Project AXSX (Sonic Xtreme and SONIC CD REMIX A 2.5D game)

Hmm not an easy question to answer as its a long process.
I'll try to give some important steps that I used.
May be missing some steps, I'm sure you can fill in the blanks.
lets see,
I started off using a single plane model,
*converted that to an edit polygon,
*made a circle shape( spline),
*used the circle shape with the cut tool and 2.5 snaps to cut a circle out of the plane,
*deleted the inner face,(circle)
*cut the shape of the outer most portion to produce the shape for the loop base.( using 2.5 vertex snap to grid)
*cut more lines from each vertex of the circle to the outer edge of the loop base( or parameter).
*moved vertex accordingly to form the depth offset for the frontal and background ramp
*than in line edge mode drag+shift all the outline edges to make depth for walkable area and base parameter
*clone mirror front faces to back than weld and adjust vertex ect.
*finally UV unwrap.

Have you tried to make a loop yet?
If so, lets see what you have there, perhaps I can give some tips to fix any problems you may have.
There are many ways to make loops for sonic games, I've made many loops in the past using various methods.
The above method was used to make the ghz loop.

 

Hmm,,,,
, just made a quick and dirty loop in about 5 minutes,
hope this helps as a good starting place.
You'll need to do the UV unwrap yourself though.
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If I were to continue this loop, I'd cut away around the parameter of the block frame to give it some personality.
EDIT: ( also to make this all Quads I'd Target weld the bottom right corner there, Sorry I forgot to do that as I was rushing.
oh and under the loop lip (near bottom) there are a few triangles that may need taking care of. sorry again.

 

Yeah, for the example that was just uploaded I used a Helix spline, than added a extrude modifier, the rest done with edit poly mode

 

I think there is an importer script for the terrain files for Generations actually, you'd have to ask TwilightZoney for that.

Personally I don't care much for the official Sega stuff, you probably wont catch me using it unless its for Xtreme.
Also with a bit more messing around for the loop example I posted.
I came up with a quick and dirty high poly model for baking normal maps lol.
However,,Nothing id use though. as I didn't really put any effort into this thing. ( just wanted to show whats possible)

 

Thanks,



Some more screwing around. had a bit of fun with this one. lol
Well its time to get back to doing 32 bit Saturn like graphics.

 

another variation of the loop in UDK. ( wanted to get familiar with some UDK work-flow stuff here)
I won't be adding anything else to these loops, they will be going into the trash bin. lol

 

Oops ,, I forgot you can also ask darkspines35 for the Maxscript as well.
I know he put a lot of work into that thing !

 

Coming Soon......

 

Seeing the level in motion is sort of trippy !
This game may need some kind of epilepsy warning to go with it. hahaha.

The physics aren't perfect, but pretty close, We think Mostly due to the limitations of UDK.
The biggest issues that I have with the engine are to do with ground collision detection.

For example When using 2 small micro hills or bumps, they are not always detected because they are so close to each other causing the engine to see them as being flat. ( sometimes)
this kind of tosses a wrench in the jump launch physics direction accuracy in certain situations.

I had a workaround that I pitched to Xak, but he thinks its something that can't be done in UDK.

anyhow I'm happy with how its turning out so far.

 

Ok guys ! I need a beta tester for this Green hill zone....
Today is 7 18 2012.. kind of an anniversary for one of the sonic Xtreme tech demos that was released.
Hmm what year was that? 1996?
Although this is not a Sonic Xtreme level, it is still very important for the project as a tool to tweak our sonic feel.

Anyhow, please PM me with computer specs and a beta test may be sent your way,,,,,Just maybe.


Edit:
Almost have enough testers, still need someone with an ATI card.

 

Thanks, and sorry but I have enough testers for now, I appreciate the offer.

 

Probably wont run if you had problems with Green hill paradise, firstly this project is running on udk,(like GHP) I wouldn't really consider UDK a light game engine.
also pixelated textures don't mean squat for Sonic Xtreme, as there are lots of complex shaders going on behind the scenes, most notably the Fisheye.
I could be using higher quality textures and you wouldn't see much difference in performance.

For my 3D Green hill zone, the textures may be low res but there are well over 200 custom textures used for the models, due to the individually of each one, to stay true to sonic 1.

On the model side of things, there are over 200 hand crafted models used to make up just act 1 of green hill zone. (that is a lot of polygons.)
The kismet sequences used to program all the props within the levels are also very complex,
For example the platforms that fall when sonic stands on them use well over 100 instruction nods.
all this together will impact performance.
(what looks simple on the outside is actually a complex beast)


If I were to modernize this GHZ, I could get by with using less than 20 textures, and much simpler models,
as I wouldn't need to worry about having all the shading built into each texture, and the 1000s of custom UV mapped model pieces used to build the 200 or so level chunks.


In compression Generations would probably run better for you than this game, as it uses far less resources for each level.( models textures, shaders )