Post by teridaxxd001 on May 21, 2021 8:33:52 GMT
The wiki currently has Sonic X-treme classified as "found," but there are still significant portions of it missing. In addition to graphical assets such as models and sprites, I theorize there are at least two, possibly three, builds not yet leaked:
First is the original version of the game, which ran on the NiGHTS engine and was presumably completely 3D, including Sonic himself. As you probably know, two weeks after receiving the tools and source code, they were told to stop using it, because Yuji Naka threatened to leave SEGA if they were allowed to continue (there are two possible reasons: Sonic Team was developing its own Sonic game using the engine, plus Naka was apparently already unimpressed with the X-treme project). Two weeks is barely any time at all, but I assume they had something.
Second is a build using Christina Coffin's boss engine, containing the boss fight with Metal Sonic. This is, incidentally, the only playable build demonstrated to the public at all during X-treme's development, having been displayed at E3 and other such trade shows, and was immortalized on an episode of the Canadian TV series The Anti-Gravity Room, as seen here. The 718 prototype (the first build ever leaked to the public) uses the boss engine, but only Jade Gully Zone is playable. While some assets from the Metal Sonic boss fight exist in the build, such as the texture hidden under the terrain, Metal Sonic is not known to be present (while his model from this game has been leaked, it was via a SEGA Saturn Software Development Kit).
A third possible build may also exist, again using Chris Coffin's boss engine, containing the boss fight with Fang the Sniper/Nack the Weasel, of which screenshots were printed in magazines at the time (available here). Because we don't have any actual video footage of this, these might possibly be mock-ups, though the amount of them with such varied content makes me doubt this. Models of Fang and his bullets have been discovered within the data of the 718 build, but his textures don't seem to have been completely found yet, nor has the map you fight him on, and there's no indication the boss fight is actually programmed into it.
As for assets, the final game would have used 3D environments and bosses with pre-rendered 2D sprites for playable characters, regular enemies and items, made from taking screenshots of highly-detailed 3D models of them in different poses and at different angles. In addition to Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy and a new character names Tiara Boobowski were all considered as playable characters. All of Sonic's sprites are available, and the original 3D models used to produced the sprites for Sonic and Tails have been leaked by developer Chris Senn (available here). No original models for any of the playable characters other than Sonic and Tails or full sprite sheets for any of the playable characters other than Sonic have been leaked, nor have original models been leaked for any of the regular enemies or items. I've read that Amy was a late addition and was made by simply modifying the finished sprites for Sonic, but this image, judging by the visible wireframe, seems to indicate that a detailed 3D model for Amy was indeed created. I also don't know if any prerendered sprites were made for Tiara, but this mockup footage proves that, at the very least, a 3D model was made.