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The red lights seem to be rendering with the incorrect transparency order

DC

PC

More than halfway through White Jungle I've observed another crash occurring, seemingly similar to the one that was fixed in the v1.1.1 update.

This has been reproducible 100% of the time, and I've made sure no other mods are enabled while testing. Disabling Restore Tree Jungle Object resolves the crash.

Using SA2 Mod Manager's Test Spawn with position coordinates around X: 9098, Y: -3154, Z: -4913 with the tree jungle object setting enabled can instantly trigger the crash. Alternatively, X: 7155, Y: -1937, Z: -3765 can spawn shortly before the crash point to see it in action.

I realized that this specific body of water in Dry Lagoon with the statue in it and none of the other ones ALSO has the water opaque in the DC version.
At least this should hopefully be easy since you already did the same kind of thing before.

It seems like the trick bars and the chains that hold them up in Pyramid Cave have their lighting disabled compared to the Dreamcast original.

In the original DC version of the game, enemies had light values like light and/or shadow were being cast on the, as can be seen here. Any chance this might be restored?

In SA2B, there was supposed to be a layer of water that would use the textures from BGTEX04 to make it so it looked like the raindrops were hitting the water. I remember having scene this before while playing the PC version of the game, but these days it's never there. I was originally glad about that for reasons I'll likely cover in a tangentially related issue, but now that I realize that it might be possible to fix that, I'd like to have that water layer back in the first place.
After checking the Gamecube, PS3, and Xbox 360 versions of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, they don't seem to have that water layer visible either. I even uninstalled the mod loader to check and see if an unmodified version of PC SA2B would have it, and it didn't.

I know for a fact it's there, I just wish I had a screenshot to show exactly what I mean.

I noticed that the way the surface of the water for Aquatic Mine is done in the Dreamcast version has it so that only the area immediately around Knuckles is transparent instead of the full surface, making it look more murky than other instances of water in the game.

The Dreamcast version of the game has a short fade-in effect on the emblem screen that's missing in every other version of the game.

The mechs have dust clouds when landing or using the jets in DC, this doesn't happen in Battle. (just found out this was another mod issue)

I just did a re-install of this mod to update to v1.1.1 and the GUN emblems on robots don't appear anymore when they did worked in the previous version of this mod.

Missing shadows and lighting modifiers

DC

PC

I was initially not going to bring this up here since it seemed like it was going to be as simple as a single texture swap I could easily do, but as it turns out, it's a bit more complicated than that. The sun doors for King Boom Boo are supposed call from objtex_bossbogy, but instead, they seem to call from objtex_stg25, resulting in it using the wrong door texture.


I even tested it out by replacing the corresponding texture in objtex_stg25 to be completely sure, and it checks out.

I wasn't sure if should've gone for this for a bit, but to fix stuff that was off in the Dreamcast version is another point of this mod, especially with the enhancement tag there, so I think it would make for a good first suggestion to fall under that tag.

Basically, in every version of Sonic Adventure 2, including the Dreamcast version, there are countless times in Radical Highway where the texture mapping messes with the alignment of the pavement markings on the road. I wanted to get examples of every instance, but this issue is just absolutely littered throughout the entire stage, so it'd just take too long to do and just completely clutter this post.

But yeah, I hope that this does fit with the spirit of the mod and all that.

This was an effect that was introduced on the Gamecube version of SA2, but broken in the HD ports where the wanted sign for Tails in Mission Street is supposed to flash.

Shadows for the planes appear to be downgraded from Dreamcast, they appear circular on PC, are completely missing on GC.

DC

PC

In DC White Jungle has purple glow particles, this was changed in Battle to have rain particles (which looks kinda weird)
DC:

Battle:

Could be related to transparency issues, in DC Pumpkin Hill has a cloudy effect on the ground, this effect is not present in Battle.
DC:

Battle:

Also, i think battle uses a lower quality texture on the clouds.

I have this one separate from the rest since it seems to be a slightly different situation.
It probably has to do with the fence being drawn first and then the bits of the other objects that you would see when the fence is opaque.

Would like to see the kart stages' billboards restored to the game (with perhaps toggles for DC, GC or combined billboard textures?).

The beginning of sonic's section in cannons core has really weird lighting and colors on PC but not GameCube and Dreamcast
Dreamcast

GameCube

PC

On the walls in some of the rooms in Knuckles and Rouge's sections of Cannon's Core, there seems to be a gradient effect on the glass parts of the walls to sell the fact that it is glass better. This goes missing in Battle.

I don't know if it has to do with vertex colors, transparency issues, or some other type of thing, but it certainly isn't there.
I feel inclined to rule out a vertex colors issue given the rest of the stage matches to the Dreamcast version in that aspect, but it's still possible.

The speed lines on PC for running is slightly off in comparison to GameCube and Dreamcast

Dreamcast
https://github.com/shaddatic/sa2b-render-fix/assets/40836768/e2662017-ac60-499b-8231-69424677f06c

Gamecube
https://github.com/shaddatic/sa2b-render-fix/assets/40836768/00c6f2c3-3d15-4d0b-852d-08325fad36d6

PC
https://github.com/shaddatic/sa2b-render-fix/assets/40836768/4d8ebd41-20cf-46fa-9266-ac3ba13b946b

In the HD ports, the most of the textures for the skyboxes are applied in such a way that makes it so they don't loop properly, making for a really ugly seam.
It effects the following stages:
City Escape

Tails vs Eggman 1

Metal Harbor

Green Forest

Mission Street

Route 101 1st skybox

Radical Highway

Weapons Bed

White Jungle

Route 280 1st skybox

Sky Rail

This does also affect some of the skyboxes in the cutscenes, but I'm willing to bet that's more so Cutscene Revamp territory there.

Not really a render fix as such, but further to Ellasent's post about the pit in Rouge's Cannon's Core section, I think it would be nice to see the rotating cogs in Sonic's section restored from the DC version too.

The Tails VS Eggman stage in Battle seems to lack a lot of lighting in the environment making the stage look really flat.
DC:


Battle:


I checked Weapons Bed since it uses a really similar environment and it looks completely fine.

Several objects throughout Pyramid Cave seem to render behind all other objects.
The common link between all of them are that they're 2 dimensional objects. Many of them to contain aspects of transparency as well so I hope it's more of an ordering issue than a transparency issue, but I thought I should mention that.
The first and most noticeable one is the light coming from the lamps found throughout the stage.

Next up are the chains that hold many objects up.

Then there's the cobwebs.

Last but not least are the flames that burst from these statues, and only these flames. None of the other ones seem to have this problem.

The HD releases have custom background rendering code in place that for some reason doesn't support transparency. This results in background transitions being reduced to the background instantly swapping over, fadeouts to black when entering and exiting different menus, etc. to break, and the janky hack of the SA2B title screen background being just disabled when entering the main menu instead of fading out to near-transparency.

The only conditions where the fading works as intended are when you are running the game both in 4:3 and with the Battle menu backgrounds, as that just makes it use the original (and functional) GameCube code instead.

The light on Street lights are misaligned on PC, while they arent on Dreamcast
The issue also existed in the Gamecube version

Dreamcast

PC

GameCube

I noticed that there are extra layers of clouds scrolling in the Dreamcast version of Sky Rail that's missing in Battle.

In the Dreamcast and Gamecube versions of Green Forest, there were shadow textures present on the ground for certain trees in the level, but they seem to have disappeared in the HD ports.
You're able to easily tell where they're supposed to be since the lighting modifiers for those shadow textures are still present.

This issue is also in Sonic vs Shadow 1, but interestingly enough, it seems that the lighting modifier for the shadow is misaligned with the rest of the objects. (Please don't mind the other stuff with the water there. That's from another mod.)

This was an issue I remember finding out about a while back, where the pit that the all of cooling liquid in Rouge's section of Cannon's Core drains into just suddenly ends in Battle, where as in the Dreamcast version where it's more of an actual pit and all that.


I don't know how much this fits under Render Fixes since it just seems like a really weird thing that was done to the stage geometry, but I figure it's still at least worth mentioning.

In the HD version of the game, the particles that display on the screen are stuck behind the emblem rather than circling around it.

In the Dreamcast version of the game the back color for Knuckles' section of Cannon's Core is orange so that it can blend in with the underwater section.

Since the back color is black in Battle, it makes the pit look really jarring underwater.

Hollow Planet's landed meteor had a purple haze flowing from it, not unlike the floating meteors on the other planets, in the Dreamcast version.

I noticed that the bubbles that emit from Knuckles and Rouge's mouths when they're underwater only render whenever they're in front of the character models, and they seem to render behind the stages when not in front of them.

Seems similar to this issue where the PC looks like a line of pixels while it doesn't on Dreamcast and Gamecube #27

Dreamcast
https://github.com/shaddatic/sa2b-render-fix/assets/40836768/642fd94c-4090-4048-a395-4ecb823ed381

GameCube
https://github.com/shaddatic/sa2b-render-fix/assets/40836768/3a4d982a-edd9-4554-b843-1422ab6eaa1e

PC
https://github.com/shaddatic/sa2b-render-fix/assets/40836768/7a00efd5-ab04-448b-b351-f7b2821077c3

There are underwater particle effects that are missing in Aquatic Mine, Death Chamber, and Egg Quarters.






Thankfully they're still present in Dry Lagoon and Knuckles' section of Cannon's Core, meaning that the systems for these particles haven't been completely gutted from the game, and it's just a matter of getting them working again in the other stages.

Attempts have been made by Speeps to restore the original DC lighting to Iron Gate, but whilst the bluish fog has been modded back just fine, the red siren effect still hasn't been accurately restored. A similar green/red siren effect is also still missing from the guard robot in Egg Quarters.

A complete restoration of the Iron Gate and Egg Quarters lighting effects, that is also compatible with Egg's searchlight added to the GC version, I believe would be worth investigating (as would a permanent solution to Lost Colony's atmospheric lighting).

In the Dreamcast version of Death Chamber the map screens have a little static effect which was broken in Battle in which it only tays on a single frame of the static.

This is definitely one of the more minor things, and honestly it's a fix I personally won't find myself using since I actually like the effect it causes, but I figure it should still be brought up.

In the Dreamcast version of the game the actual boxes containing all of the info of the result screen is a lot brighter than in Battle.

This is due to how in Battle, those boxes are actually rendered behind the darkened screen filter. I always had a suspicion this was the case until I fully confirmed it by just booting up the game in 240p for no particular reason, which caused that the screen filter to only show up in the corner, and with that, being able to see those boxes have the same colors they do on the Dreamcast.

Hopefully this should be a pretty easy render reordering thing there.

Certain objects use Order Independent Transparency for transparency effects, such as item balloons in racing and (most notably) the Artificial Chaos enemies. There has been an attempt to restore this in the past by SPEEPSHighway, but it was notably incomplete and only affected Artificial Chaos.

For reference, this is how it currently looks on Artificial Chaos (Ignore the other mods I have installed):

Whereas this is how it's supposed to look (This screenshot is awful, but I don't have a copy of Dreamcast SA2 on me):

The purple glow particle effect is missing on the robots, it's present on the EGG Beetles though

DC

PC

Emblem sparkles display in the incorrect order on the HD ports, resulting in them--rather than orbiting around the emblem--constantly staying behind the emblem.

I'm not sure how much this would fall under being a render issue, but I wanted to bring it up since it's still a change that has always bugged me.
When it comes to the rooms in Lost Colony that contains acid, the Dreamcast version had vertex painting near the bottom of the room to give the effect of the acid glowing. For some reason it was removed for the Battle version of the stage. I assume it's likely intentional because it could be just something with them thinking it might clash with the flashlight, I don't know for sure. The only other thing I could think of is the thought of them redoing the vertex painting from scratch to make the metal textures underneath the glass floor green and they simply forgot to do the acid glow, but that sounds pretty unlikely to me.






It should hopefully be as easy as recreating the vertex painting there.

In DC the pulleys have a blinking effect, this does not happen in Battle (they always stay bright)

The grabbable pulleys are supposed to have a specular effect. This isn't rendered in the HD rereleases, resulting in a very flat looking pulley.

Dreamcast:

HD:

I noticed that compared to the Dreamcast version, SA2B repeats the same pattern for these textures more often.












Looking at the texture files themselves, this seems to be an intentional thing since the Battle textures just contain a single strip that repeats compared to the Dreamcast one having four strips that repeat.


There's also more instances of things like this with other textures within Death Chamber. Seeing it all now, it definitely feels like this was supposed to be a sort of optimization, even if it makes so many more repeating details in Battle.
Battle:


DC:


There's also several textures that had their horizontal resolution reduced in Battle
Battle:

DC:

This one here is a combination of both having more redundant tiling details and having a smaller vertical resolution.
Battle:


DC:


At this point, I seriously wonder if it might just be easier to import the Dreamcast geometry since there isn't any big geometry additions to the stage in Battle. I just find this all very strange given that, at least as far as I know, none of the other stages have received this kind of treatment with their textures.

Seems to be resolution dependant

PC 576p (my monitor wont go lower)

PC 4k

PC 576p

PC 4k