developer or something that makes it difficult to do a hacked version of? Or is it just not that popular that no one is putting time into doing it? I think it's such a well made game that it surprises me there isn't a whole lot more mods.

Yes, they made the characters hard to edit.  Basically, you need to edit .FPG files that contain the graphics for each character.  But these files are no longer easily accessible -- They're compressed inside the Sorr.dat file in the game as of SORR v5.   v4 has the FPG file separate (look in /data folder and rename the axel to axel.fpg etc) but they're incomplete and don't contain all of the frames that are used in v5.

However, some FPG files for SORR v5 are floating around (see the Vegeta character mod), so obviously some people have been able to extract them from v5 and edit them.  I'm still investigating how this was done.

I'm new to this forum & scene myself.  It looks like the info was more widely available before at sorrcommunity.com forums, but that forum died and this new forum doesn't have the info posted (+ ppl here seem weirdly obnoxious and don't share info because.. I don't know why. They stand to gain nothing by not sharing.  In fact, they lose out on potential great mods by being unwelcoming.)

Someone shared the noise/denoise stuff a while back (no idea where it is, if it even is on this site... anymore? Was it removed?), but in this forum the problem was that there's a group of people, mostly mods and friends-of-mods, who found any modification of the dat, or criticism, to be blasphemous.
The first time any edits to character fpgs were released on this forum was in a folder with the "hidden" setting, for anyone who was curious enough to find them. Since I didn't want to get too much attention from the people in charge.

Then eventually I just left. As far as your comment about people being obnoxious... that can apply to me and I take no offense, as it's true. Yeah I'm jaded with the community now and don't like being here, nor talking about anything. I make mods and edit stuff purely as a hobby, and release since "why not".
Communication skills and tutorials are where I fall short. I just mod stuff and eventually might release if I get a full package.

B made some weird statement about modifying files from the dat at some point, but it was mostly erring on protecting the feelings of anyone who did any art for V5, so overall, out of respect for B's word on it... it's still something to keep quiet about here.

The only reason anything started to happen is because of some Russian players who didn't have the community higher-ups here to bend the knee to.

Interesting. Thanks for the background info. After reading some of the comments in old threads, I figured it was something like you said -- Certain group of 'powerful' ppl on the board who have major hang ups about editing the characters/dat. I don't blame you for not wanting to share more & talk after dealing with that crap.

I don't know why it's still such a big issue if Bombergames is gone, the project is totally dead, and BG is not using the software for new projects. Seems like a huge waste not to make as much info & source code available as possible for other hobbyists to pick up the ball.

In any case, I found the oracle's tool to extract FPG from the sorr.dat. All of them had generic filenames, so I need to go thru each one & figure out what's inside. Then need to figure out what the proper filename should be for each one. I also found a copy of the denoiser. Thank god for the internet archive. Once I've figured it all out, I'll post all of the info & links somewhere that won't be shutdown easily so that the rest of the web can see it and build on it. There's a huge rom hacking community for SOR2 just on the Sega Genesis Classics Steam Workshop page -- What a shame there isn't the same kind of community for SORR, a game which can do so much more!

I will check out your mods tonight, too. They seem like they are pretty amazing.

Oh hey, while we're on the subject... if anyone finds how to modify actual attack data (not fpgs), as in what frames are called for what damage (and if damage), then I'd love to fix Axel3 and a few other things.
Specifically Axel3.
V5's Axel3 makes everyone sad.

JoeWolf, Did you ever finish sorting out those fpg files? As far as i can tell, no one has posted the enemy fpg files anywhere on this site. I'd like to edit some enemy sprites myself. Thanks