Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: Andrew75 - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

I wonder, Could a Sonic fan game get a kick starter without pissing Sega off ?
Either A to pitch the game to Sega, or B to freely distribute it.

The old topic can be found here.
http://forums.sonicr...opic=19713&st=0

Hi guys, How's it going? There is just so many things done with the project, that its hard to pick what to show and what not to show.)
(also, sorry about any bad grammar and formatting)

Thought that I would Make a new AXSX thread, since the other one is a cluttered with randomness. Also so that a recap can be done.
CD Remix will get its own topic when the time comes.

For those who don't know the project, Its a Re-engineering of Sonic X-treme using videos and images as reference material to re-create various environments and gameplay ideas.
( yes, I like to think of this more as a Visual Re-Engineering project than a fangame. Although I must say AXSX is a fangame at heart since I've added some of my own concepts and ideas.
I use the word Visual since no gameplay code officially has been made public)


Pre AXSX:
Back in late 2005 and early 2006, I was working on A rendering project, re-modeling some Sonic CD areas in HD for a video I had planned to render and show off on youtube. ( This will be my next Fan Game)

Unfinished models from 2005 - 2006, (I wanted to update The Sonic look and feel without going to realistic)


Meanwhile at the Senntient.com forums, Chris Senn was releasing information and assets for Sonic Xtreme. Xtreme was my favorite Cancled sonic game of all time.
I had an obsession with it ever since I picked up Gameplayers magazine (with the red Shoe diaries article) fresh off the news stand at the local Toys R' Us back in 1996.
I wanted that game so bad! After a long period of waiting and no news on the game, I called 1-800-USA-SEGA to check on a release date. (This was around or after Xmas of 96.)
The Sega rep informed me that the game was still on schedule and that he got to watch some footage that would blow Mario 64 out of the water)
I recall him saying that Sonic was faster than before. lol
So ... Yeah fast forward back to Senntient.com again. I started a few side projects re-creating some of my favorite sonic Xtreme environments shown in various screenshots for fun.
(Note: Senntient.com at the time was the hottest place to hang out for us Sonic Xtreme fans that were burned by Sega's cancelation of the game.)

The Pre AXSX environment mockup:


Xeniczone saw what I was doing and came to me for Modeling and animation help for his Metal Sonic boss stage and 718 demo re-creation.
My Job? Simple, I was to clean up and animate the Metal Sonic model found in the Sega Saturn SDK, and reproduce the green hills shown in the 718 screenshot, for use in Xeniczone's game that he was programming.
One thing lead to another, and a team was born.
(Note: Project AXSX stands for Andrew Xeniczone Sonic Xtreme)

Early AXSX Stuff:
My Metal sonic clean up and improvements:


This is where it all started Folks
Our first attempt to get a boned and rigged Metal sonic into Game maker proved annoying.
shown here is Xeniczones 718 stage created before I joined on as a team member.
However screen was taken just after I joined, since we were adding metal sonic.




Engine History:
This game started out on Game Maker 6 using ultimate 3D.dll for the rendering.
We worked on and off ( a Moth here and a month there) on the Game Maker version, There were many restarts on the engine, and we went threw maybe 5 versions of the fisheye until it was right.
Using game maker to do a 3D game everything but the renderer had to be made from scratch, all the tools we needed had to be coded ect.

Our level editor made with game maker:
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=190xx0n_YS4

The Fisheye before our current vertex shader fisheye:
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=I5mgPwa9G30

We worked until winter 2010 ( for 4 years) At that time releasing a closed public beta, after which Xeniczone could no longer work on the project, I guess he hit his limit.
Without a programmer and nearly finished engine , the project was on a sinking ship, it was either sink or swim at this moment.
At the time the GM engine had various problems:
1: collision issues where not salved 100%
2: adding to many level props such as rings and badnicks slowed FPS down the engine so much that it became unplayable on slower systems.

The final Closed beta demo before moving on to a new engine:
The level is based on the E3 video's Jade gully, but custom texture work had been done to make it a winter them.


Along comes Sonic GDK built with UDK by Xak , I thought that if I could make the fisheye work in UDK, than perhaps Xtreme could live on in Sonic GDK.
(One thing that caught my eye was that UDK has friendly art tools that wouldn't need to programed from scratch)
After the fisheye was proven to work, I went to Xak for advise, we hit it off, he was interested in porting our AXSX and its concepts over to SGDK.
Xak worked hard day and night re-producing the AXSX engine and its concepts in far less time than our first engine.
At this moment XGDK was born. We continue working on the engine even now adding many finishing touches to the engine,
(Note: Even today, AXSX is not a perfect.
From day 1, (spring 2006 till today April 25th 2013) collision issues have plagued this project. )

Videos of XGDK in development:
First steps with UDK
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Ll_pilRws5I

The new X-mas demo in UDK winter 2011
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=OHsie6AQt5Q

Newer level ( outdated video) PC version of red sands
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ORJn-0FoNu4

The E3 Redsands Tunnel ( as I like to call it)
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=pJj-jUW2gzY
Art History:
When I first came aboard, I had no game making Knowledge, however I have had plenty of photorealistic 3D modeling and rendering under my belt since 1998, as a hobby.
It was hard to let go of the high polygon, and high quality texture workflow and adapt to the world of game making.
Sooo...
At first Me and Xeniczone did not agree on making a Sonic Xtreme HD with high res models and textures.
However he was ok with a compromise to meet somewhere in the middle as long as the graphics were somewhat Sega Saturn comparable.
(Note: Game maker with Ultamate3D.dll supported shaders and high res mesh without causing issues with frame-rate)

Early AXSX, The compromise: ( and yes we were aware of scale imperfections we later corrected this, the textures should have been self illuminated here making the environment to dark. (Also was fixed later)


At this time the game resembled Sonic Xtreme at heart but with a little more.... umm polygons.
Over a year into the project, we switched gears and wanted to do a more accurate sonic xtreme re-creation that was more faithful to the screens and videos. So,,, we started over for the first time.

Game Maker version Screens after we decided to go full out classic:

E3 Jade gully recreation, models from scratch: (Running in Game Maker Version)




Yes yes the colors don't match because the picture was taken with an I-phone on a bad quality projector hooked up to the computer.



(This one was taken before camera matching in engine had been in place,,,,, also the resolution was experimental here)




(to show camera matching in 3d studio max to later tweak the in game camera to match)



3D studio render


(In Game maker with gameplay, new textures and model 100% scratch)(level not finished here, missing a lot of assets)


A later 718 recreation modeled from scratch: textures ripped from the official 718 demo. More on this later:
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=zo8dwjBOPhE

Jade gully PC Version 100% modeld from scratch using videos (this was done before SANik's Tools) took about 3 weeks work.
(Game maker engine screen, older screen before fixing the fisheye power)

Also a video of the level running in game maker showing fisheye real-time tweeking.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=WNr1bF3GddM



For the past year or two, I've had access to actual level models threw a tool that the Hacking Genius SANiK had made to view and later Export the Level models by reading from the original Sonic-Xtreme .def file format.)
(Sadly only PC Version Level models are available, not the ones I've been recreating from scratch)
(Note: Up until the point of acquiring the models, I was never really interested in them, as they were the PC version of sonic Xtreme which did not interest me as much as what was shown in magazines for E3 96.)
I did a few livestreams showing how the level clean up process worked. I worked nearly non stop for over a month to clean over well over 45 levels during my winter vacation.
You can check out a few videos of the level clean up process here: http://www.livestream.com/tuxmask75
During this work period and many like this, I've pushed my body beyond the limits by working over 14 hours a day, every day , even to the point of becoming sick on a few occasions.

Anyone have any idea what is shown on the center screen at 1:36


To me it looks kind of like sonic xtreme. Perhaps its something else . ( it is at the 3D blast booth, so if its blast what area could this be ?!)

Who is going to hack Sonic Fighters on 360 or PS3?
I'd really like to get a hold of the Environments and textures . They are very charming in an oldschool sort of way.
Already got the characters from the arcade version, although I feel they are not accurate 100%

Today a friend of mine (Master Emerald) brought something up that seems very interesting.
I don't know if this was talked about in the past here on Retro.

"Imagine if traveler tales archived sonic 3D blast zone models and released it in full 3D today"
"It had a simple scenery but charming still"


In my opinion, I think this would actually make the game into a very very good sonic game.
and break away from just being a so so game because of its shit controls.

Has anyone ever hacked 3D blast Saturn ( extracted the tiles) , or attempted to track down the assets used to produce the pre rendered textures?

If so please let me know ASAP, as we could easily drop them into Sonic GDK and make a fun game.
(Would be using the custom GDK engine for this (GHZ 2.5D ) and Yes GHZ 2.5D supports full 3D movement)