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Shenmue (1999) reverse engineering reveals possible sun position oversight

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Re: Shenmue (1999) reverse engineering reveals possible sun position oversight

#61

Post by gpderetta »

wk_end wrote: post #12

The tl;dr (though you should read!) of the "oversight" is that there's a constant used to adjust the sun's position that's seemingly based on latitude; in the first Shenmue, it's set to 22, and in Shenmue II - which uses much of the same code - it's set to 35. This is odd, because Shenmue I takes place at latitude 35°, and Shenmue II at 22° - precisely the other way around. If that's what's going on, it's sort of har…

Wild guess: they set it wrong on the first game (possibly by looking up the wrong parameter). On the next game, when they went to fix the sun position for the new location they realized the mistake and changed it to the original location as an easter egg.

The coincidence of the wrong position matching the location of the next game is strange though.

Re: Shenmue (1999) reverse engineering reveals possible sun position oversight

#62

Post by tech2 »

stavros wrote: post #60
pezezin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that functionality requires a minimum sense of aesthetics. Most Japanese towns are not even functional, they are just a chaotic maze of tiny streets and ugly buildings. I know because I live in one.

Looks exactly like Greece!

Athens being its own special hell, looking across the city from Lykovounia and seeing everything in the city at the same ~5 storey level of dark concrete.

Re: Shenmue (1999) reverse engineering reveals possible sun position oversight

#63

Post by TapamN »

makotech221 wrote: post #36
TapamN wrote: post #30

Shenmue is one of my favorite games. I did a bunch of Ghidra reversing on the Dreamcast version last year, since I wanted to add improvements to it. Like adding bilinear filtering on the sky background, making time run a bit (faster so you can see time specific events like Christmas/New Year more easily,) getting the game to run without disc swapping on an ODE, and adding antialiasing (which would require mipmaps to…

wouldn't using an emualtor allow you to do most of that stuff

Some of it, but I'd rather use real hardware.

Re: Shenmue (1999) reverse engineering reveals possible sun position oversight

#64

Post by antithesizer »

QuercusMax wrote: post #38
rawling wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this just... they made the planets have the correct orbit times, and retrograde motion just drops out from that?

When I took the sophomore-level Computer Graphics class as an undergrad in 2001, the final project was to build a solar system simulator in OpenGL. It didn't have to be especially faithful (all orbits perfectly round, don't care about starting positions, etc). The most complicated part was implementing a view from a planet's surface which would rotate at the proper rate for the given planet. This was not a difficult…

Saty?

Re: Shenmue (1999) reverse engineering reveals possible sun position oversight

#65

Post by lmm »

pandemic_region wrote: post #55
chiffre01 wrote: post #24

Playing through Shenmue 1, they did a really good job capturing the vibe of the area. Looking at random points in Yokosuka just feel like Shenmue. https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2781594,139.677597,3a,75y,27...

Is it typical for Japanese towns to have all the electricity wiring above ground? Is it on purpose, maybe related to historical earthquake trauma?

> Is it typical for Japanese towns to have all the electricity wiring above ground?

Yes

> Is it on purpose

Yes? Electrical wiring is built deliberately, of course it's on purpose. Where else would you put it, and why? You're implying it's somehow normal to bury it? That sounds like it would be expensive, both to build and to maintain.

Re: Shenmue (1999) reverse engineering reveals possible sun position oversight

#67

Post by pretzelhands »

lmm wrote: post #65
pandemic_region wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it typical for Japanese towns to have all the electricity wiring above ground? Is it on purpose, maybe related to historical earthquake trauma?

> Is it typical for Japanese towns to have all the electricity wiring above ground? Yes > Is it on purpose Yes? Electrical wiring is built deliberately, of course it's on purpose. Where else would you put it, and why? You're implying it's somehow normal to bury it? That sounds like it would be expensive, both to build and to maintain.

I'm not sure about your location, but around here (Austria) it is indeed much more common to have electrical wiring that runs through the ground than above air. The only place where you see wiring above ground is usually out in the rural areas.

Re: Shenmue (1999) reverse engineering reveals possible sun position oversight

#68

Post by PinkMilkshake »

lmm wrote: post #65
pandemic_region wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it typical for Japanese towns to have all the electricity wiring above ground? Is it on purpose, maybe related to historical earthquake trauma?

> Is it typical for Japanese towns to have all the electricity wiring above ground? Yes > Is it on purpose Yes? Electrical wiring is built deliberately, of course it's on purpose. Where else would you put it, and why? You're implying it's somehow normal to bury it? That sounds like it would be expensive, both to build and to maintain.

> You're implying it's somehow normal to bury it? That sounds like it would be expensive, both to build and to maintain.

Yes, it's normal. It's called undergrounding.

Re: Shenmue (1999) reverse engineering reveals possible sun position oversight

#69

Post by wahnfrieden »

lmm wrote: post #65
pandemic_region wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it typical for Japanese towns to have all the electricity wiring above ground? Is it on purpose, maybe related to historical earthquake trauma?

> Is it typical for Japanese towns to have all the electricity wiring above ground? Yes > Is it on purpose Yes? Electrical wiring is built deliberately, of course it's on purpose. Where else would you put it, and why? You're implying it's somehow normal to bury it? That sounds like it would be expensive, both to build and to maintain.

You wrote condescendingly without even apparently knowing why

Re: Shenmue (1999) reverse engineering reveals possible sun position oversight

#70

Post by havblue »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #8
AlecSchueler wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What didn't work about the remaster or was it just a matter of shattering the illusion of your memories? I've been thinking about the game a lot since having my first child last year. She often lifts things and rotates them in her hand just to see and experience them. When I was a kid playing Shenmue I always found it funny that they added that mechanic because "who does that?" but now I feel a very deep appreciation…

> What didn't work about the remaster or was it just a matter of shattering the illusion of your memories? At the time it was a unique, first of it's kind, game. Now there have been a lot of advancements since then so I didn't have the same "Wow" feelings of just being in the world. But the nostalgia still hit me hard and it still has a special place in my heart.

I had played Morrowind and gta3 at the time, but I missed the train on Shenmue. So ten years ago I bought a used Dreamcast and a copy of the game and... The game was sloooow. Granted, the system I bought was dying as well, but just going into drawers was slow. So no immersion to be had unlike many of the games at the time gave me.

I guess it depends on what you're trying to accomplish with playing Shenmue now. Is it the story or the immersion?

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