I stumbled upon something which outlined what was going on with the early delays due to epilepsy testing, and I can only imagine the additional 4 teams, offline 2 player, etc were all thrown in at the last minute since there was such a delay.
But their link to a comparison video for zone mode no longer works. I'm really curious to see early Zone footage because I never really kept up with progress of the game when it was in early development. Does anyone have links online to early videos?
I found this one very early video which has a lot of graphic and detail differences, along with early ship models like the goofy Qirex design (that was thankfully scrapped): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d-AlBQFiAY
(personally, i like some of these course designs better, and the announcer voices are awesome) ...interesting note, it seems like only Qirex, Piranha, and FEISAR are in that video.
This might be the reason Kolex is getting those weird zone effects in photo mode.
The original code might still be able to be accessed once in photo mode.
Aside from the rhythm visualizer, the major difference visually is the lack of a depth gradient for buildings and other offtrack structures. You know how the tower in Vineta K might look pink from far away but appear red as you get closer? That's what I mean by "depth gradient" and those colors can be changed with the photo mode bug, but not removed, AFAIK.
Since a gradient is used to define depth in the final build, that also means that buildings have little or no 3D shading from independent light sources. Compared to the preview build, the offtrack world looks flat and bland, especially while in a tunnel. Instead the preview build's structures all have their own depth and their colors are not dependent on your proximity. Going through the tunnels in Vineta K is a thousand times more lively in the preview build.
So, does anyone have it and, if so, how many zeroes do you want me to write on this check?
wow, just wow. words can not describe how beautiful proto zone mode was. i was expecting a lot more flashy lights but it was just better colors and sharper looking visual eqs.
The buildings actually look somewhat like how they would in Detonator, except zones like Flash where they turn colors other than black. So it looks like they might have kept some of the preview build zone code for Detonator, which doesn't appear to have a depth gradient.
Vineta K has the wet reflective effect on the track coming out of the tunnels in Detonator. You can see it in the preview build zone mode as well, before zone 15.