Special Stage Development

I can't get s2tube-190610 or s2tube-1906104d to work. FYI, my video card is a NVidia GeForce GTS 250.

 

Please try this build, and again, wherever it doesn't work please PM any log files, as they are the only thing that can tell me what went wrong.

 

This is looking awesome, really.

 

Ok I've been playing Sonic 2 a bit to try to break down the physics of the special stage.


Sonic will stick for a quickly estimated .65-.75 of a second. before he is pulled down to his rest position. And just by eye it looks to be a constant speed, so no acceleration or anything.
The RED line is where Sonic will be pulled to everytime. he exceeds the PINK line. Anywhere between the 2 PINK lines Sonic's position WILL NOT MOVE.

After a jump if Sonic lands anywhere in a place he would normally he would stick for .7 seconds he will NOT STICK and immediate be pulled to the RED line position.
After a jump if Sonic lands in between the Pink lines the same rules apply, HE WILL NOT MOVE.

Momentum seems to have NO EFFECT on jumping, but the gravity certainly does.
The closer you are to the top the faster you will be landing after your jump, the closer to the dead middle, the longer will be in the air.



At around the 135/45 degree mark is the threshold where Sonic will drop vertically. Upon a vertical drop Sonic will stick for maybe .2 seconds (complete guess) assuming again he falls outside the PINK lines. If you drop between the PINK lines, Sonic WILL NOT MOVE.

Fighting gravity forces:
There are no FIGHTING gravity forces in between the PINK lines.
A FIGHTING gravity force would be trying to go right when you are leaning on the right wall. But you will still gain momentum if you go push left when on the right side of the tube still in the PINK lines. Momentum seems to apply anywhere and grows in force the higher you are on the wall.
The further toward the GREEN line, the more you will need to hold down the respective direction in order to fight the force of gravity.

Everytime you try to fight gravity (ie push right on the right wall) it will reset your stick time. Which is why you can get to a position, and tap the direction and Sonic will not move and it will not accumulate to break the force of gravity because in order to do that the button must be HELD ( again increasing in length the closer you are to the green line.

Really complicated shit when you try to break it down.

 

It crashes for me. It creates the window then gives me a generic "program has stopped working" =/

Log:

LOG: Log initialised.
KERNEL: Registering vertex type (p3n3t2).
KERNEL: Added handler for levels (0).
KERNEL: Added handler for models (1).
KERNEL: Added handler for materials (2).
RESOURCE: Trying path for sky.mat.

Specs:

Intel Core i3 2.26ghz
3GB DDR3 RAM
Radeon 4550 512mb
Windows 7

 

It seems to be a problem with initialising shader programs on more modern graphics cards. I'm assuming from the output that you're using the older log build, could you please try the one above and PM me the output from that, thanks.

 

I'm running a Pentium Dual Core E5200 (at 2.5ghz), 4gb of RAM (800mhz) and an NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT (1gb, 600mhz). Nothing majorly special by any means (around $360 for the hardware I have), all special stage modes and resolutions work flawlessly. My only gripe (aside from the gameplay issues that I know will be tweaked in the future - Sonic's super high jump, etc) is with the draw distance - it's funky seeing the tube appear out of nowhere. I'm sure it will be worked on, but I thought I'd bring it up. Other than that - awesome. This just got me 100% more excited about the entire project.

 

That's the scale your on about. Synergy is going to give us the option to turn it on or off in the next revision.

 

Works on a AMD Phenom II 955 3.9ghz and a gtx275. My gripe is that it is so, so, SO, so smooth. It's eerie. Is there a way we can artificially reduce the framerate to be more like the original? I know this is a crazy thing to ask for, but it hurts my mind to play something like this at such perfect framerates when the original was not at all smooth. But then again, it may just be the simplicity of the scene that's getting to me. Other than that, INCREDIBLE!!!! :specialed:

 

I really can't believe someone has asked for this. Damn right it's a crazy thing to ask for. =D

Give it some time. I'm sure when the art is finalized. You will feel quite comfortable with it by then and wonder why you said such an odd thing.

 

I already am. I was as I clicked "Post Reply." But now I have a bigger question: Is there any way we can edit all the materials and models? That would speed things along a bit, if we were able to use our own track, character, and pickup models in the engine, as well as all those textures we fought over so much a few months ago. Of course, I assume the engine doesn't really work like that.

 

For that I'd have to release and maintain a toolset for public use, which I hadn't really planned on doing as it distracts from the actual work on the engine itself.

Still putting out calls to anyone that has any problems with the either the regular release or the current verbose logging one, as I'd like to make sure everyone that should be able to run it, can run it, before even considering anything else. Thanks.

I do think you have a point though, it is rather smooth. As I mentioned in the first post I think perhaps easing in and out of the corners might make it seem a little bit more natural.

 

Lighting: global lighting model FTW!!!
correct shadow casting would be awesome too. I think that everything mentioned in this bullet should be done.
Sky: I actually think that this is a good idea, along with easing in and out of turns. However the latter distracts the special stage rather far from the original. (just about as much as the smoothness does)

I also just noticed that my new 360/pc controller controls tails...

 

I have an older machine and the latest release seems to work well!

P4 3 GHz, 1.5GB RAM, nvidia 7600gs, WinXP SP3

60fps at 1280x720 windowed. No slowdown.

 

I have a question.

Would improvements of the original physics for the special stages be allowed? What I'm on about is the jump height.

When playing the game, as in normal 2D. The physics for the jump can be control by how long you hold the jump button down. From what I know from my own gameplay experience. There are three different jump heights. This is non existent in the special stages as you only have the full jump height.

Now was that intentional by the Sonic Team? Did they over look it? I know that's something I can't answer. But it's always something I considered broken in the special stages. Having multiple jump heights would allow for greater control and far more interesting 2 player battles. I'm sure most people he know how frustrating it is to get to the front because of the one jump height. Would it make the special stages easier? I don't know. It could be worth a shot to see if it does.

 

Yes please, PM it if it takes up too much space. As I mentioned with my first ever post at Retro I had hoped to update the graphics with things like motion blur, or maybe look at cel-shading and so on, so I set out with shaders in mind. If you guys feel there's enough demand for a lower visual-fidelity fixed-function pipeline, maybe that's something I can add as well, as long as it doesn't take up a disproportionate amount of time to maintain.

Unfortunately my dev box failed to power on this morning, and I'm going to have to source a new power supply, so it'll be a little while before I can do anything programming-related.

 

Just out of curiosity, if you do put motion blur in, will it be optional? I'd rather not have it on.

As far as the demo is concerned, I've only seen LOst's video of it, but wow: you've got a lot of it done quickly! Great job!

 

Certainly, I think most added extras can be made optional, as what looks good to some might not to others, while for others motion blur might be too taxing for the system and they may need to disable it for performance reasons, etc. though it's probably worth balancing presentational options with a predefined style, as I'd rather there weren't pages and pages of minor options/tweaks.