Rayman 2

[Steo]

Oh WinAmp, that reminds me of that Windows 98 dinosaur computer I had back in 2003. Ah memories.

 

[dr_st]

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www.winamp.com

Apparently they released an update a couple of years ago after a very long hiatus.

 

[Hunchman801]

Sometimes I forget how low the average user age is at Rayman Pirate Community. I must say it is, almost certainly, the happiest and friendliest internet community that I know, where both kids and old dinosaurs like me can feel welcome and right at home.

I guess this is also why I'm still here after all this time! Indeed, it's heartwarming to see that new, younger members continue to join the community while we also retain some of the old-timers.

 

[Retrofuge]

I guess this is also why I'm still here after all this time! Indeed, it's heartwarming to see that new, younger members continue to join the community while we also retain some of the old-timers.

Well, Rayman is a game for all ages after all. You can say, Rayman just resonates with a lot of people and that's considering there wasn't been a new mainline entry for a while. That would consider a big feat!

 

[Elite Piranha]

I found a video from Funhaus that shows footage of a Rayman 2 demo, and at 7:06 the following text appears:

The Mysterious Guild considers Rayman to be the ideal specimen to display in its intergalactic zoo of rare species. After all, Rayman is the only one of his species in existence! Rayman’s friends (Ly, Clark, Globox , the Whale and the Smallbeeings) become the target of “Operation Kidnap”, the Guild’s plan to fill its zoo with the universe’s peace-loving residents. Only Rayman manages to escape and decides to free his friends.

Droolie recovered this text in 2014, however I don't know if the official source was uploaded to the wiki. The "mysterious guild" is also mentioned in this interview, but it seems that mentions of this organization are pretty rare:

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www.ign.com

I guess this could be used as reference (if it is not already).

 

[Hunchman801]

Yep, references would be more than welcome.

 

[Elite Piranha]

I'm starting to think that it was not a good idea to share that video here (considering what the guys do after finishing the demo). I guess these posts will be deleted later.

 

[Hunchman801]

Haha, you mean the rule 34 stuff? I actually find it rather amusing that there's people who are, somehow, sexually attracted to Rayman and his universe.

I mean, whatever floats their boat, but still.

 

[Cairnie]

I love how they were clearly looking on paheal for it too.

AAAANYway, there was a video from an old news report that popped up on YouTube a few days ago which has a few minutes about the Montpellier studio during I think the early stages of the 2D Rayman 2 development. In the quote retweets Clara Knight has been kind to give a tough translation of the clip:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1372261330464428035

 

[Elite Piranha]

Thanks for sharing the tweet. That elephant looks very similar to the one that appears in Tonic Trouble.

 

[Hunchman801]

Thanks, I had never watched this before! It's also the first time I'm seeing this Flips-like character in motion. And man, young Ancel is young...

Here's the video for the record:

 

[PluMGMK]

It feels so weird to be watching a recording of a CRT, which itself is sometimes showing recordings of CRTs. At least the 2021 camera does a better job of capturing the first CRT properly than some of the 1996 cameras did of the CRTs-within-CRT.

Or at least that's the impression it's trying to give, but of course it's faked!

 

[Elite Piranha]

Skip to 9:47 to see Michel Ancel. Those enemies from the early Rayman 2 remind me of the Helling Guards, I guess some ideas and designs were recycled for Tonic Trouble.

 

[Rudie Radio Waves]

Sorry to derail the conversation, but is there any way to increase the draw distance for the Lums in the PCv version of Rayman 2?

 

[Steo]

I've noticed that Dreamcast has a higher draw distance for them, but unfortunately nobody has mentioned anything about this being possible on the PC version to date.

 

[Rudie Radio Waves]

Gotcha. I asked because I can't stand not seeing the Lums until the last possible second in slide sections and the like, so it looks like beating Rayman 2 on Redream was the best thing to do after all. Thank you!

 

[PluMGMK]

So our wiki still states that we don't know what makes Eig appear in the first section of the Sanctuary of Rock and Lava on Dreamcast. Is that true?
Is it definitely true that he doesn't always appear? Maybe sometimes people just failed to notice him

According to raym.app, this is the first script of his "INIT" function:

if (globalRandomizer % 8 == 0 && (1))
{
  Proc_ChangeOneCustomBit(1, Cond_IsCustomBitSet(12));
  if (Func_DistanceToPerso(Perso_0) < Float_1)
  {
    Boolean_8 = 0;
    if (Boolean_4)
    {
      Proc_ChangeAction(Maturin.Action[5]["MIC_St_mat_corps_emerge1"]);
    }
    else
    {
      Proc_ChangeAction(Maturin.Action[1]["MIC_St_mat_corps_emerge"]);
    }
    Proc_ChangeMyComport(MIC_MaturinDesMarais.Intelligence[1]["MIC_Maturin_Sortie"]);
  }
}

And this is the second:

Cam_UpdatePosition(Perso_0.Position() - Position());

The first one does contain a "1-in-8 chance" of something happening, but as I understand it that doesn't govern whether or not he appears. Rather, I understand that this code executes every tick until Rayman enters the detection zone, and the randomizer adds a bit of jitter / entropy to this detection-zone check (nice touch!). Can anyone tell me if I understand it correctly?

 

[Droolie]

Can anyone tell me if I understand it correctly?

I think that's right globalRandomizer is a bit poorly named though (the name of that variable in the engine is "GlobAleat", so that matches our name I suppose?) -- it's not really RNG, it's just the tick count. So this line is true every 8 ticks:

if (globalRandomizer % 8 == 0 && (1))

This was probably added as an optimization, to avoid doing the distance check every frame.

 

[PluMGMK]

Ah, that explains a lot! It seems to be used for that purpose way more often than as an actual source of randomness, so yeah, maybe it could be renamed?

Anyway, that being the case, I don't see anything at all that would place conditions on Eig's appearance. So are we sure he doesn't just always appear?

 

[Gordswitch]

I wish there was a mod for the PC version that could swap Rayman’s normal model for his N64 model. I feel like his N64 model is a lot more expressive.