those blank levels above the normal ones

36IStillLikeSpyro36 · Feb 15, 2014 5:40 AM

people who use the swim in air glitch in the other games probably know about the blank versions of the levels that are above the main levels in the game. way, way above them, mind you, it takes a good few minutes swimming.

the only way to reach them of which i know, in Spyro 1, is to use moonjump codes with GameShark. which is actually a lot faster, i assume because of how the mechanics of it work. Spyro seems to go up faster and faster the longer you use the code.

in Spyros 2 and 3, the blank levels are completely empty - no gems, no enemies, no characters, etc. just the level itself, and it's not solid.

it's mostly the same thing in Spyro 1, too, but i noticed something strange today - even though the enemies aren't there or visible, you still sort of collide with them. Spyro gets "stuck" in the blank space for a second, the camera jumping around a good bit, before flying past. you can also flame these "enemies", and if you manage to get back down to the main level, they're actually not there and a silver orb (or gem, presumably, i didn't try it with an unfinished save file) will eventually appear.

but here's something stranger: a couple times when i was flaming the enemies, the blank level *became* the normal level. this mostly happened with those wizards in the raincoats.

one time when i flamed one, it actually froze the game.

and on the way up to the blank level, i noticed that certain features of the enemies were still there, like the portals in the other games that appear, but you can't use. these included things that i don't think are actually part of the enemies, but they're still there. like the rain above the wizards' heads and the glowing yellow stuff coming out of the wizards' hands when they move things around. what i described above happens when you collide with those, too, as i remember.

Breaking Bad · Feb 15, 2014 5:55 AM

Video?

36IStillLikeSpyro36 · Feb 15, 2014 6:26 AM

i can't take videos, i don't have a real / working video camera and my cellphone camera can only record somewhere around 15 second clips before the filesize is too big to send.

the old one could record 30, but anyway

it's pretty easy to try yourself, it only takes a little under 40 seconds to get up there (which is nothing compared to Spyro 2 and 3) and the code is all over the internet

D0077380 0040
80078AD8 0000

EDIT: flying code may help. L1 + triangle to turn on, R1 + triangle to turn off. it *must* be off before you go into or leave levels. i think this is the code:

D0077380 0014
80078CA4 0001
D0077380 0018
80078CA4 0000

Last edited by 36IStillLikeSpyro36 (Feb 15, 2014 6:29 AM)

Breaking Bad · Feb 15, 2014 10:07 PM

Do you use Emulator?

36IStillLikeSpyro36 · Feb 16, 2014 2:30 AM

nope.

keep meaning to (get that and) play around with it, but haven't.

CaptainBee · Feb 28, 2014 12:34 AM

I've actually messed around in Spyro 1 a few days ago by holding down the moonjump button and going further and further up. Turns out if you just hold it down long enough you get faster and faster and the game slows down. Also more and more clone worlds pop up. It's in Spyro 2 and 3 to, I have no clue why there are multiple clone worlds but maybe it's just one clone world and the height just keeps resetting or something. But I've never tried flaming the space of where an enemy was, I'd have to try it out.

36IStillLikeSpyro36 · Feb 28, 2014 2:20 AM

Agent9 wrote:

I've actually messed around in Spyro 1 a few days ago by holding down the moonjump button and going further and further up. Turns out if you just hold it down long enough you get faster and faster and the game slows down. Also more and more clone worlds pop up. It's in Spyro 2 and 3 to, I have no clue why there are multiple clone worlds but maybe it's just one clone world and the height just keeps resetting or something. But I've never tried flaming the space of where an enemy was, I'd have to try it out.

yeah, totally, you go faster. makes it kind of hard to reach the clone worlds if you want to explore them at all since you just go up so fast, which is why i timed the jump to the first clone world big_smile somewhere around 39 seconds. if you don't use the flying code, i'd wait another second or two so you can glide around.

the thing with Spyros 2 and 3 is that often when i try to go up to the clone worlds there, it often freezes. before i even reach the first one, much less other ones.

it's great to meet another GameShark nut on here.

Giganoto · Feb 28, 2014 11:15 PM

I don't have gameshark and was always confused about it. Is it a product you can buy at the game store or online or what tongue or if its free anywhere. I've seen people do really cool cheats with it, especially in spyro

36IStillLikeSpyro36 · Mar 01, 2014 4:31 AM

dunno where you'd get it retail, but it's all over the place online, used.

you put it in and operate it like a game but it's a thing where you enter the codes into it and then you remove the GameShark disc and put in the game you want to play, and it activates the codes.

Ulfbjörn · May 17, 2014 8:31 AM

I can imagine it's one of two things, or perhaps a combination of the two:

1) There is one high- and one low resolution model for each world (actually they are split up into several parts that are switched depending on how far away you are). Perhaps the unused parts are stored up there so that the culling function will make them not being drawn (and thus waste processing power) while you're down where you're supposed to.

2) The Playstation is a rather old machine; it would seem that the original Spyro games may have used 16-bit integers to store 3D coordinates. Thus if the moon jump increases in velocity over time as you say, the height value will eventually wrap around over time.

Putting those two together they would explain a seemingly infinite amount of levels above each other with slightly different looks / textures.

it's mostly the same thing in Spyro 1, too, but i noticed something strange today - even though the enemies aren't there or visible, you still sort of collide with them. Spyro gets "stuck" in the blank space for a second, the camera jumping around a good bit, before flying past. you can also flame these "enemies", and if you manage to get back down to the main level, they're actually not there and a silver orb (or gem, presumably, i didn't try it with an unfinished save file) will eventually appear.

As was stated in some other post here, enemy collisions in Spyro 1 seem to only take X and Z coordinates into account, thus ignoring the height.

36IStillLikeSpyro36 · May 18, 2014 2:22 AM

Ulfbjörn wrote:

2) The Playstation is a rather old machine; it would seem that the original Spyro games may have used 16-bit integers to store 3D coordinates. Thus if the moon jump increases in velocity over time as you say, the height value will eventually wrap around over time.

that makes a lot of sense. i'm not sure about Spyros 2 and 3 since the moon jump doesn't go faster or anything, but it definitely does that in Spyro 1. (i guess it could technically be done in the others, but i'm not about to figure out how to make that happen. tongue )

and about the game ignoring the Y value; are you sure about that? i seem to remember going over enemies (including charging i think?) and nothing happening. i could be wrong about that, though.

Ulfbjörn · May 18, 2014 9:37 AM

You're right, that is probably only done in certain cases (I just recall reading it in the Town Square OOB thread here; haven't had it happen to myself as far as I can recall). It wouldn't make much sense to run around on an upper / lower path and be hit / be able to attack enemies on the other one as I'm pretty sure you do in several levels (Stone Hill, Tree Tops and Metal Head being a few that come to mind). Perhaps the enemies were simply hit as you were coming around back to the "actual level"'s height, assuming that happened?

Last edited by Ulfbjörn (May 18, 2014 9:37 AM)

LXShadow · May 18, 2014 9:56 AM

Actually, your theory for the clone world is very close! It's indeed a 16-bit wraparound that occurs, but there's just a small difference: Spyro's coordinates are actually stored in 32-bit. The renderer, however, can only render using 16-bit integers. So once one of Spyro's coordinates exceeds 65535, the render fails to notice the higher bits, and wraps them around during the scene draw. You can actually test this out if you have a GameShark code for one of Spyro's coordinates: setting any of the upper 16 bits will make him appear to stay in the same position, while the collision mysteriously disappears.

Enemies also have 32-bit coordinates, which explains why you can't seem them in the clone world as well smile

I don't know what's happening with the object collision, though. Maybe it's because the collision system was rigid and made it hard to do on-demand area-of-effect checks; or maybe they just wanted to save processing time? Not sure about that, though I do know the pain of being instantly knocked out by Buzz just for flying 100 metres above him =P

Morgan · Aug 13, 2015 10:59 AM

LXShadow wrote:

Actually, your theory for the clone world is very close! It's indeed a 16-bit wraparound that occurs, but there's just a small difference: Spyro's coordinates are actually stored in 32-bit. The renderer, however, can only render using 16-bit integers. So once one of Spyro's coordinates exceeds 65535, the render fails to notice the higher bits, and wraps them around during the scene draw. You can actually test this out if you have a GameShark code for one of Spyro's coordinates: setting any of the upper 16 bits will make him appear to stay in the same position, while the collision mysteriously disappears.
Enemies also have 32-bit coordinates, which explains why you can't seem them in the clone world as well
I don't know what's happening with the object collision, though. Maybe it's because the collision system was rigid and made it hard to do on-demand area-of-effect checks; or maybe they just wanted to save processing time? Not sure about that, though I do know the pain of being instantly knocked out by Buzz just for flying 100 metres above him =P

Actually, this means that they aren't clone worlds. As for the lack of collision data, this may be why it happens: Maybe the death trigger only works if you go through it from above, and I know that when Spyro is in zombie mode, the game doesn't notice any triggers, except for talking to NPC's, and for using Return Home vortices. However, maybe the game knows that you've passed through the death trigger, which would usually put Spyro in a non-controllable state, but because you haven't actually activated it, you can still control Spyro, even though the game thinks that he's dead, because he's gone through it. Also, if you roll into the Metalhead or Wild Flight portals, which have a habit of taking a while to put Spyro onto the loading screen, with the camera wrapped around the arch as much as possible, it's possible for the camera to fail to wrap back around so that it can see the portal itself, which is required in order for the loading screen to appear, which will cause Spyro to just fly underneath the level, and he'll eventually die by falling. However, after this happens, because the game's still trying to perform the now-impossible action of putting Spyro onto the loading screen, it can't perform the task of putting Spyro onto his spawn point, although, in rare cases the game will prioritise the latter over the former, which can have a few different results. However, when the common result happens, Spyro will respawn in the same position that he was in before, i.e. the death trigger. This means that Spyro will just keep dying until you get a game over. When you finally respawn at the start of the level after you get the game over, Spyro will be in zombie mode with Sparx. If you go into the goo, you'll actually be able to jump off it. This means that the reason that you can't jump off liquid when you go onto it when you're in zombie mode without Sparx is because the game's trying to kill Spyro, because he's touched the liquid without Sparx, but it can't do it, because the game isn't noticing the drowning trigger. Anyway, going back to the lack of collision data, the fact that Spyro flies through the ground when you perform this glitch leads me to believe that the collision data for 16-bit objects deloads when Spyro is, or at least, supposed to be, in a non-controllable state. You can also do this by falling in zombie mode until Spyro's co-ordinates roll over from bottom to top.

Last edited by Morgan (Aug 13, 2015 11:02 AM)

LXShadow · Aug 13, 2015 12:37 PM

A reasonable hypothesis! However, it's actually much simpler than that--collision data is able to work properly in 32-bits (or certainly above 16 bits), meaning it doesn't 'clone'. So the reason it doesn't work in the clone world is because it's not there; you're miles away from it after all! ;P

With regards to the death trigger, it'd take a serious glitch (e.g. the pause-on-frame one) to make the game trigger death without actually killing Spyro. I also doubt there'd be a death trigger for crossing boundaries other than the pit minimum--you could probably moonjump to verify that though. Finally, the game doesn't load or unload most data while in-level, including collision data. On the other hand dragons, dragon eggs and music are among the few things that it does smile

Morgan · Aug 14, 2015 10:12 AM

LXShadow wrote:

A reasonable hypothesis! However, it's actually much simpler than that--collision data is able to work properly in 32-bits (or certainly above 16 bits), meaning it doesn't 'clone'. So the reason it doesn't work in the clone world is because it's not there; you're miles away from it after all! ;P
With regards to the death trigger, it'd take a serious glitch (e.g. the pause-on-frame one) to make the game trigger death without actually killing Spyro. I also doubt there'd be a death trigger for crossing boundaries other than the pit minimum--you could probably moonjump to verify that though. Finally, the game doesn't load or unload most data while in-level, including collision data. On the other hand dragons, dragon eggs and music are among the few things that it does

So, is it only permanent objects such as Spyro and the levels that roll over? Also, please could you try to explain how that portal glitch that I mentioned happens? Also, Spyro 2 and 3 do have horizontal death triggers, although most of them are unreachable before you hit the vertical death trigger. The easiest place to prove this is in Scorch's Pit, where it's right next to the edge of the level. RubbberRabbbit2 did it in a video. If you only meant going through the death trigger from underneath, then I meant going through it after Spyro's co-ordinates had rolled over from top to bottom.

LXShadow · Aug 14, 2015 2:25 PM

Not quite sure what you mean by roll over? To be clear, nothing changes when you go too high. It's just that the renderer doesn't interpret the level scenery correctly. The level scenery isn't actually there, it's just that the renderer can't tell the difference between viewing the level from e.g. 140,648,294 and viewing it from 1140,648,294 (simplified example). The renderer doesn't have that problem with understanding the coordinates of the objects and Spyro. I can't actually confirm why that is, but it's probably an optimisation where the rendering code prefers to transform the scenery using 2 byte ints instead of 4 byte ints.

When you say Spyro's coordinates roll over, do you just mean when you reach the clone world? Spyro's coordinates actualy work fine, and will travel the whole four-byte range (-2 billion to 2 billion). It's just the renderer that doesn't really get it. =P

I checked out a video of the glitch you mentioned. It's just classic zombie mode. smile Most likely the game notices all the triggers, it just thinks you're dead, so it doesn't bother killing you. It'd be annoying if, after you take a hit and died, enemies could take advantage and keep hitting you in an endless cycle of pain and suffering

I didn't know about the horizontal death triggers. Cool! Guess Insomniac were worried that players would somehow make it that far. They were right perhaps--but to be honest, if the player can make it that far, then there are far bigger problems at hand =P

Last edited by LXShadow (Aug 14, 2015 2:26 PM)

Morgan · Aug 14, 2015 3:15 PM

LXShadow wrote:

Not quite sure what you mean by roll over? To be clear, nothing changes when you go too high. It's just that the renderer doesn't interpret the level scenery correctly. The level scenery isn't actually there, it's just that the renderer can't tell the difference between viewing the level from e.g. 140,648,294 and viewing it from 1140,648,294 (simplified example). The renderer doesn't have that problem with understanding the coordinates of the objects and Spyro. I can't actually confirm why that is, but it's probably an optimisation where the rendering code prefers to transform the scenery using 2 byte ints instead of 4 byte ints.
When you say Spyro's coordinates roll over, do you just mean when you reach the clone world? Spyro's coordinates actualy work fine, and will travel the whole four-byte range (-2 billion to 2 billion). It's just the renderer that doesn't really get it. =P
I checked out a video of the glitch you mentioned. It's just classic zombie mode. Most likely the game notices all the triggers, it just thinks you're dead, so it doesn't bother killing you. It'd be annoying if, after you take a hit and died, enemies could take advantage and keep hitting you in an endless cycle of pain and suffering
I didn't know about the horizontal death triggers. Cool! Guess Insomniac were worried that players would somehow make it that far. They were right perhaps--but to be honest, if the player can make it that far, then there are far bigger problems at hand =P

For Spyro's co-ordinates, I meant when they roll over from 65535 to 1 on the Y-axis. For the glitch that I mentioned, I meant how Spyro flies through the ground. Also, the fact that the game actually notices most triggers, instead of only a couple of them, when you're in zombie mode with Sparx raises more questions about the glitch.

LXShadow · Aug 15, 2015 12:47 AM

Ohh okay. Well Spyro's coordinates don't wrap around, it's just that the level renderer reads it as though they do.

Right, well I reckon when Spyro goes through a portal, his collisions are ignored. This makes sense because we don't want him crashing face-first into whatever's behind the portal =P

In zombie mode I think the game will notice most triggers that the programmers felt it needs to. That would be mostly death triggers, and anything else that could cause a lock if Spyro were to hit them while dead.

Last edited by LXShadow (Aug 15, 2015 12:48 AM)

36IStillLikeSpyro36 · Aug 15, 2015 2:22 AM

LXShadow wrote:

Ohh okay. Well Spyro's coordinates don't wrap around, it's just that the level renderer reads it as though they do.

but in general, don't they wrap around eventually, though? because, at least in Spyro 3, i did the swim-in-air glitch once and just kept going up, and up, and up (i had Cheat Engine up and i'd swim up for a little bit, and then change the value of Spyro's height by several million) and when i got to... i think about 2 billion or something? Spyro died like he does when you fall into a chasm.

Morgan · Aug 15, 2015 8:59 AM

LXShadow wrote:

Ohh okay. Well Spyro's coordinates don't wrap around, it's just that the level renderer reads it as though they do.
Right, well I reckon when Spyro goes through a portal, his collisions are ignored. This makes sense because we don't want him crashing face-first into whatever's behind the portal =P
In zombie mode I think the game will notice most triggers that the programmers felt it needs to. That would be mostly death triggers, and anything else that could cause a lock if Spyro were to hit them while dead.

Spyro's collisions aren't always ignored when he goes through a portal. Watch a speedrun of the game, and you'll see that they go into Crystal Flight, apparently without rescuing Boldar, yet when they exit Crystal Flight, Boldar's been rescued. This is because they entered Crystal Flight from behind, and it takes so long for the camera to wrap around the arch that Spyro actually touches Boldar, therefore rescuing him. Sometimes, you might even see the flash that comes from rescuing a dragon before the loading screen appears. However, the game doesn't cancel loading the level, which is why every competent speedrunner uses it to save time.

LXShadow · Aug 15, 2015 9:29 AM

36IStillLikeSpyro36 wrote:

LXShadow wrote:
Ohh okay. Well Spyro's coordinates don't wrap around, it's just that the level renderer reads it as though they do.
but in general, don't they wrap around eventually, though? because, at least in Spyro 3, i did the swim-in-air glitch once and just kept going up, and up, and up (i had Cheat Engine up and i'd swim up for a little bit, and then change the value of Spyro's height by several million) and when i got to... i think about 2 billion or something? Spyro died like he does when you fall into a chasm.

You're right, sorry I wasn't clear. A wraparound does still apply (at around 2 billion, yeah), but it's massive and won't happen in practice until you've spent several days swimming up through thousands of clone worlds. =P Clone worlds are worth mentioning because they'll wrap around after a few minutes of travel.

Morgan wrote:

Spyro's collisions aren't always ignored when he goes through a portal. Watch a speedrun of the game, and you'll see that they go into Crystal Flight, apparently without rescuing Boldar, yet when they exit Crystal Flight, Boldar's been rescued. This is because they entered Crystal Flight from behind, and it takes so long for the camera to wrap around the arch that Spyro actually touches Boldar, therefore rescuing him. Sometimes, you might even see the flash that comes from rescuing a dragon before the loading screen appears. However, the game doesn't cancel loading the level, which is why every competent speedrunner uses it to save time.

They aren't? o.o Maybe it's just the scenery collision then? Another theory is that the objects in the level check their own collision with Spyro--rather than Spyro checking his collision with them--and the objects don't tend to care if he's flying through a portal at the time.

Either the way, hopefully we've cleared up everything about the clone worlds. It's still funny to think that there's 281 trillion of them. We're never going to see them all in this dimension. =P

Morgan · Aug 15, 2015 9:42 AM

LXShadow wrote:

36IStillLikeSpyro36 wrote:
LXShadow wrote:
Ohh okay. Well Spyro's coordinates don't wrap around, it's just that the level renderer reads it as though they do.
but in general, don't they wrap around eventually, though? because, at least in Spyro 3, i did the swim-in-air glitch once and just kept going up, and up, and up (i had Cheat Engine up and i'd swim up for a little bit, and then change the value of Spyro's height by several million) and when i got to... i think about 2 billion or something? Spyro died like he does when you fall into a chasm.
You're right, sorry I wasn't clear. A wraparound does still apply (at around 2 billion, yeah), but it's massive and won't happen in practice until you've spent several days swimming up through thousands of clone worlds. =P Clone worlds are worth mentioning because they'll wrap around after a few minutes of travel.
Morgan wrote:
Spyro's collisions aren't always ignored when he goes through a portal. Watch a speedrun of the game, and you'll see that they go into Crystal Flight, apparently without rescuing Boldar, yet when they exit Crystal Flight, Boldar's been rescued. This is because they entered Crystal Flight from behind, and it takes so long for the camera to wrap around the arch that Spyro actually touches Boldar, therefore rescuing him. Sometimes, you might even see the flash that comes from rescuing a dragon before the loading screen appears. However, the game doesn't cancel loading the level, which is why every competent speedrunner uses it to save time.
They aren't? o.o Maybe it's just the scenery collision then? Another theory is that the objects in the level check their own collision with Spyro--rather than Spyro checking his collision with them--and the objects don't tend to care if he's flying through a portal at the time.
Either the way, hopefully we've cleared up everything about the clone worlds. It's still funny to think that there's 281 trillion of them. We're never going to see them all in this dimension. =P

Do you mean that the worlds can only wrap around 281,000,000,000,000 times? What do you think would happen if the worlds wrapped around any more times?

LXShadow · Aug 15, 2015 12:27 PM

Nah, I just mean that for example, if the real world is at 00000000 X, 00000000 Y and 00000000 Z, then there's another world at 00010000 X, 00000000 Y, 00000000 Z (hexadecimal--so 10000 is 65536). Continue that with every possible combination of 10000's for each coordinate, and unless I'm mistaken, it's something like 281 trillion worlds. One heck of a lot for sure!

Morgan · Aug 15, 2015 12:43 PM

LXShadow wrote:

Nah, I just mean that for example, if the real world is at 00000000 X, 00000000 Y and 00000000 Z, then there's another world at 00010000 X, 00000000 Y, 00000000 Z (hexadecimal--so 10000 is 65536). Continue that with every possible combination of 10000's for each coordinate, and unless I'm mistaken, it's something like 281 trillion worlds. One heck of a lot for sure!

I asked you what you thought would happen when the world limit was exceeded. Would they just stop appearing?

#1 Feb 15, 2014 5:40 AM

those blank levels above the normal ones

#2 Feb 15, 2014 5:55 AM

Re: those blank levels above the normal ones

#3 Feb 15, 2014 6:26 AM

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#4 Feb 15, 2014 10:07 PM

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#5 Feb 16, 2014 2:30 AM

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#6 Feb 28, 2014 12:34 AM

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#7 Feb 28, 2014 2:20 AM

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#8 Feb 28, 2014 11:15 PM

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#9 Mar 01, 2014 4:31 AM

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#10 May 17, 2014 8:31 AM

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#11 May 18, 2014 2:22 AM

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#12 May 18, 2014 9:37 AM

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#13 May 18, 2014 9:56 AM

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#14 Aug 13, 2015 10:59 AM

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#15 Aug 13, 2015 12:37 PM

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#16 Aug 14, 2015 10:12 AM

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#17 Aug 14, 2015 2:25 PM

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#18 Aug 14, 2015 3:15 PM

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#19 Aug 15, 2015 12:47 AM

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#20 Aug 15, 2015 2:22 AM

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#21 Aug 15, 2015 8:59 AM

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#22 Aug 15, 2015 9:29 AM

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#23 Aug 15, 2015 9:42 AM

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#24 Aug 15, 2015 12:27 PM

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#25 Aug 15, 2015 12:43 PM

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