Pretty sure nobody is reading this thread at this point, but a very interesting development I made tonight:
I modified a THAW CAS and loaded it in the game. Unfortunately Neversoft has clamped the values to a maximum of 0x5A and 0x4B. I verified this by changing the values, updating the checksum, importing the save file, loading THAW, saving the file in THAW, and re-exporting it again to view in a hex editor. So in short, Neversoft took note of this in THUG2 and didn't want a bunch of flashy messes when people were playing online in THAW.
I saw PCSX2 got some major updates recently, and decided I would pick up this "cold case" and blow off the dust. What I concluded nearly 6 years ago is incorrect. The false premise that lead me to this conclusion is Neversoft clamped the maximum saturation and value variables for the colors when saving and loading a skater file in THAW. While the values are limited upon loading a file if I inject hex values 0x65 and 0x56 for saturation and value for any skater clothing or accessory, that is not the reason why my initial test in THAW didn't work. I'm actually not sure why the flash glitch didn't work in THAW. Logically then, by extension Neversoft either didn't know about the glitch, knew about it and didn't patch it out, or simply couldn't due to time constraints before release. It's also likely they were aware of it but couldn't find the underlying cause.
That doesn't mean the effect itself isn't achievable, if someone would be so kind as to write an infinite colors Gameshark code for THAW I would be able to say for sure if it's possible at all or not.
This was right under my nose and I just didn't find the correct thread. A bunch of Gameshark codes for THAW were actually here, including the crucial CAS infinite saturation and value codes:
http://www.thps-mods.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2936Of course, that site is down now. By some miracle, Brave Search still showed that thread in a search result. It's frustrating how difficult it is to preserve this kind of information in 2025. Anyway, someone was kind enough to archive this thread in the Wayback Machine. One single copy from 2022:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220924080012/http://www.thps-mods.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2936The THAW codes for what I was looking for:
Inf. Saturation Scales:
20D0CD54 00000000
20D0CD68 00000000
Inf. Value Scales:
20D0CD7C 00000000
20D0CD90 00000000
If we find this effect is possible in THAW that would be pretty amazing.
Ladies and gentlemen,
it is possible. CAS flash works in THAW, and the glitch is persistent across CAS save files. More to come in a new thread with lots of screenshots:
https://thpsx.com/forums/index.php?topic=1752.msg9247