Proto:Star Fox Adventures/E3 2002 Demo/Dinosaur Planet Leftovers
This is a sub-page of Proto:Star Fox Adventures/E3 2002 Demo.
The 2002 Star Fox Adventures demo not only contains an earlier build of that game, but a ton more Dinosaur Planet leftovers than the final has.
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Contents
Dinosaur Planet-Related Files
Many files from Dinosaur Planet are on the disc, together with early ports for the GameCube and more.
- AMBIENT.bin
Holds the environmental sound effects.
- AUDIO.bin
Contains the sequencing data for all of the music tracks.
- BLOCKS.bin
Contains landscape models. The landscape was cut up into 640×640 unit volumes in x/z (variable in y).
- BLKEXTRA.bin
Block extra was used to store any additional block-related info.
- DLLS.bin
Contains most of the gameplay code of N64 Dinosaur Planet. A DLL system was used so that code could be swapped out when needed to save space on the Nintendo 64.
- FRONTTEXT.bin
A leftover file from Diddy Kong Racing. Dinosaur Planet directly evolved from the Diddy Kong Racing code base.
- HITS.bin
Would have been either collision geometry for the landscape, or additional specific collision markup that the designers added to specify things like where the character can jump, etc.
- INCLUDE.bin
A listing for the text strings, objects, and levels to be included in the game.
- LEVELNAMES.bin
A list of all the internal names of the game's levels.
- MPEG.bin
Contains over an hour of Dinosaur Planet voice acting. About 90% of the game's plot is in there (although the game's ending was never fully thought out, so this is probably all there is to it in general). It seems to be one large file, but the different sequences are actually cut up and can be easily extracted using a hex editor.
- MUSIC.bin
Holds the instrument samples used for Dinosaur Planet music, plus two item jingles.
- OBJECTS.bin
Defines all(?) objects by giving model ID and other IDs (probably animation IDs, state IDs, collision IDs and more). Does not contain model geometry. Objects can only be replaced with other objects that are in the same group. It's currently unknown what objects belong to what group.
- OBJFSAS.bin
The state machines for all the characters in the game. They were written in a kind of script language.
- out
A directory listing for all the files used in the N64 version of Dinosaur Planet.
- SFX.bin
Holds many sound effects and a portion of voice acting (Command Sidekicks, battle grunts, and random Dinosaur talk).
- STORYBOARD.bin
Contains storyboards outlining scrapped cutscenes which would have taken place at CloudRunner Fortress. One scene depicts Krystal and Kyte being attacked by a SharpClaw spaceship, others describe a scrapped subplot involving Kyte's uncle colluding with General Scales.
- default.dol
Contains raw files for a Dinosaur Planet build later than the December 1st one, dated around March 2001, possibly one of the earliest builds for the GameCube. The raw files it has, however, are not enough for a playable build.
Level Names
Here's a list of all the game's internal level names as of 21/03/1999, as found in LEVELNAMES.BIN:
Front End2 Front End animtest Dragon Rock Yeti Mountain Force Point 1 Snowball Mines Test Room Discovery Falls SwapStone Hollow Golden Plains Northern Wastes Warlock Mountain Ice Mountain 2 CloudRunner Fortress Intro Sequence SwapStone Hollow 2 Walled City SwapStone Circle CloudRunner Fortress - Treasure CloudRunner Fortress - Dungeon CloudRunner Fortress - TrapRooms Moon Mountain Pass Krazoa Shrine Krazoa Hall snowmines NewIceMt1 NewIceMt2 NewIceMt3
As expected, this level list is much shorter than the one in the December 2000 version of the game. "Snowball Mines" is likely an earlier name for DarkIce Mines, and "Krazoa Hall" may be a prototype name for "Krazoa Palace" (as in the area Krystal would have visited to find her third SpellStone, not to be confused with the Krazoa Palace in Star Fox Adventures which evolved out of Dinosaur Planet's Warlock Mountain). "Yeti Mountain" might possibly be the name of the second icy mountaintop speeder track that can be found in the unreferenced map blocks of the December 2000 build - Dinosaur Planet's other mountain areas (Warlock Mountain and Ice Mountain) are also included in this list so it would seemingly have to refer to a unique mountain area like this one.
"Ice Mountain 2" may refer to a second art pass of the level's model - a few slightly different versions of the area were seen in pre-release footage, and the entirety of one of them can be found among the December 2000 ROM's unreferenced blocks.
"CloudRunner Fortress - TrapRooms" refers to an area that was scrapped from the game by the time of the December 2000 build, however that version of the game does contain partially-completed map models for the area in its level list and unreferenced blocks. A storyboard can be found in STORYBOARD.bin which outlines the cutscenes that would've taken place there involving Kyte's evil uncle colluding with General Scales. December 2000's "CloudRunner Fortress - Race" area is missing from this list, so it may have been designed as a replacement for the Trap Rooms.
It's curious that "Walled City" is present in this list but "EarthWalker Temple" isn't, considering some of the earliest footage of the game shows a version of EarthWalker Temple from 1999. EarthWalker Temple (a level with stepped pyramids, a sun/moon theme, and the plot-relevant Communications Chamber) and Walled City (a dangerous marsh-surrounded area filled with RedEyes and blocked off by an enormous gate) were amalgamated into one level named Walled City (or EarthWalker City in the case of the initials prefixing its Krazoa Shrine room "ECShrine") by the December 2000 version, and the original design for Walled City has not been seen. With that in mind, the "Walled City" in this list might just be a prototype name for the old EarthWalker Temple map. Maybe the area started off with "Walled City" as its name, was renamed "EarthWalker Temple" sometime before the build shown in the 1999 footage, and was then renamed "Walled City" again when the areas were amalgamated. It's confusing!
"Golden Plains" is a desert level that was removed in the final version, and was altered to become Ocean Force Point Temple.
Development Texts
Buried deep inside this version are loads of error messages and texts not in the final game.
Starting at 7D5F7D8 in the .gcm file, there's a large debug menu:
Dino Planet Development System Play Map Texture Viewer Model Viewer Start Game Save Game Manager Resolution: World Edit: Correct All Rom Lists Game Monitor Talking: Surround: Head size: Object Editor Object Sequencer Object Copier Level of Detail Vdf Editor Map editor Hit editor Track Viewer Full Game Save Diagnostics Objects+hits Objects+Active Game Diagnostics Performance Profiler RCP counters Object hits: Object repel: View Hits: View Edges: View Voxel Maps: View Shadow Objects: View texCache Usage: View Memory Usage: View Memory Used: View Frame Time: Wide Screen: DinoVista: Game Editor Game Text Task Text Romdef info Instrumentation: Trigger Monitor: Rompos Table Objtime Table Recording: Real Time: Profiler: Playback Player Selection Setup-Point Gameplay Animation All Objects Level Settings AIgrading Gametext Menu Gametext Text Language num View as text View as subtitle View Tasks Done Task Done Number View Next Clue LoadFlag LoadRange ViewFlag ViewRange Romdef Info Menu Sort By: Romdef details
Unused Graphics
Nintendo 64 Controller Icons
root/cloudtreasure/TEX0.bin
| File offset | Identity | Tile |
|---|---|---|
| 000F1F50 | Stick | 
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| 000F21D5 | Stick | 
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| 000F243A | Stick | 
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root/Copy of swaphol/TEX0.bin
| File offset | Identity | Tile |
|---|---|---|
| 00083BF5 | Stick |
|
| 00083E5A | Stick |
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| 00083970 | Stick |
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root/frontend/TEX0.bin
| File offset | Identity | Tile |
|---|---|---|
| 0002B040 | C-Button | 
|
| 0002B620 | C-Button | 
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| 0002BBA0 | C-Button | 
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| 0002BE40 | C-Button | 
|
| 0002C0C0 | C-Button | 
|
| 0002C360 | C-Button | 
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| 0002CAC0 | C-Button | 
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| 0002D1E0 | C-Button | 
|
| 00066B34 | A Button | 
|
| 00066D94 | A Button | 
|
| 00067014 | A Button | 
|
| 000672D4 | A Button | 
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root/swaphol/TEX0.bin
| File offset | Identity | Tile |
|---|---|---|
| 00025020 | C-Button |
|
| 00025600 | C-Button |
|
| 00025B80 | C-Button |
|
| 00025E20 | C-Button |
|
| 000260A0 | C-Button |
|
| 00026340 | C-Button |
|
| 00026AA0 | C-Button |
|
| 000271C0 | C-Button |
|
| 00027600 | C-Button | 
|
| 00066B34 | A Button |
|
| 00066D94 | A Button |
|
| 00067014 | A Button |
|
| 000672D4 | A Button |
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A lot of button icons from Dinosaur Planet still remain in these files.
