Cutscene Patch
Funnily enough, Spadita mentioned this to me a couple of days ago. I've looked into the .peg_desc, .cmesh, and .cvtf files in every way I know how, and compared them with the Xbox version, but had no luck. It's not a texture issue. It's not a .cmesh issue. And I can't tell if it's a materials issue, since the .cvtf doesn't contain any material information (for PC or Xbox).
I did address it in Cutscene Patch, by removing the Wine effect. So now it just looks like Playa is gesturing to the Barmaid.
For people that wants some fixes on IG cutscenes, here i share some edits i've done:
Brotherhood 10 - Player uses ak47 instead of ar50
Ronin 09 - Player and Johnny Gat use beretta instead of kobra and glock
Samedi 04 & Samedi 04 Alt- Player uses beretta & Veteran Child uses a tec-9
Samedi 11 - Player uses ak47 instead of ar50
Ronin 09 - Player and Johnny Gat use beretta instead of kobra and glock
Samedi 04 & Samedi 04 Alt- Player uses beretta & Veteran Child uses a tec-9
Samedi 11 - Player uses ak47 instead of ar50
UPDATE: Added Spadita's In-Gameplay Cutscene Fixes to the main post.
Download these files to compliment your Cutscene Patch installation!
Download these files to compliment your Cutscene Patch installation!
To celebrate the one year anniversary, and over 2000 total downloads of Cutscene Patch,
a ton of new fixes have been made to a further 37 Cutscenes!
These fixes mainly cover issues with Scenery, and issues which typically would be hidden behind the Letterbox,
which can now be removed via Juiced Patch!
There are also new Alternate and Optional Cutscene files, including the restoration of leftover Cut Cutscenes!
The Changelog in the main post has been updated. New changes have been marked with "(v1.3)".
a ton of new fixes have been made to a further 37 Cutscenes!
These fixes mainly cover issues with Scenery, and issues which typically would be hidden behind the Letterbox,
which can now be removed via Juiced Patch!
There are also new Alternate and Optional Cutscene files, including the restoration of leftover Cut Cutscenes!
The Changelog in the main post has been updated. New changes have been marked with "(v1.3)".
Here are just some of the highlights from this update:
Note: The "No Letterbox Edition" of Cutscene Patch has been discontinued. Instead, we recommend using Juiced Patch's "RemoveBlackBars" option in reloaded.ini.
Man that change to Kanto Connection to have Jyunichi's corpse visible is such a good change, it was always so weird that you never see him as Boss walks away.
Cutscene Patch v1.3: Behind The Scenes
I wanted to put together this showcase of how we made some of the fixes in Cutscene Patch v1.3.
Click the "Spoiler" to get started!
I wanted to put together this showcase of how we made some of the fixes in Cutscene Patch v1.3.
Click the "Spoiler" to get started!
"Burying The Hatchet" (BON02) Arch Fix:
This issue is PC exclusive. It does not occur on the Console versions.
I always assumed that this issue was caused by distance rendering. But since Cure For Myopia (by @ItsIggy ) doesn't fix it for this cutscene, and no chunk objects are hidden by this cutscene, the problem had to lie elsewhere.
Upon viewing the chunks which are loaded for the cutscene in sr2_chonker (by @Möyh Mäyh ), we found that parts of the Arch were missing from chunk166:
Weirdly, the front and back sides at the top-middle of the Arch are duplicated in the exact same position, but neither actually appear in-game.
This led me to suspect that the Arch is actually part of a different nearby chunk which is not loaded by this cutscene.
Upon viewing a Hotels & Marina district Chunk (chunk167), the full Arch could be found right on the edge:
As Cutscenes can only load up to 3 Chunks (+1 Interior Chunk), our fix unloads chunk178 and chunk177 from the cutscene, since nothing in these Chunks can be seen from the cutscene's camera angles (both Chunks are on the other side of the mountain). We then loaded chunk167 instead, and the arch is now fully visible! If you were to Slew away (credit: Juiced Patch) towards the Hotels & Marina district, you'll notice the beachfront is now also loaded for this cutscene.
In summary; The issue is that during the PC porting process of Saints Row 2, the Arch didn't fully remain in the Museum Chunk.
So chunk166 is not the same as the console version.
"So a Gang Leader Walks In A Bar..." (TSSE01-01) Train Tracks Restoration:
This cutscene hides most pieces of the Train Tracks in Vanilla, but some supports were not hidden, and some of the track still remained in the far distance:
The initial fix was to simply hide the remaining Track pieces (available as an Optional fix). But this meant the lights on the underside of the track would appear floating at night.
But by unhiding any object in the cutscene with the "EL_" prefix, the whole Train Track would be restored! ("EL_" standing for "El Train".)
By viewing the Chunks loaded by this cutscene in sr2_chonker, the names of all Objects in the area became apparent. Some of the objects hidden by the Vanilla version of this cutscene were puzzling. For example, there were trash objects around the corner, or in entirely different streets which were unnecessarily hidden. Even a couple of building hulls were unnecessarily hidden.
And so I decided to completely rework the hidden objects for this cutscene. There is now more trash about the place, and nothing is unnecessarily hidden.
HQ1 Fire Effects:
sr2_chonker does not currently show Effects used in a Chunk. Fortunately, RO10-01 ("Old Friends, Older Enemies") hides all the fire Effects in the main hall of HQ1 for the final Shot. So I unhid each fire Effect one-by-one to come up with this list:
Central Fire:
HQ_main_275
Wall lamps:
HQ_BarrelFireVFXA06
HQ_BarrelFireVFXA07
HQ_BarrelFireVFXA08
HQ_BarrelFireVFXA09
HQ_BarrelFireVFXA10
Using this information, I was able to hide the Central Fire from a couple of cutscenes: "Life On The Farm" (SS03-01) and "Operation Voodoo Drop" (SS07-01).
Aisha's Front Door:
This issue is also present on console versions.
"15 Minutes" (RO02-01) takes place in Aisha's house. But unlike in other cutscenes and in gameplay, there is no front door:
In short; I have no idea why there's no front door. I checked all chunks which cover that area of the map. Her front door is located in chunk182 (represented in sr2_chonker by a cube). It is not hidden by the cutscene file.
(chunk182_al only contains doors from the area, none of which seem to be Aisha's.)
To fix it, I just copied the "DOOR" character from TSSP03-01 ("You Don't Have To Go Home..."), and implemented it with it's animations for Shots 6 and 8.
"Old Friends, Older Enemies" fixes:
There were A LOT of issues with this cutscene. I'll cover two of the main ones here:
1. Raising the Camera:
This had to be done to fix the camera clipping through the floor and counter-top in earlier scenes.
The only way I know how to raise the camera is to raise the Slate Navpoint for the cutscene (These values are inverted). This raises the entire Camera Script, so doing this can potentially cause issues elsewhere in the cutscene. Minimal adjustment is recommended.
Doing this also raises the coordinates of any effects used in the cutscene, so their coordinates also had to be adjusted to compensate.
2. The missing Walls and incorrect Staircase:
This was a bit of a complex problem.
The issues can even be seen here in this official unreleased artwork:
The Problem:
The walls at either side of the Staircase were invisible. They were hidden by the cutscene for the final two Shots. But why?
As you can see here, the walls are actually part of a combination of sections combined into a single object (highlighted in white):
This combined object includes the Handrails, the Walls either side of the Staircase, and the Staircase itself (except in HQ2).
It was hidden primarily to hide the Handrail, so it could be replaced by the Handrail in the Effect which gets broken by the bike.
So in restoring the Walls and Staircases, we also had to restore the Handrail. This means the bike phases straight through it. In an effort to help disguise this issue, the central pillar right next to where the bike crashes through has also been restored.
Volition made the effort to cover up the missing Staircase by adding a fake version of the Staircase from HQ1 as an Effect (despite the fact that this Cutscene cannot naturally take place in HQ1).
Keeping on theme, this Effect is also a combination of multiple Effects. It includes the Muzzle Flashes and Bullet Impacts from Gat's AR200, the Smoke and Flying Bannisters from where the bike crashes through them, and the aforementioned Fake Staircase.
This means ALL of these move as one Effect, and so had to be corrected after moving the Slate for the Camera Script.
The Solution:
The Handrail/Walls/Staircase Object is now unhidden for each HQ stage. But that meant the Staircases were clipping with the Fake Staircase. So, once again, the combined Effect had to be moved slightly. The Fake Staircase still exists in Cutscene Patch v1.3, but it's hidden just beneath the real Staircases.
Bonus!: Animation Issues:
These are unfixable. But I wanted to showcase them nevertheless.
BR01-02: "Welcome to the Brotherhood" (Shot 28)
The Playa's Jawline gets warped out of shape for Shot 28 only.
Animation Filename: br01_02_PC_28.anim_pc
RO11-01: "Big Problems in Little China" (Shots 40, 41, 43 and 45)
The Playa's Cheeks are more gaunt than they should be for Shots 40, 41, 43 and 45.
Animation Filenames: ro11_01_PC_40.anim_pc, ro11_01_PC_41.anim_pc, ro11_01_PC_43.anim_pc, ro11_01_PC_45.anim_pc
SS05-01 "Taps and Tips" (Shot 6)
Only visible when the Letterbox is removed. Playa's breasts go all wobbly for Shot 6 (and the very last frames of Shot 5).
Click to play GIF:
Animation Filename: ss05_01_PC_6.anim_pc
This issue is PC exclusive. It does not occur on the Console versions.
I always assumed that this issue was caused by distance rendering. But since Cure For Myopia (by @ItsIggy ) doesn't fix it for this cutscene, and no chunk objects are hidden by this cutscene, the problem had to lie elsewhere.
Upon viewing the chunks which are loaded for the cutscene in sr2_chonker (by @Möyh Mäyh ), we found that parts of the Arch were missing from chunk166:
Weirdly, the front and back sides at the top-middle of the Arch are duplicated in the exact same position, but neither actually appear in-game.
This led me to suspect that the Arch is actually part of a different nearby chunk which is not loaded by this cutscene.
Upon viewing a Hotels & Marina district Chunk (chunk167), the full Arch could be found right on the edge:
As Cutscenes can only load up to 3 Chunks (+1 Interior Chunk), our fix unloads chunk178 and chunk177 from the cutscene, since nothing in these Chunks can be seen from the cutscene's camera angles (both Chunks are on the other side of the mountain). We then loaded chunk167 instead, and the arch is now fully visible! If you were to Slew away (credit: Juiced Patch) towards the Hotels & Marina district, you'll notice the beachfront is now also loaded for this cutscene.
In summary; The issue is that during the PC porting process of Saints Row 2, the Arch didn't fully remain in the Museum Chunk.
So chunk166 is not the same as the console version.
"So a Gang Leader Walks In A Bar..." (TSSE01-01) Train Tracks Restoration:
This cutscene hides most pieces of the Train Tracks in Vanilla, but some supports were not hidden, and some of the track still remained in the far distance:
The initial fix was to simply hide the remaining Track pieces (available as an Optional fix). But this meant the lights on the underside of the track would appear floating at night.
But by unhiding any object in the cutscene with the "EL_" prefix, the whole Train Track would be restored! ("EL_" standing for "El Train".)
By viewing the Chunks loaded by this cutscene in sr2_chonker, the names of all Objects in the area became apparent. Some of the objects hidden by the Vanilla version of this cutscene were puzzling. For example, there were trash objects around the corner, or in entirely different streets which were unnecessarily hidden. Even a couple of building hulls were unnecessarily hidden.
And so I decided to completely rework the hidden objects for this cutscene. There is now more trash about the place, and nothing is unnecessarily hidden.
HQ1 Fire Effects:
sr2_chonker does not currently show Effects used in a Chunk. Fortunately, RO10-01 ("Old Friends, Older Enemies") hides all the fire Effects in the main hall of HQ1 for the final Shot. So I unhid each fire Effect one-by-one to come up with this list:
Central Fire:
HQ_main_275
Wall lamps:
HQ_BarrelFireVFXA06
HQ_BarrelFireVFXA07
HQ_BarrelFireVFXA08
HQ_BarrelFireVFXA09
HQ_BarrelFireVFXA10
Using this information, I was able to hide the Central Fire from a couple of cutscenes: "Life On The Farm" (SS03-01) and "Operation Voodoo Drop" (SS07-01).
Aisha's Front Door:
This issue is also present on console versions.
"15 Minutes" (RO02-01) takes place in Aisha's house. But unlike in other cutscenes and in gameplay, there is no front door:
You may also notice the door opens from different sides in different cutscenes. Because of the character's animations, this cannot be fixed.
The cutscene door is also an entirely different design to the one used in the Chunk.
The cutscene door is also an entirely different design to the one used in the Chunk.
In short; I have no idea why there's no front door. I checked all chunks which cover that area of the map. Her front door is located in chunk182 (represented in sr2_chonker by a cube). It is not hidden by the cutscene file.
(chunk182_al only contains doors from the area, none of which seem to be Aisha's.)
To fix it, I just copied the "DOOR" character from TSSP03-01 ("You Don't Have To Go Home..."), and implemented it with it's animations for Shots 6 and 8.
"Old Friends, Older Enemies" fixes:
There were A LOT of issues with this cutscene. I'll cover two of the main ones here:
1. Raising the Camera:
This had to be done to fix the camera clipping through the floor and counter-top in earlier scenes.
The only way I know how to raise the camera is to raise the Slate Navpoint for the cutscene (These values are inverted). This raises the entire Camera Script, so doing this can potentially cause issues elsewhere in the cutscene. Minimal adjustment is recommended.
Doing this also raises the coordinates of any effects used in the cutscene, so their coordinates also had to be adjusted to compensate.
2. The missing Walls and incorrect Staircase:
This was a bit of a complex problem.
The issues can even be seen here in this official unreleased artwork:
The Problem:
The walls at either side of the Staircase were invisible. They were hidden by the cutscene for the final two Shots. But why?
As you can see here, the walls are actually part of a combination of sections combined into a single object (highlighted in white):
This combined object includes the Handrails, the Walls either side of the Staircase, and the Staircase itself (except in HQ2).
It was hidden primarily to hide the Handrail, so it could be replaced by the Handrail in the Effect which gets broken by the bike.
So in restoring the Walls and Staircases, we also had to restore the Handrail. This means the bike phases straight through it. In an effort to help disguise this issue, the central pillar right next to where the bike crashes through has also been restored.
Volition made the effort to cover up the missing Staircase by adding a fake version of the Staircase from HQ1 as an Effect (despite the fact that this Cutscene cannot naturally take place in HQ1).
Keeping on theme, this Effect is also a combination of multiple Effects. It includes the Muzzle Flashes and Bullet Impacts from Gat's AR200, the Smoke and Flying Bannisters from where the bike crashes through them, and the aforementioned Fake Staircase.
This means ALL of these move as one Effect, and so had to be corrected after moving the Slate for the Camera Script.
The Solution:
The Handrail/Walls/Staircase Object is now unhidden for each HQ stage. But that meant the Staircases were clipping with the Fake Staircase. So, once again, the combined Effect had to be moved slightly. The Fake Staircase still exists in Cutscene Patch v1.3, but it's hidden just beneath the real Staircases.
Bonus!: Animation Issues:
These are unfixable. But I wanted to showcase them nevertheless.
BR01-02: "Welcome to the Brotherhood" (Shot 28)
The Playa's Jawline gets warped out of shape for Shot 28 only.
Animation Filename: br01_02_PC_28.anim_pc
RO11-01: "Big Problems in Little China" (Shots 40, 41, 43 and 45)
The Playa's Cheeks are more gaunt than they should be for Shots 40, 41, 43 and 45.
Animation Filenames: ro11_01_PC_40.anim_pc, ro11_01_PC_41.anim_pc, ro11_01_PC_43.anim_pc, ro11_01_PC_45.anim_pc
SS05-01 "Taps and Tips" (Shot 6)
Only visible when the Letterbox is removed. Playa's breasts go all wobbly for Shot 6 (and the very last frames of Shot 5).
Click to play GIF:
Animation Filename: ss05_01_PC_6.anim_pc
