Reflections in the Seabed

[Larkin]

Anyone who has battled through the Seabed level at the end of Episode 2 will have no doubt noticed that your reflection, and those of your enemies (especially invisible ones), can be seen on both glass walls and in flooded rooms. Everything is perfectly replicated in the mirror; there's you, your Mag, that funky Delsaber shield of yours, and your weapon...

Unless you happen to be armed with a nine star Flowen Sword...

I dunno if anyone has noticed this, but for some reason, Flowen's Sword does not cast a reflection. Is this because of the nature of the weapon? Does it have something to do with it's relation to the area's boss? Or is Sonic Team just too damn lazy to program the reflection of one lousy weapon?

[Parn]

The reflections are an emulated effect. They are not true reflections.

Techniques, telepipes, and any weapon that uses a graphic effect, such as the Flowen's Sword using a transparency effect, will not be reflected.

[DJ_Monkey]

Speaking of Seabed and reflections, has anyone noticed the horrid drop in the FPS rate of the game when you are in a room with water on the ground, 4 players, and a bunch of enemies? Drives me freakin' nuts...

[MalambisBZ]

I'm guessing they only reflect models and not sprites (such as telepipes and flowens). They are real reflections, just not of sprites.

[RellikTakahashi]

too much lagg with 4 people there? sounds familar. oh wait. all of v1 lol.

[TeamPhalanx]

Anytime you have a lot of enemies on the screen you'll experience slowdowns... I'd bet this will be a problem in the X-Box version as well.

[Parn]

On 2002-11-24 01:34, MalambisBZ wrote:
I'm guessing they only reflect models and not sprites (such as telepipes and flowens). They are real reflections, just not of sprites.


No, it's an emulated effect. The software is written to slap a duplicate of your character in the glass when you stand at certain points.

If you want to see something stupid, in the rooms with glass on the floor, walk over them, and watch how the "reflection" abruptly disappears too early as you begin to walk OFF the glass. If it's supposed to be a reflection, how come the moment you're even SLIGHTLY off the glass, your whole "reflection" just blinks off?

The glass should be reflecting anything and EVERYTHING nearby, not the other way around where the current item or model tells the software "I need to cast a reflection since I'm at position XYZ".

Of course, the whole damn graphics engine is outdated and needs to be re-written. There's no excuse for the pop-up and other problems considering what the GameCube is capable of. Like Phalanx said, the problems will probably exist on Xbox too. And Xbox is capable of much more as well. Bleh.

[Ian D]

I think it's stupid to worry about the reflections, I think it's a neat effect they didn't even have to put in at all.

[EsperJ]

Did ST create the engine for PSO from scratch, or is it heavily borrowed from the SA games?

And yes, the pop-up still sucks in places.

[Rhete]

On 2002-11-23 22:37, Parn wrote:
The reflections are an emulated effect. They are not true reflections.

Techniques, telepipes, and any weapon that uses a graphic effect, such as the Flowen's Sword using a transparency effect, will not be reflected.



Too bad. I noticed a few days ago when playing that my gifoie didnt make a reflection. Spells like that and rafoie would look awesome when reflected

[Blenjar]

I sometimes use what she said, the reflection, easy to spot those robots, in other hand I just hit and run so they won't freeze me, hate when they freeze me, no pipe, gotta walk.

[DjDragoon]

Nice Flash animation Rhete. I think I'll do the same for my sig. but I'm not gonna have my hunter's info on it.