This is a post that was supposed to come a long time ago, but I never really got around to finishing it in time. Since it's time for the MOTY voting awards, it sounds like a good time to wrap this up.

This is a technical breakdown of all the events and research that went into developing this mod, starting from its early inception a month after the release of Sonic Generations for PC/360/PS3. This also includes an indepth explanation of most replacements, workarounds, and design decisions that made it into the final product. It should be an interesting insight into how modding a game that has absolutely zero official modding tools or support works, and all the problems that had to be solved as a result. There might be some inaccuracies on the timing of the events, but most of what I explain here can be checked on the 255-pages long hacking topic over at Sonic Retro.

The articles are:

1) Early research and software development

2) Level development

3) Late research and White World

What about future updates?

I've ran into some problems with the updating infrastructure, so I'm looking for a good solution first. The only update so far since release has been for the FxPipeline Shaders mod, and I recommend you to update it if you had the "blur" bug present in Intel HD and newer driver version Radeon 7000 cards. Apart from some minor layout changes to fix bugs in some levels, there's not much else to patch other than adding brand new content. The issues with freezing aren't fully reported in detail, aren't consistent to reproduce, and further access to CPKREDIR's source code and debugging functionality is needed to track the problems. I've heard the Low End Mod might be causing more troubles than it solves, so that's probably worth disabling to see if it fixes some issues or not.

I can't really promise if new content is coming or not, as I've felt THIS particular project itself is mostly finished unless there's some strides in hacking for getting more level slots to work. I'm not a huge fan of the current alternative of having to split mods, especially with how savefile compatibility and managing the files in general would work. But that doesn't prevent anyone else from trying to do more content now that I've explained most of the work necessary. With that said, anyone has my permission to reuse the custom assets or files included in this mod as long as they're properly credited.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading, and I hope these articles are an interesting insight into the development of this project. We're very grateful for the support you all provided us over the entire year we spent on this mod, and all the team is really glad you all got to enjoy the final product.

As a bonus, here's a gift!

A new mod by TwilightZoney, which replaces Modern Sonic's model and animations with the ones from Sonic Unleashed. He put a lot of work into adapting the animations properly to the new skeleton, and converting almost all of the animations in the game to be compatible with both the Unleashed Project and regular Generations:

Remember to participate in the voting for the Mod of the Year 2013 awards! We'd really appreciate your vote as well. If you'd like to vote for us, go to the mod's main page. Scroll down and you'll find the voting button right below Professor Pickle.

Happy holidays!