Introduction:

I first joined SHC 5 years ago in 2016 to submit my first entry which was a modified version of Apotos Adventure Pack called "Apotos Unleashed Pack", to many failures. I regretted that day a lot and decided to learn by hard how to arrange my framework properly. Now, exactly 5 years later, the much buggy entry has finally received a new life, thanks to my hard work of learning to mod, the support of Shrey, the original author, and some of my friends who helped me along the way.

Even though this entry is effectively an update to my 2016 one, Apotos isn't the only thing that is going to be submitted. Shamar Adventure Pack will be joining this year's contest as well. I was lucky to be able to acquire permission from TiMan, who is the original author of the mod, to let me work on the new version.

All of the content, including the hub worlds and all levels, are ported directly from the Xbox 360/PS3 version of Sonic Unleashed. Both of the mods have also been carefully updated to support Hedge Mod Manager.

Changelog:

There are many things changed, added, modified, and removed compared to previous versions. Mentioning them all will take a lot of space so I will only list the most important ones:

• Fixed various bugs, from minors, majors, to game-breakings.
• Restored and added various elements that either weren't possible or missing, such as new sounds, quick step sound effects, and minor Unleashed graphical effects such as skybox brightness and depth of field.
• Optimized both mods by removing a lot of unnecessary files, reduced and/or removed many problems.
• Both mods now feature two playstyles: play Apotos and Shamar with standard objects from the vanilla game such as 4-way cannons and trick rainbow rings. You can also choose to play with Unleashed objects such as Jump Selectors, Unleashed rainbow rings, which don't trigger any tricks, and a custom physics file that ported most of the parameters and values from Unleashed itself. Playstyles are toggleable in Hedge Mod Manager's configuration.
• Speaking of which, many options are added to the config. You can play with daytime or nighttime hub worlds, choose between Xbox or PS3 buttons for Jump Selectors, and more.
• Exclusive to Apotos: Act 1 has been relocated to the swimming pool in the hub world instead of being hidden out of nowhere. Also included are all the currently founded beta textures which have higher resolutions.

Installation:

• Extract this archive to the "mods" folder where your Sonic Generations installation is located. It can be found if you have Hedge Mod Manager installed. E.g "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sonic Generations\mods".
• Open HedgeModManager, tick "Apotos Adventure Pack" or "Shamar Adventure Pack", then Save & Play. Install Mod Loader in the Settings section, then tick "Enable Mod Loader" if you haven't done it yet.
• You can only play one mod at a time because Sonic Generations does not support multiple hubs and custom stage slots.
• Hover your mouse to either of those mods in HedgeModManager, right-click to bring up a drop-down list, then choose "Configure Mod". A configuration menu will be opened, and here you can choose to turn whatever options you want on or off. Note that some options will only work if another is enabled. E.g toggling between Xbox and PS3 Jump Selector buttons requires "Unleashed Objects" to be enabled.
• "Better FxPipeline" and "Direct3D9 Ex" mods by Skyth are greatly advised to play with this entry.

Issues:

Even though I had tried my best to make Apotos and Shamar as smooth as possible, issues may happen during your gameplay. This is due to both mods were re-structured to work with Hedge Mod Manager's Configuration. Rest assured, none of the issues I'm gonna list below will have major effects on your overall experience:

1. Due to the sound files limitation of Sonic Generations, if you notice some sound effects or music not playing, that means it has reached the sound file limit. This is likely because of additional mods that exceeded such limits, such as BrianuuuSonic's Navigation & Lightdash Sound Recreation. I tried to use fewer sound files as possible, as trying to reduce more would slowly break the mods and eventually would become unplayable. It is best not to use any mods adding more sounds that have potential to exceeding the limits.
2. The new versions removed bb redirection because it doesn't work with HMM's Config feature, therefore the overall file size has been increased.
3. Score Generations is not supported for Apotos, and has limited support for Shamar which can be downloaded from the mod's Gamebanana release page. Chao mission is unsupported.
4. The following issues are exclusive to Shamar:

• Default Rainbow Ring may randomly appear completely white during action stages. This is the same problem that happened in Chun-Nan Adventure Pack mod, as it was made by the same author, TiMan, which I don't know why it happens and how to fix that.
• Act 1 has messed up info in the hub world. The reason for this is because of the save file that comes with the mod. The problem also applies with other stage IDs not part of the mod itself. Unless there is a save file editor, there is no way to fix that. Trying any other saves would cause Act 3 inaccessible.
• Starting a new game from the in-game menu causes Act 3 to be inaccessible from the hub world. Again, it's due to the provided save file, and without a proper save editor, nothing can be done. If you really want to start over, locate the backup save called "sonic.sav.new" in ".../Shamar Adventure Pack/core_main/Saves" and rename it to "sonic.sav". Make sure to back it up first!

Final word:

I spent a year for this entry to make it happen, so hopefully, the amount of hard work will go well. I am not gonna ask anything, and the only thing I want is your smooth experience with my entry. Thank you for playing!