There seems to be a ping on my radar. I'll be interested to see how far you guys got with 3 1/2 months. Not to mention what you've done level design wise.
So far, only about a tenth of the island had actually been built, but that's enough to show off in an announcement trailer. Tomorrow's the big day. Wheeeeeeeee....
In case you missed the edited opening post.... Tadaaaaa~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spbQ4-B-hSM&lc=YDI5IxmSuMt8xjpj0GYNbw6idR0VM_a3fMjluVH7LVE
Nothing wrong with what I saw there! Looks good Nitpick though, it seems on 99% of GDK videos the author hasn't built the lighting - it looks much better for doing it, even on preview. It really doesn't take long either.
Well, I wouldn't know anything about that. "Dashtube" as he's called here is the Godsend programming this whole thing. I'm just drawing maps for him to base the 3D models on.
I simply didn't have time to do it before recording the footage (Or at least I thought I didn't because I thought it would take a really long time to re-render the lighting). Owell :v
Well looks pretty decent. The level looks well-built, and seems to have some great focus on exploration. I just wish you guys didn't used as much the Terrain tool as you did. I mean, nothing against it, of course, but Sonic needs to walk on smoother floors, imo. Also, splines would do you guys a great favor (specially at 2:02 part, which was just painfull to watch). Also some different textures, some particles, foliage, better lighting, better camereas, post-processing, color correction wouldn't do you any harm. Overall, this looks like a fine and fun piece, but at the same time, looks exactly as almost all SGDK's videos ever released... A whole bunch of UDK assets put together to form a stage, on which 99% of the stage is made of terrain. And I don't blame you guys, when I started messing with UDK I did the exactly same thing. Also, I'm tired of seeing this Spiral Islands' ocean material everywhere. I mean, it's a great material, no doubt, but when you see it everywhere it gets to a point where it's annoying.
Looking good for an early demo. But as with most GDK projects that I see, I'd really wish the camera was given a more rigid system to accommodate the areas in the stage, and I really hope that someone is able to incorporate the drift rather than rotating the camera to turn; it makes the game look clunky. Less floaty low-speed movement would benefit it as well. But that may be a limitation of the engine rather than something that could be fixed, so yeah. Looking forward to seeing more!
We're trying to avoid any splines that aren't absolutely necessary. If the player wants to get to the top of that island, they can easily just run up there. Anyway... this project is still in its infancy. There's always wiggle room for tweaking the terrain and changing the textures. Keep in mind that no, most of the island will NOT look like that grassy area. The point of that place is simply to be a playground where the player practices rolling around to get the hang of the physics an' whatnot, before going on their merry way to more focused platforming challenges. There's a time and place for everything, and we really are trying to throw a little of everything in there. I honestly can't stand drifting. I'd rather Sonic just have good controls and be able to turn on a time, with ease. In the daytime stages and even the modern stages, Sonic feels like a car on ice skates. That just isn't the kind of feel I want for this game. I want the player to be able to relax and explore at their leisure without fighting the controls. As for the camera... I'd rather be able to control where it points manually and be able to go whichever way I want then just let the game tell me where I'm allowed to go. That said, there's always room for tweaking things to make them less... clunky.
Gotcha. Looks challenging and ambitious, nice. :3 About the splines usage, I totally get it, no worries. Just try making those sections, like I pointed out in my previous post, a little wider, because, like I said, in the video it was pretty painfull to watch. And well... Let's see the final output. Looking foward.
As ever with games made with this engine, the animations on Sonic's model are hideous. That really needs fixing. Other than that, looks pretty enough.
I experimented with various water surface textures. Most of them looked jarring and swampy as boundless oceans compared to the apparently overused Spiral Island's Ocean texture. I would make one myself but it would look bad in comparison even to those UDK stock brown-ish water textures. But hey, maybe someone could contribute a good water surface texture later down the line. I don't like it either. We will try to craft something that looks more like Sonic CD's intro Sonic as we get more of the island done.
I like the open focus but I gotta push this. Sonic's basic animations in GDK are just awful and really distract me from a lot of things. Good to know you are doing this. The clever bits where you get inside the house by rolling under and jump under broken floorboard is some chill exploration design. I think I can dig it. I'll wait till you guys get everything you want put together. Though I sort of agree on adding a drifting option for tight spirals and corners. Just don't make it so loose noodle and only improve turning radius a bit.
On preview it doesn't take too long. On my level it takes about 20-30 minutes to build the lighting. I haven't done it any higher yet to save time. If you ever want any assistance, PM me, I don't mind
NEAT, huh? This is what you can do with classic-esque physics in a 3D world, thanks to the Sonic GDK team for the very accurate classic physics engine.
