Can anyone paint (even if it is computerized painting)? I've always thought the ending sequence looked painted, so that may be a good route to go with the ending frames.
I'll echo what GerbilSoft said. Unless you're working in 3D space, there's rarely a good reason to even consider bump mapping. More often than not, a 2D texture artist responsible for a given piece will just paint in the shadow details depending on where the intended light source is.
Im making a concept Paint ending with a Graphic table if you wanna know =P... Its not even finish but wait for some wips
<!--quoteo(post=231804:date=Oct 4 2008, 07:50 AM:name=PlasmaNuke)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (PlasmaNuke @ Oct 4 2008, 07:50 AM) Here you go, that is the orange, yellow and white marble blocks. As I said above, still need to add detail to make it rougher and the final version will have a few different seem options for each colour to add variance to the level.[/quote] I think that the main thing to do is to make crackles sharper and add more depth to bricks by adding shadings on edges. A slight texture effect may come in handy! :D [/quote] I think you should also have a little variety with the cracks. Looking at the same brick over and over might be a little bit monotonous. [/quote] Indeed, a little bit like bathroom tiles =P Anyway, regarding the Bump Mapping, what if it's pre-rendered bump mapping? That way it'll have the look you're after, but without clogging up the rescources. In my own opinion though, I think that each brick should be done with different cracks, probably about 7 or 8 different bricks, which can then have different colors applied to them. The bricks also seem way too clean, hence the bathroom tiles comment. Try making them more rugged, as if they're actually part of a ruins.
<!--quoteo(post=231990:date=Oct 4 2008, 04:39 PM:name=GerbilSoft)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GerbilSoft @ Oct 4 2008, 04:39 PM) Here you go, that is the orange, yellow and white marble blocks. As I said above, still need to add detail to make it rougher and the final version will have a few different seem options for each colour to add variance to the level.[/quote] I'd suggest keeping the blocks the same and then applying bump mapping in the rendering engine. Artists wouldn't have to produce several different copies of the bricks that way and you'd be sure the bricks blended together correctly. If done right, it could handle both the seams and the rough texture of the blocks. Not a sermon, just a thought. [/quote] Bump mapping in a 2D game is serious overkill. For 2D objects, prerendering would be better. [/quote] From a performance standpoint, the question here is RAM space vs. graphics card capabilities. All cards on the market today do bump mapping in hardware, and since pixel shaders are being used for other things, this won't bottleneck the GPU. But, in order to utilize the advantages, there's another issue here: The main reason to bump map is because you want a lower res texture, which I'm guessing the artists would shit bricks over - even if the whole idea is to produce a rougher quality surface (like with the Aquatic Ruin blocks). In truth, some of the tiles that are supposed to have that rougher feel might actually save resources, especially RAM wise, by using BM with lower res textures (which would be OK, as they'd mostly be solid colors anyway). One note: I'm 100% on the side of the artists here - this is an art project. If RAM concerns aren't an issue, then maybe making several different copies of each block and prerendering (and testing) all of the combinations is the way to go. I was suggesting BM mostly as a solution to ensure the blocks looked OK when tiled - my theory is that applying a filter to each block individually and then tiling several blocks with different filters will look like crap, but I'm totally open to be proven wrong on that point.
Just displaying the words "bump mapping" makes my GPU (if you can really call it that) throw a tempter tantrum in expectation for what it will have to deal with.
Forgive my naivete, but I don't see what could possibly justify doing any sort of bump-mapping in-game. Bump mapping saves time in 3D games because you don't want to have to define the complex polygons needed to accurately portray the geometries of bumpy objects, so you only have the smooth polygon defined but then the GPU calculates how to shade the poly such that it looks as if light was striking off the various angular pretend polygons. For a 2D game, since we have to draw each pixel no matter what, and making a pixel black vs white vs purple takes 0 additional resources, whereas drawing a flat wall versus a bumpy wall takes a magnitude of more time and resources to render, then all art should have its effects enacted on in the image itself. The only use of shaders I could possibly see would be for some interesting dynamic effects for instance a water shader to make the wavy effects one might see underwater. But for all static effects, please for the love of God bake them into the image prior. (Note, if this post has a slight anti-shader bias, I apologize, I've been fighting with shaders all week. HLSL is definately an interesting beast, heh)
Hey, I am just scanning through your text quickly, and noticed the bump-mapping stuff. I think that bump-mapping requires light. My engine skips all transformation and lit stuff to produce pixel aspect results. But it allows multiple textures, and it could be mixed together with HLSL to make cool effects. However at this point in development I am not going to waste time on effects, still it is good to plan stuff before it is too late to implement them.
As already said, keep up with the good work. It is really shaping out great, I especially love the spheres with a Glass-ish effect! :v: Keep everyone updated here!
My laptop went a bit wonky, hence my being away for some time. I've just got my new PC up and running so I'll have another go at the tiles this weekend (Hopefully I wont be too distracted by Fallout).
Hi all. I'm a newbie here with no tech skills, but I have two somethings. Although I haven't done anything to them, well, I don't know how to use my image editor very well. Therefore, I was hoping someone else could "HD" them. More to come, if wanted. EDIT: I can post now? Sweet... EDIT2: All I did was save you some editing, whoever completes these.
Well, as I said: "All I did was save you some editing, whoever completes these." As in, I made them big (15x normal size, for the record) and outlined them. nothing else. If this isn't useful, well...I don't know. But anyway, I did something, and (although it sucks) I like the fact that I contributed to a project that I think should go on. Also: That's a bit better...can someone re-post the color palette? (Note: Didn't/Don't know how to use vectors. Is that Illegal here?)
Andyman, welcome to S2HD! Before contributing have a read on the Contribution Rules & Guidelines Topic If you'd like to start drawing to Vector Art, I suggest you to follow HD Drawing Tutorials Topic with Adobe Illustrator CS2 software. Have a nice posting and Merry Christmas!
Hi guys, Really pleased to be here - I only just discovered this project today whilst at uni and it blew me away - it's the stuff blue spiked dreams are made of. Anyhew, I wanted to kick off with a piece of work that may be jumping the gun a bit, but it's something I created two years ago... almost with wishful anticipation of such a project as this one coming to fruition. Basically, its a poster for Sonic 2 designed in the classic airbrushed style of the classic Japanese Megadrive boxart albeit with a darker, smoother colour palette - maybe more akin to the art deco aesthetic undercurrent that runs through Sonic's 1 and 2. Hopefully I can contribute more if any of my work meets the approval of the discerning eyes here! I've been well impressed with what I've seen so far - good stuff!!
Thanks scanline99, we are doing our best to deliver the most pleasing HD experience for a Sonic game ever done! ^^ Did you draw this from scratch? Words cannot express how much of your HD skills would be put to use on S2HD. if you remove the Green eyes (and keeping only the orange reflection, as the original artworks) the road for joining our staff will be really short. Spectacular work.
Cheers for the speedy and highly complimentary response, Vincent. Absolutely, I wouldn't have considered posting it otherwise had it not been entirely my own work - that was always the intention . Hell, I even took screenshots of it at various states of completion just in case people asked (and of course, there are the original pencil drawings as well) - so if you want them, just ask and I can PM them over or whatever you like. I figured the green eyes would be a no-no, but then again, I made this for myself at the time, so I felt like mixing and matching. Obviously, I can set to work on switching them back, no worries. And by the way, the first piece of work that I saw relating to Sonic 2 HD was your Sonic running sprite and it's unbelievable, and then I saw all the surrounding work as well... mental! I'm well in support of it all.
You've got some remarkable talent to say the least (and clearly well above and beyond that), I fully agree with Vincent that we could use a staff artist with your ability
