PatSter21
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Originally posted by gridatttack
Interesting, I must say.
I wonder if these kind of stuff is still lingering in the .ISO? (the ones we already havent discovered) Now I wonder if the videos in IGN are the same as these ones.
No, I know some are different...
But I must say that AV/Sega did an amazing job at covering their tracks! 
There is barely any leftover elements/code for the stages (at least viewable ones...)
This is probably because leaving in old models consumed disc space on those tiny 1.4gb discs... |
PatSter21
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So, we already have a thread about Super Monkey Ball 1 (and practically pulled the entire game apart), why not have one about SMB2?
So, first off, if you want to see some of my findings, see here on the wiki...
Some things I have NOT covered are the following:
Here is the old title screen found in early version of the game:
And here is the old logo, ripped straight from the ISO:
Feel free to contribute more!
Note: I do already know of / have taken pictures of the test level stages (lib 69 - 100), so don't waste your time photographing them
And I also do know of the other ones other than 69 - 100, will photograph those and upload them later |
PatSter21
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Originally posted by gridatttack
Great. I have some stuff too. When I was ripping the graphics, this particularly texture will always show, like if it is loaded every level. It seems some sort of city.
Ill post some more stuff later.
That appears to be New York City...
How do you rip the graphics? What software do you use?
I use GXGMA until I can find an alternative... |
PatSter21
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Originally posted by gridatttack
Originally posted by PatSter21
Originally posted by gridatttack
Great. I have some stuff too. When I was ripping the graphics, this particularly texture will always show, like if it is loaded every level. It seems some sort of city.
Ill post some more stuff later.
That appears to be New York City...
How do you rip the graphics? What software do you use?
I use GXGMA until I can find an alternative...
Dolphin has an option to rip graphics, and dump them in .TGA format.
Also, download here 3 unused songs in the game, courtesy by eternalyoshi. One is incomplete, the other seems like a credit theme, and the other a world map select.
I didn't know that, thanks!
Also, along with those three ADX files, there's voice48a, voice48b, and voice48c (also the story mode select music)...
http://tcrf.net/images/1/18/Voice48a-monkeyball2.ogg
http://tcrf.net/images/8/8d/Voice48b-monkeyball2.ogg
http://tcrf.net/images/7/7f/Voice48c-monkeyball2.ogg
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PatSter21
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Here's the infamous test level messages; these are found in those odd test levels with branches that branch off to demo models of stages...
Translation:
Hope that there's
a texture map here
created from
a buffer. by JAMAD
(note: Jamad is Junichi Yamada, the stage design director for Monkey Ball, Super Monkey Ball, Super Monkey Ball 2 and Super Monkey Ball Deluxe)
Thank divingtheweirdo for the translation!
Also, I found more images like that city one; including a b/w picture of an earthworm, a satellite picture of a forest, no clue what the f**k these are used for  |
PatSter21
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| Now let's all go to a CAFE for some coffee... |
PatSter21
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Nice find, Wakun!
Where were these acquired? If they came from early Windows NT betas, we should check those for more possible prototypes...
I also ripped the annoying MIDI from the game and put it in the wiki article. |
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I found this arrow - it isn't loaded anywhere as far as I can see.
This screenshot for the debug menu is interesting - win/loss rates weren't implemented in the Monkey Ball series until Super Monkey Ball Deluxe.
EDIT: Actually, this appears to be a leftover from the Arcade version of Monkey Ball - you could access it through the TEST MENU on the arcade edition.
This appears to be a test stage. I can tell that it is from early in development - evident by the old button model (replaced by the A button model, found in the demo mode). The floor of the spawn area is extremely reflective. There are small paper-thin textures that have reflectiveness too. (These textures are as follows: the shape of AiAi's head, a banana, a checkerboard, a solid texture, and a font sheet). The buttons control the speed of random moving platforms and goals. The red, blue and green polygons visible morph from identical spehres to a streched out sphere, a egg and a sphere. There is a minature version of the Expert Extra stage "Free Throw", and the Master Extra stage "Spasmodic". Also there's a goal that spins - possibly a test of the goals in the Coin Slot stage?
These all seem to be early versions or tests of the Monkey Fight arenas. The third one appears to be a leftover from the first game.
A demo level. Appears to be the same version from Super Monkey Ball.
This level is in the style of the Extra stages from Super Monkey Ball 1. The music is the Boiling Pot music. Nothing special here.
Same as before, except it's in the style of the Water levels. The music is the Monkey Soccer (?) music.
Anyway, I have a small request: can anyone with a working Action Replay that can add codes attempt to load Level 186 in Super Monkey Ball 2? This level appears to be a test level but it crashes Dolphin on level load. A frame of it does appear and on extremely rare circumstances it will load the level (unfortunately crashing within a secnod). I have compiled all the textures that are loaded from said level in this archive:
http://tcrf.net/images/8/8d/GM2E8P-LIB186.rar
They appear to two Japanese characters, variations of the letter A, textures that self-describe their dimensions, and the textures for AiAi's model in monochrome with noise added.
I rendered the .GMA and .TPL files in a third-party application. The .TPL file reports corrupted, sadly, but the GMA model is intact. This is what it looks like. |
PatSter21
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Great findings! I've been meaning to investigate this game lately...
Something I noticed is that textures in those Survival levels seem to be rips from Super Monkey Ball 2 (GameCube)...interesting. |
PatSter21
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| Yes, I use VMWare as my main virtual machine software. I use it to run old 16-bit applications or applications that don't work properly on my Windows 7 x64 installation. I also occasionally use it as a sandbox. |
PatSter21
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Originally posted by PatSter21
Not unused, but I find it interesting that, unlike the other English/Japanese difficulty tabs (in the Practice Mode), this one is half the size of it. Sadly, nobody here has their hands on the Japanese version of Super Monkey Ball, so I guess we will never know if A.V. decided to cram this onto the second page or give it it's own page (like the NTSC/PAL version)...
I assumed this a few months ago - mainly based on the fact this image was the only Master rank in Japanese. Well, now that I have an actual copy of Super Monkey Ball in Japanese, I decided to investigate myself.
I did not expect this - apparently the selector for the Master level wasn't translated to Japanese in the first place - or it wasn't implemented. This confirms that the Japanese Master level selection is indeed unused.
Also, it seems that viewing the Cave background / files doesn't crash the game. Another fact I noticed is that the Japanese version has one less file and folder than the US verision. Will look into this later - though. |
PatSter21
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Is there a tool that allows me to convert audio from .wav or any other audio format into Dolphin DTK-compatible .ADP audio format? I know there's an application known as vgmstream which allows DECODING of this format, but I haven't found any that allow ENcoding of it.
Thanks! |
PatSter21
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Well, I attempted loading this stage on a real GameCube to find out what happens.
Video
Oddly enough, it crashes here too. The stage doesn't render in Stage Select but it loads and begins to render. Sadly, before the ball hits the ground, the GameCube is brought to a hard freeze accompanied by a terribly annoying buzz.
Apologies for the poor quality of the video - it was recorded directly from the composite cable rather than using other methods.
I could also attempt to load this stage in the Japanese edition of Super Monkey Ball 2. However, I don't know if the NTSC code works for that version. Entering AR Codes on the GameCube is horribly tedious (the controller is über-sensitive). I also can't dump this version (rawdump gives disk error and friidump doesn't progress when looking for 'seeds') for Dolphin to test it. It does work fine on a NTSC-J GameCube, however.
@ CommandHat, thanks for the information / screenshots! What settings did you use, specifically?
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PatSter21
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Originally posted by commandhat
I took pictures of all the settings I'm using for Super Monkey Ball 2. I have several settings configurations I swap out between games.
Like I said, most of the tabs can be summed up as "TURN OFF EVERYTHING."
General - http://i.imgur.com/hrwpCzh.png
Interface - http://i.imgur.com/fP0DF4c.png
Audio - http://i.imgur.com/gyAuxMS.png (I use HLE since I have Ivy bridge)
Graphics Config - http://i.imgur.com/69bwWCJ.png
Graphics Enhancements - http://i.imgur.com/VrdZAku.png
Graphics Hacks - http://i.imgur.com/QmO4aoI.png
Graphics Advanced - http://i.imgur.com/vUwgEf8.png
It's worth noting that if you disable EFB access, the menu runs slowly, sometimes freezes for a few seconds, and looks like a computer vomited all over the screen, but the rest of SMB2 runs SO MUCH SMOOTHER.
Thank you for the settings - I will try them soon. Dolphin, for some reason, seems to have broken the sound on all Super Monkey Ball engine games, but that's not too big of an issue.
Anyway, does anybody know how I can possibly convert the debug menu code from NTSC-U to NTSC-J? I have about zero experience with dealing with such things... |
PatSter21
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| Voyager - Daft Punk. |
PatSter21
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Thanks to Ralf helping me 'convert' the Debug Menu code, I've successfully created the Debug Menu code for Super Monkey Ball 2 (NTSC-J)!
Here it is:
13QN-UBG7-FKBHQ
NPDM-4XAU-005MD
3R7R-Z1KT-YGDFU
I will post findings as I discover them! |
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Originally posted by gridatttack
Sorry for bumping, but I got some notes I would like to share, now that I am finally able to play around with the debug menu in my wii.
So I found out, viewing the models in the debug menu by stage, that a lot of the old SMB1 stages are still in the game, with their textures and all.
Also regarding the weird city texture I posted, you can view it in the model by stage test, pressing x. Some stages even have a similar fashion small image in which appears to be a photo showcasing world 6.
Also I noted that some stages, like stage 139 IIRC, dont have textures, but they have collisions. So I will try to rip the models and see if we can figure out the terrain of such stages.
Also that stage, which freezes when the ball hits the ground, the fault could be something in the level is causing that, or the level is missing something for it to work properly.
I haven't been on here in months, because of some issues I've been having accessing the website (regarding my browser's useragent, I found out).
Where can I find these stages in the model viewer?
Also, what software would you use to rip models?
I noticed that in the level, the ball never actually hits the ground, it's slightly above the ground before it crashes. |
PatSter21
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Some text I found in Super Monkey Ball 2.
These four are all part of the same image, oddly.
Another thing - I believe it has to do with ranking.
These also might have something to do with ranking.
I have no idea what this is for.
Thanks in advance |
PatSter21
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Thank you very much.
http://i.imgur.com/irF2qap.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/NruCBRP.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rOgoQUx.jpg
Could you please translate the second and third lines? I know that the first line says "Round #" (# being the round number) - but I'm not sure what the second and third lines say - they don't appear in the English version of Super Monkey Ball 2.
I believe the second line might be the name of the stage - but no clue what the third line is. |
PatSter21
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Originally posted by Jload
Originally posted by PatSter21
Thanks to Ralf helping me 'convert' the Debug Menu code, I've successfully created the Debug Menu code for Super Monkey Ball 2 (NTSC-J)!
Here it is:
13QN-UBG7-FKBHQ
NPDM-4XAU-005MD
3R7R-Z1KT-YGDFU
I will post findings as I discover them!
I'm Japanese user.
Although the code was used, the debug mode did not come out.
Hello,
The debug menu won't come up immediately - it must be invoked during a stage using L+Start.
Go to any stage (as long as you're playing it), and press the L button and the start button simultaneously.
A window will appear, use the D-Pad to navigate through it. I suggest choosing the BALL option - it's the least intrusive. You can use the analogue stick to move the window raound and the C stick to size it. Sizing it to the max position and filling the entire screen with it is the least intrusive (it only dims the screen a bit).
Anyway, you can then go back to the title screen and press Start to invoke the normal Debug Menu access panel. |
