[nineko]

Stealth, on Jan 9 2009, 03:34 AM, said:

Throwing C# into the mix also makes me laugh and vomit. Microsoft.. goodbye standards and portability (and if I'm not mistaken, that's one of the things this group was looking for, which is one of the only "cons" to development with E02). Normal MSVC is bad enough, and I personally don't even touch C++ if my hands aren't tied. If you can't do it with C, it's not worth trying. This isn't even to mention the fact that you seem to be concerned only with developing a follow-up to a game that ran on the GENESIS that JUST runs "reasonably" on hardware that was developed within the last 5 years or so. That's the attitude that has plagued the entire industry for the last decade, and it's utterly disgusting.
[...]
Also, I might as well get this out there while I'm already at it. I'm disgusted by the conversations that were going on about billion-color non-palletized graphics. First of all, I imagine that they still would have used palettized graphics in a 2D Sonic game on the Saturn, and the highest-end system running any 2D games at the moment (GBA/DS platforms) use a higher number of colors, but are STILL restricted to 2 palettes (one 256-color palette for backgrounds, and one 256-color palette for sprites), and THAT should be the MAXIMUM that ANYONE developing this sort of project should aim for.
[...]
And a final thought, I'm also disgusted by all this talk about .mp3/.ogg/etc. The people that mentioned moduled music have it right. It's the perfect balance between size and quality, and it's not hard to use. It also lends itself well to looping, speed/pitch effects, channel toggle, and even things like dynamic music. That sort of thing is by far not "out-of-date", as it is still relevant and in-use today, and in general anyone using anything else is just being wasteful. As far as Sonic Jam goes, streaming PCM from files on the CD was a poor choice on Sega's part, but it was probably due to not having enough time to otherwise accurately reproduce the original music. The Saturn certainly had the ability to use CD audio, but for a large soundtrack, moduled music would certainly still be a superior decision, as it would take up MUCH less space and not require streaming (in addition to the other benefits I already mentioned)

I 100% agree with the above points. I know I had frictions with Stealth in the past, but I was wrong and he was right, I was ignorant about many things concerning his SonED2 and his E02, and I was just going by "what people said". If this thing is going to end up on a fan engine and not on a Genesis, E02 is the best pick we currently have. It is well programmed and reasonably optimised, something that gets forgotten way too often these days, as Stealth said too. Using an unnecessary language like C# would lead to a sloppy engine, which maybe will replicate the physics just like E02 does (I doubt that), but would require a computer at least twice as powerful, if not more. New programmers are getting lazy, I will never stress this enough. Stealth has been a programmer since forever so he knows what "optimization" means. I'm younger than him but I, too, had the chance to make programs on computers where the RAM was in kilobytes rather than in megabytes or even in gigabytes, and processors' speeds were less than 10MHz, and I feel disgusted when I see people using 64-bit variables to store a boolean and stuff like that. Probably ProSonic will be a valid Sonic engine too, I still think Saxman is going to do a great work with it, and probably it will be a fair competitor to E02 in the future, but as things are currently, E02 is the best option for a project like this. And no, I won't edit my previous post in this thread, because I thought that when I posted that and I would lie if I say that I didn't think that, but opinions aren't set in stone, and people can change their mind.

I agree also about the palette discussion. We don't need billion colors to do something good, palettes are still the best approach when it comes to graphics, in my opinion. Unlimited colors would only increase the file size a lot without a reasonable improvement in the quality. Besides, effects like Super Sonic can be done very easily with palette rotations, but would require other techniques such as HUE rotation (oh hi I need to eat your CPU power) to be done without palettes. 256 colors are a lot for pixel art. I can hear ICEknight saying that they didn't use gradients back in the day, they used dithering and an NTSC filter. Well then, ICEknight is right.

Finally, module files. Should I really write down my thoughts about them? They can give a lot of flexibility to the soundtrack as Stealth also mentioned, speed/pitch changes, channel muting, looping, and so on, and they can be as high quality as we want them to be, it all depends on the samples used in them. They can sound exactly like MIDI files if you throw a GM/GS/XG soundfont into them, so people who are more familiar with MIDI files won't lose their work at all, since it can be "ported" to the better XM/IT format without losing any feature, nonetheless they can GET new features which aren't standard in a MIDI, like looping. But module files can sound like a YM2612 too if you load proper samples. Basically module files can sound like EVERYTHING YOU WANT, they're superior, and I will support this choice of format as long as it will be possible. If you go for mp3/ogg/wav/aif/aac, good luck at making them loop flawlessly. Also, filesize.

Just my two cents, but as the note in my signature says, feel free to ignore this post.

[Stealth]

GerbilSoft, on Jan 8 2009, 07:01 PM, said:

Stealth, on Jan 8 2009, 09:34 PM, said:

Also on the subject of graphics, I'm also still disgusted by the talk about .gif/.png/etc that people keep bringing up to ANYONE developing any games or utilities. Those formats are BLOATED with TOO MUCH UNNECESSARY DATA. PNG is a complete NIGHTMARE. Settle for something more practical like .pcx or .tga.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this. PNG is actually a very good format, and is relatively simple to integrate into any program by using the open-source libpng. That, and most images are actually smaller in PNG format than in an equivalent uncompressed format due to gzip compression. Sure, there might be some CPU overhead when loading the image, but on most systems made after 1999 (and maybe even earlier), disk I/O is the bottleneck, not CPU.

GIF, on the other hand, *is* an obsolete format with regards to games. Pretty much the only good use for GIF is animated web graphics, and even that's being phased out by APNG.

My point is the content of the format. Have you actually looked inside of PNG? It's sickening. There are way too many things IN the format, and as I've been told in a recent conversation with a very respectable individual, it wasn't even developed properly in the first place, due to things like misusing the compression format, and layering more and more filters and crap on top to try and compensate. Anyway, the main point of my argument was that PNG is ENTIRELY unnecessary for game development. There are SO many options and "features" to PNG and other formats that go entirely UNNEEDED, and you'd be better off using a straightforward format that's designed to hold a palletized image, and nothing else. For me, for example, libpng would just be a ton of added clutter. I don't see where it has any real practical use in this project, either. It's for image sharing, not for game development

[GerbilSoft]

Stealth, on Jan 8 2009, 10:17 PM, said:

GerbilSoft, on Jan 8 2009, 07:01 PM, said:

Stealth, on Jan 8 2009, 09:34 PM, said:

Also on the subject of graphics, I'm also still disgusted by the talk about .gif/.png/etc that people keep bringing up to ANYONE developing any games or utilities. Those formats are BLOATED with TOO MUCH UNNECESSARY DATA. PNG is a complete NIGHTMARE. Settle for something more practical like .pcx or .tga.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this. PNG is actually a very good format, and is relatively simple to integrate into any program by using the open-source libpng. That, and most images are actually smaller in PNG format than in an equivalent uncompressed format due to gzip compression. Sure, there might be some CPU overhead when loading the image, but on most systems made after 1999 (and maybe even earlier), disk I/O is the bottleneck, not CPU.

GIF, on the other hand, *is* an obsolete format with regards to games. Pretty much the only good use for GIF is animated web graphics, and even that's being phased out by APNG.

My point is the content of the format. Have you actually looked inside of PNG? It's sickening. There are way too many things IN the format, and as I've been told in a recent conversation with a very respectable individual, it wasn't even developed properly in the first place, due to things like misusing the compression format, and layering more and more filters and crap on top to try and compensate. Anyway, the main point of my argument was that PNG is ENTIRELY unnecessary for game development. There are SO many options and "features" to PNG and other formats that go entirely UNNEEDED, and you'd be better off using a straightforward format that's designed to hold a palletized image, and nothing else. For me, for example, libpng would just be a ton of added clutter. I don't see where it has any real practical use in this project, either. It's for image sharing, not for game development

There are definitely chunks defined in the PNG standard that aren't needed for most purposes, but from what I've seen, the basic four chunks (IHDR, IDAT, PLTE for paletted images, and IEND) don't seem too problematic. It's all the other stuff like sBIT, tRNS, cHRM, and gAMA that make things irritating.

I suppose that if you're developing a game designed for a 320x240 display, then PNG is overkill. It's when you start getting into higher resolutions that PNG can help out with e.g. load times.

This post has been edited by GerbilSoft: 08 January 2009 - 10:25 PM

[nineko]

Stealth, on Jan 9 2009, 04:17 AM, said:

GerbilSoft, on Jan 8 2009, 07:01 PM, said:

Stealth, on Jan 8 2009, 09:34 PM, said:

Also on the subject of graphics, I'm also still disgusted by the talk about .gif/.png/etc that people keep bringing up to ANYONE developing any games or utilities. Those formats are BLOATED with TOO MUCH UNNECESSARY DATA. PNG is a complete NIGHTMARE. Settle for something more practical like .pcx or .tga.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this. PNG is actually a very good format, and is relatively simple to integrate into any program by using the open-source libpng. That, and most images are actually smaller in PNG format than in an equivalent uncompressed format due to gzip compression. Sure, there might be some CPU overhead when loading the image, but on most systems made after 1999 (and maybe even earlier), disk I/O is the bottleneck, not CPU.

GIF, on the other hand, *is* an obsolete format with regards to games. Pretty much the only good use for GIF is animated web graphics, and even that's being phased out by APNG.

My point is the content of the format. Have you actually looked inside of PNG? It's sickening. There are way too many things IN the format, and as I've been told in a recent conversation with a very respectable individual, it wasn't even developed properly in the first place, due to things like misusing the compression format, and layering more and more filters and crap on top to try and compensate. Anyway, the main point of my argument was that PNG is ENTIRELY unnecessary for game development. There are SO many options and "features" to PNG and other formats that go entirely UNNEEDED, and you'd be better off using a straightforward format that's designed to hold a palletized image, and nothing else. For me, for example, libpng would just be a ton of added clutter. I don't see where it has any real practical use in this project, either. It's for image sharing, not for game development

On the good side, the PNG format provides a very good compression which is usually better than any other image format; on the bad side, PNG chunks introduce a lot of overhead, many people maybe don't know that each PNG chunk requires 4 bytes to tell the size of the chunk itself, 4 bytes of chunk identifier, 4 bytes of checksum. That's 12 bytes per chunk, including the "IEND" chunk which is ALWAYS empty by definition, so its 12 bytes are always the same. You may think that 36, 48 or even 60 bytes of overhead aren't that much when the files are bigger than some kilobyte, but their relative weight is much higher in sprites that are just a few hundred bytes big. PCX is obsolete in many ways, but once again, it's the best choice for something like this, because it's so easy to decode it's almost painful (even I could write a PCX reader in Quick Basic, and I hate to work with graphics so yeah).
PNG is a good format, yes, not the absolute truth.

edit: typo

This post has been edited by nineko: 08 January 2009 - 10:30 PM

[muteKi]

In regards to moduled music I've been doing everything in ModPlug anyway so I have nothing against using it over OGG or MP3 format (I have them saved in XM format, incidentally).

In fact, moduled formats would be easier to critique and edit!

[Tweaker]

As I've said through other mediums, the concern was never that moduled music was less practical or less technically optimized. My personal concern was the lack of prominent, available talent that is proficient enough with modtracking to create high quality, Sonic-esque music that both fits the mood and has samples that bring the music up to relatively decent standards. Remember—even FM synthesis has 44khz, fresh, realtime sound. Most modules may have samples which aren't as top-notch quality for space reasons or something.

If I had to point out superb moduled music, then consider the past music in Sonic CD. The samples used were extremely appropriate, sound modern, fit the style of music very well, and just sound... well, good. Do we have the kind of talent who can track modules with that same level of quality and aesthetic appeal? If so, then it's the right decision to make. If not, though, then the only practical choice we have is through a PCM-based music format, where the only limitations on what the music can sound like are up to the creative abilities of its composer.

Want another example of a fantastic module? Listen to this. Fantastic samples, fantastic melody, and a very modern, appealing soundscape. This is the level of quality we should strive to achieve; running a MIDI and applying sample rips from the Microsoft GS Synthesizer just won't cut it.

So, here's my question—who has the talent? Who's willing? Is this even a feasible course of action considering the talent we have available? We seriously need to explore this if moduled music is the way to go.

[grap3fruitman]

I still don't understand why this is being done on a pc written engine and not as a rom hack. It would kind of avoid all this bitching... and be playable on every platform with a Genesis emulator on it.

[DimensionWarped]

Have you ever seen a rom hack that even comes close to being a whole new game? I know I haven't. Even Megamix is a long way off from that.

This post has been edited by DimensionWarped: 09 January 2009 - 02:09 AM

[Rika Chou]

DimensionWarped, on Jan 9 2009, 08:08 AM, said:

Have you ever seen a rom hack that even comes close to being a whole new game? I know I haven't. Even Megamix is a long way off from that.

That does not mean it's not possible, just because it hasn't been done. With the right people working on this, with the work I've seen posted so far, it could be done. (though the awesome sprites that are being made would suffer because of the palette limits.)

It could always be done for the 32x, that way the sprites would work. It could be written from scratch so it wouldn't be a ROM hack. (Though Sonic 2 and 3 were both kinda hacks of the previous game...)

Though in the end I just don't want this to be for PC only, as long as I can play it on a game system then I'll be happy.

This post has been edited by Rika Chou: 09 January 2009 - 02:27 AM

[Chimpo]

ITT: Temper Tantrums.

What the fuck is this shit? What are we, 12?

And I'd really hate to see this be turned into a rom hack. Fuck that shit homes, let's get some real blast processing going.

This post has been edited by Chimpo: 09 January 2009 - 02:22 AM

[Jayextee]

Stealth: Let the artists dictate the art, and the coder dictate the code. At the end of the day, we're looking at the most creative, highest quality 'product' possible (with certain restrictions in place only to keep the feel authentic).

.png offers layers, translucencies... and is supported by almost fucking everything these days -- find a better format which offers the same.

Moduled music is great, but few actually know how to make it, which cuts away a lot of potential talent. Also, in terms of EQs and other filters, a compressed real audio is the only way to go, sorry. Also, say we were to have a vocal-based tune anywhere (Say, end credits), to maintain a great quality in a module the size would be gigantic compared to, say a 192kbps .OGG file.

Also, can I make it known to everybody involved that this is the first we've heard from Stealth since the change in leadership (Rika and Phoebius leavin, Matwek and myself stepping in) prompted by this post, of Stealth's. Well, Matwek and I wrote plans to set a clear and concise direction for the project to go in, and I personally PMed Stealth to ask his opinion on the new direction, which was totally ignored -- he only bothers to turn up when his work (E02 in this case) is insulted, and throws a tantrum to the tune of "Bawwwww, you're not using my engine, you guys have no clue!".

I will not work with a primadonna such as this, regardless of what their abilities are, or that they're "one of the only founding members remaining". It is both immature, and counterproductive; the new project direction is largely based on the fact that any particular work is not precious, and if it can be improved, then it should.

Let Dark Phantron put his money where his mouth is, huh?

[Ultima]

Perhaps Dark Phantron should actually post some samples of his work before he (and seemingly everyone else o.O) decides that he is the be all and end all of programmers.

@Dark Phantron: protip - a good programmer has work to show rather than words :P

[Stealth]

I was waiting for you to finish this post. I didn't expect you to have anything to say like "Yeah, you insulted Stealth, get the fuck out of the entire community right now", but I didn't expect you to be a complete and total piece of shit, either. I thought maybe you had some better and more thoughtful comments on the graphics and sound issues, or something entirely different.

Jayextee, on Jan 8 2009, 11:38 PM, said:

Stealth: Let the artists dictate the art, and the coder dictate the code. At the end of the day, we're looking at the most creative, highest quality 'product' possible (with certain restrictions in place only to keep the feel authentic).

The art and the code come together in that you need to know what type of art you're "coding for", or what type of art is allowed by the code. It has to do with the LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR in your list of platforms, which you don't even have. How the hell is the graphics system going to work? I think the responsibility of figuring that out falls on all three categories - leaders, artists, coders. Say, for example, you did want to put this on the DS at some point (which did come up and hasn't been rebutted with a total "no, we're not ever going to do that"). You need tiled, palettized graphics, and it would still be in your best interest to use 16-color sprites (15 colors, 1 transparant) just like the REST of even the most current 2D games. Otherwise, you need to say WHY you need more (other than "it's easier for the generic idiot to throw something together) and that you definitely are not ever going to do anything with the game that would require such "limitation". Not even bringing up the concept of such a restriction just opens the door for people to slap together whatever shit they pull out of their ass in Adobe Photoshop with colors/filters/etc flying way the fuck everywhere and nobody knows what the hell they're doing or working with, WHICH actually DOES seem to be the case in the graphics discussion currently/recently

Jayextee, on Jan 8 2009, 11:38 PM, said:

.png offers layers, translucencies... and is supported by almost fucking everything these days -- find a better format which offers the same.

WHEN is this necessary for a VIDEO GAME? WHEN do you need to load a layered image into a game? What purpose does it serve? What are you doing with "translucency" that you need to load PNG data to get the point across? Please tell me, because obviously I have no fucking clue. I see absolutely NO reason that ANYTHING in a video game would REQUIRE such strange effects that need to be stored IN the GRAPHICS FILE. Yeah, people dumped pcx a long time ago for some stupid reason. Just use fucking TGA, it's practically the same thing, It's supported by enough relevant graphics programs, and do you know what it does? IT STORES A GRAPHIC

Jayextee, on Jan 8 2009, 11:38 PM, said:

Moduled music is great, but few actually know how to make it, which cuts away a lot of potential talent. Also, in terms of EQs and other filters, a compressed real audio is the only way to go, sorry. Also, say we were to have a vocal-based tune anywhere (Say, end credits), to maintain a great quality in a module the size would be gigantic compared to, say a 192kbps .OGG file.

Same as with "Sonic 2 HD", we have idiots from the far corners of the internet joining these forums JUST because they heard about the project and think it's SO COOL. In fact, that sort of thing is ACTIVELY encouraged, and as far as I'm aware, there were still very recently people SCOUTING for "talent". Suddenly, when it's a convenient way to argue with me, you're going to STOP doing that? And if you want to talk about "filters", and if I'm correct in assuming that you're talking about application at runtime, then how the hell is a full, single PCM audio stream MORE-easily manipulated than a TRACKED FORMAT? If you have the damned talent to create something that can DO that in the first place, then you damned sure have the talent to apply it to a multi-channel moduled song! And "vocal"? Other than the concept sounding utterly retarded to me, you still DO have the ability to stream a long, single channel of PCM audio with a moduled-music playing system, and the fact that most of your soundtrack is moduled does IN NO WAY hinder you from including a small number of fully PCM audio! The fact that you don't even realize that is utterly ridiculous, and makes me wonder how you can appropriately lead this project when you don't even have a firm enough grasp of the various technologies that are involved

Jayextee, on Jan 8 2009, 11:38 PM, said:

Also, can I make it known to everybody involved that this is the first we've heard from Stealth since the change in leadership (Rika and Phoebius leavin, Matwek and myself stepping in) prompted by this post, of Stealth's. Well, Matwek and I wrote plans to set a clear and concise direction for the project to go in, and I personally PMed Stealth to ask his opinion on the new direction, which was totally ignored -- he only bothers to turn up when his work (E02 in this case) is insulted, and throws a tantrum to the tune of "Bawwwww, you're not using my engine, you guys have no clue!".

Well, can -I- make it known, that you've just made this more personal than you claim that even I did? You appear to have a stick shoved so far up your ass about the fact that I never made another post that you can't see any validity to my defending myself whatsoever (going so far as to make vicious accusations about the purpose when I stated very clearly in my own post that this had absolutely nothing to do with S:PR not actually using E02, WHICH is partially by my own design, as I made it clear why E02 Might NOT be the appropriate choice, and challenged the leadership to actually make a firm decision on the platform based on careful consideration of the available options, even though E02 was the current choice, and I could either have kept my damned mouth shut, or pushed harder to further ensure that it would be used), nor could you see any validity to the complaints I made at the bottom, which could have been made entirely independently of the problem, but I decided to actually get some real thoughts out there while I was already posting in the first place

The fact is, you are now not being "impartial" in the interest of the project, and you have clearly proven that you don't REALLY know what's involved in structuring and leading a team like this

And in direct response to your issue with me, personally, that's how I work. I'm very busy, and I have things going on that I don't feel inclined to discuss with you or anyone else. I am not at liberty currently to take a solid position with this project, or, indeed, even take a significantly active position in discussion. This is what is in my best interest, currently, and it's entirely my business. If you want to take it personally, that's your problem, but that does NOT strip me of the right to step in and defend myself from total disrespect such that I've suffered in this thread. In fact, I was ENCOURAGED by the admin of this very forum to do exactly that whenever necessary. His utter disregard for anything other than his ego has nothing to do with you, or any other feelings I have whatsoever regarding this project

Jayextee, on Jan 8 2009, 11:38 PM, said:

I will not work with a primadonna such as this, regardless of what their abilities are, or that they're "one of the only founding members remaining". It is both immature, and counterproductive; the new project direction is largely based on the fact that any particular work is not precious, and if it can be improved, then it should.

It is not immature to know my status and my ability. It is not immature to DEFEND those things when they are attacked. What IS immature, I'm afraid, is someone stepping in and declaring that they are the almighty god, stepping all over something they don't even understand for the sole purpose of sounding like a big-shot with not a thing to show for their name. Furthermore, what is even more immature, is totally rejecting anything that the victim has to say in regard to ANYTHING just because YOU feel slighted that I didn't respond to one of your PMs. SO sorry, I didn't realize that my life revolved around you or this project, or that you or this project were any more important than my own personal privacy. Had I known you were so insecure as to hold such a grudge for this long just to throw it back at me when I've already been assaulted by someone else, I would have stopped everything I was doing and disclosed it to you fully, just so you could actually life the rest of your life angst-free. You'd think the fact that I hadn't otherwise interfered to this point would say something positive about your ability to lead. I had a FEW doubts, but NONE so SERIOUS as TODAY

Jayextee, on Jan 8 2009, 11:38 PM, said:

Let Dark Phantron put his money where his mouth is, huh?

Let him. He sure has a hell of alot to live up to with that kind of an entrance. I'm not stopping him, I just had something to say about his complete disrespect for me, my work, and indeed, this project, as he saw fit to criticize what he thought was the intended platform, without even getting to know the first thing about it. That's not only an insult to me, but it's an insult to everyone currently involved with this project

[Jayextee]

I'm not going to argue with you, Stealth. The fact that you've had no interest in this project until you were insulted makes me think you have no real passion for it farther than massaging your own ego.

Want me to step down?

[Ultima]

You may not want to argue but as a project coordinator you should at least take on board everybody's opinion, even if you have a personal grudge against them :P