[Twilightzoney]

Terrain/mountains and Sonic doesn't really mix will unless you building it soley for traveling not for to gaze upon. Since we don't want to see Skyrim horses going up mountains. You'd actually have to edit the terrain a lot to get it to flow correctly for sonic to traverse it.

And by 3d loops being scripted I mean having a path that recenters him so it doesn't make you go off track but it dependent on your speed. Generations already does this but they make their loops so huge that you need dash pads to go through, thus having no actual control over it since the speed is given to you. We need to have spline paths for 2.5d and 3d to help sonic stay on track, One for 3d being a mixture of a guide path that let you loosely move around so you can track on track where the developer wanted you to go. And another that forces you on that path but you have to have your speed still. Basically keep pushing in a direction to move and he'll keep moving.

Since some of us don't know differences between scripted paths and scripted events. Besides Sonic team uses dash pads through 3d loops so much its a norm.

[Candescence]

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Terrain/mountains and Sonic doesn't really mix will unless you building it soley for traveling not for to gaze upon. Since we don't want to see Skyrim horses going up mountains. You'd actually have to edit the terrain a lot to get it to flow correctly for sonic to traverse it.

Well, to be fair, a mountain range with a proper Sonic physics engine would be rather difficult to traverse with steep enough slopes unless Sonic has the boost, so it shouldn't be that difficult to make mountains that Sonic can't simply walk up. We're not Bethesda, for pete's sake, they can't bug-test worth a damn.

[Aerosol]

Mountains are bumpy though. Sonic terrain is never bumpy. I...just don't think mountains are a great idea.

[Falk]

I guess what you could say is the terrain in Sonic is whimsical. The flipside is also true, the terrain in -some- zones are never totally flat (EHZ). I don't think it's so much that mountains per say compared to completely open areas (of which mountains would be part of the solution in hemming in... somewhat) and mountainous terrain as a trope has the easy capability of being as un-fun to play as underwater terrain.

edit: Even in 'nods-to-real-life' zones, everyday practicality bows to the level being a sonic game. Cities (e.g. Skyscraper Scamper, Speed Highway) wouldn't actually have highways go in giant loops/corkscrews, for example. I don't think it's so much Sonic going through a delusional stint and imagining shit that isn't actually there as much as suspension of disbelief has always been a core part of the charm of the franchise.

This post has been edited by Falk: 27 April 2012 - 11:20 PM

[Candescence]

Okay, look, the outdoors enviroment doesn't necessarily have to have mountains, it's just an example of what we COULD do with an outdoor terrain. Though mountains do help give a feeling of scale, visually.

Hell, we could throw Sonic on an island or something.

[steveswede]

Marble Garden Zone I consider to have mountain terrain which was done in small portions both going up and down so mountain terrain like this does work but for and entire level would just be pure automation of running down hill or boosters to move you up hill.

[Aerosol]

Well when I said, bumpy, I meant that mountains in general have rough terrain going up and down. They aren't perfect cones. Can't we have the rolling hills of an english countryside as a demo level?

[Candescence]

AerosolSP, on 28 April 2012 - 12:36 PM, said:

Well when I said, bumpy, I meant that mountains in general have rough terrain going up and down. They aren't perfect cones. Can't we have the rolling hills of an english countryside as a demo level?

That...

That would work much better, actually. Hell, we'd be doing something actually original, I mean, when was the last time the rolling hills of an English countryside appeared in a game?

[TheInvisibleSun]

Three years ago:

[Aerosol]

I was thinking of the XP default background when I said that, too. Nevertheless, I'm fond of the idea of having some english countryside goodness. Maybe have some odd rock rock formations that look suspiciously like loops here and there.

[Candescence]

TheInvisibleSun, on 28 April 2012 - 01:53 PM, said:

Three years ago:

Huh. Forgot about Black Knight. Oh, well, at least we have an excuse. I'd personally like to remake Sonic and the Black Knight with less on-rails and more like Devil May Cry (which suits Sonic so much better than, say, God of War).

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I was thinking of the XP default background when I said that, too. Nevertheless, I'm fond of the idea of having some english countryside goodness. Maybe have some odd rock rock formations that look suspiciously like loops here and there.

Oh, now THERE'S an idea.

Really, now, making english countryside goodness should be pretty easy, as I said before. Hell, we could even put the level editor through its paces, throw all sorts of neat little secrets all over the map. Make it big enough so we can either free-roam, or go on a more linear a-to-b route in either 3D or 2.5D.

This post has been edited by Candescence: 28 April 2012 - 03:00 PM

[Kharen]

This may be slightly off-topic, but I couldn't figure out which thread would be best for the idea. Anyways...

I was bored and browsing YouTube, when I found a video by BlazeHedgehog. It was a Sonic model going through a TrackMania Nations course. This got me thinking for a bit, and I had a bit of an oddly specific request to make. Would there be any possible way we could import tracks from TrackMania Nations into the engine to play through them as Sonic with all the correct physics and everything? If you think about it, this could make a pretty neat demo for the engine. I mean, look at how many tracks there are already that you could just download, import, and play. They're even racetracks, usually designed to be as bat-shit insane as possible, which seem perfectly designed to match up with Sonic.

If it helps any, this was the video I was watching: Video. I know this track in particular wouldn't work with Sonic physics, but it gets the general idea across.

[winterhell]

If someone knows how to convert the TrackMania stages into COLLADA or some other format that we'll support, why not.

[Candescence]

Actually, I'd say it's not worth the effort, unless someone takes it upon themselves to create a track exporter for the hell of it. Trackmania's physics, while wacked out and crazy fun, are quite different from Sonic's.

It's better to create something original that's designed from the ground-up to work with what we're trying to create.

[Jayextee]

Here's a wacked-out idea for y'all -- make Angel Island Zone to show off.

Not the entire lot, just before it gets torched; albeit the recognisable features stuck in a vaguely-directional 3D playground. As long as the three loops, rope slide, giant hollow tree trunk, underwater spikepit and the beach intro feature in the right order, the rest of the layout can be something of a physics playground with all the spikes, springs and quarter-pipe you want. And it's short enough an element to withstand a few cooks, I think.