General Project Thread & Feedback

Is it not true that we have way more than enough to do to even approach the original Sonic 2? How long did that original concept art take? I'm willing to bet it wasn't quick, good art rarely takes no effort. Same thing here, we've got so much that needs to be done with that level of effort in mind.

 

I said save the extra stuff for a reason. I'm actually not opposed to extra content in the future, but we need to get the fundamentals down first. It's like if we were to add extra frames of animation to Sonic—yeah, we might later, but right now we're just doing the original Sonic 2, exactly as it was, with new graphics and music. Once we have that down, we can work on developing it into other things.

Of course, it's easier to troll my viewpoint, so who cares, right? :D

 

I think doing something different with the music when you're underwater can be done without "destroying" the music and making it muffled so you can't hear it. Perhaps something like what was done in Super Mario Galaxy would work, where the melody's instrument would switch to something "softer" and more underwater-like while underwater...like a marimba.

Yes, but we don't want to give in to feature creep. We really should just make the decisions for the player, so there's less bug testing and more assurance that everyone is getting the same experience. We're getting some creative freedom in making this; let's use those creative liberties how we want. Sega barely gave us any options to change in Sonic 2, which ensured an equal playing experience for every player. And if we give into giving the player an option to change one thing, then they will probably want to customize every part of the game for themselves also.

 

I agree with Tweaker's stance here. Let keep things focused and manageable by working with what we already know.

 

Tweaker, less PMS. If you don't want it, you can disable it.

 

Would it be too up-front to ask whether or not it would be a good idea to enable flight for Tails?

 

Go fuck yourself. Every time I settle my issues in this thread, you or some other dumbshit feels they have to say something to get me pissed off again. Read what I said above.

Yeah, just like your membership! That might not be what everyone wants though, now is it?

Might not be a bad idea, as I said, for the second incarnation of the game containing extras. That's for later, though.

It's not like you'd have to draw any extra frames, anyway, at least not to have in functionally intact. Aside from that, just the "tired" frames, and you'd have to redraw them in Sonic 2-style before HDing them.

Congratulations, you officially lost the game.

 

Who will be in charge of this project? Tweaker? I think that a project plan should be written before saying anyone is right or wrong.

We could:

A. Set out a small official group of people to make all these decisions

or

B. Protect everyone's wish to express their ideas without recieving rude comments.

Both approaches work, but not a combination.

 

I don't have the time nor the desire to lead this project. At the moment, it looks like Vincent, Blue Streak, and Athelstone are heading things up. That's fine by me, since they seem the most reasonable and neutral in regards to the whole project. I do think there needs to be someone who can outright say "no," so hopefully one of the three can take up that position. :P

 

Alright dammit, I need to fix something here.

Tweaker, I apologize for rudely interjecting in opposition to your opinion; I overreacted at your strong opposition to not wanting to focus on smaller things now, and misinterpreted it as not wanting to have it included at all. In short, I was more trolling your means of communication, not so much your viewpoint. That isn't appropriate, though, and won't be, so for that, I apologize.

 

Tweaker has a point on the most simple basis - the focus of this project is for HD art and possible music. Once we have that done, let's worry about extra features then. This doesn't say people's new ideas are bad, just it does not fit the scope of the project at the moment.

Any news on stages? I am very interested in this portion, because I am of the camp that believes Sonic 2 is already a fantastic looking game with little to no help needed to make it look better. There was some discussion of minor vectors made of the stages and I thought it looked great, despite popular opinion. Again, bias aside, what are people thinking for this? I have heard some suggestions of 3d elements and while a skeptic of the idea, I am interested to see someone try it.


PS - Massive props to Vincent to his contributions to this project.

 

Regarding 3D, my spikes (which are still being improved via curvature at the bottom) are actually cones modeled in 3D that I took a screenshot of and have since converted to vector art for some subsequent modifications. Nobody has come forward with CG skills though, so that is the only thing of a 3D nature done thus far and 3D-anything-else is not going to happen unless there is somebody who really knows how to do it.

As for the stages, Emerald Hill is the focus right now. There has been (as you said) some vector art and also some photoshop painting done so far to get first impressions. I believe love.self.hate intends to dazzle us with a re-imagining of an Emerald Hill screenshot at some point so we can compare and evaluate our options. Depending on what love.self.hate comes up with, I think we should attack the individual 16x16 mappings and keep their placements in the level identical because it will make the project a lot easier than redesigning things in larger screen-by-screen chunks that can't be repeated as much.

 

<!--quoteo(post=189927:date=Apr 22 2008, 03:28 PM:name=Vincent)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Vincent @ Apr 22 2008, 03:28 PM)
My stab, needs more work, but it's some progress, right?[/quote]
Are you editing the image or producing any vector art from it?
If not please do.
It would be immediately available for us to put into S2HD project.
[/quote]

Producing any vector art? What do you mean?

All I did was add shading to a Jpeg that was previously posted (the image in the middle of the three). If you're hoping to use vector art only, I'm out of the project. I know how much more useful and how less resource consuming it is to display vector rather than raster, but it's also infinitely more difficult to do tiny details with vector art for me.

 

Quoted both for truth, and because it's the very reason I've decided to opt out of having anything to do with this project. Sorry!

Having said this, I'll complete what I've done of the EHZ art, and post it in the Hoaxes forums some time.

 

Jonna, that would be fantastic - your Knuckles looks promising, it does need some corrections, but as the others have said that is something we can focus on much later into the project's timeline.

Could we have a physics test of some sort, using the physics code from the sonic 2 disassembly? That is, take all the original sonic 2 sprite animations and take a flat white floor with an infinite horizontal distance. And then just see if we can get Sonic moving correctly as he would in the original game, moving across back and forth on this horizontal axis. That is the most basic and easiest way to start to this project I think. I don't know anything about programming, so I don't know what programming language you'll want to use for this. This is something techies are going to have to discuss and decide upon.

So for the programming side of things, don't worry about all the HD art we're producing for now. Let's just use the original Sonic 2 sprites and do it all in software mode, and just see if we can get the physics. Then later to this test engine we can add slopes, hills and springs and see if we can get the physics for those right.

If someone could please post all of the original Sonic 2 character sprites in a .PNG, that would be most helpful.

EDIT: I missed your post there Vincent - really fantastic work! I'm very happy for you to lead this project and Blue Streak and I will help you in anyway we can to coordinate things.

 

I've put together these two documents, hopefully they can help keep track of things a bit. Any suggestions are welcome.

Sonic 2 HD Project Summary:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/y207mc

Sonic 2 HD Project Plan v1.1 (23rd April '08) [Updated with Taxman's suggestions]
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ookawq

 

I'll get Illustrator installed and see if I can do anything with my Checkpoint sprite later on.

In the meantime, a song I'm in the process of working on.

 

Blast Processing, I'm liking your rendition of Sky Chase, I like how it has softer instruments, and the melody is left intact :D

 

Hmm... I don't know if I made my point of view clear, but I can't offer any help with starting a whole new port from scratch. It's kind of redundant to me, since I'm working on Retro-Sonic XG with Euan and Nitemare. In your outline about the programming steps, every single one of them has already been done with Retro-Sonic. Those basic physics are easy to get, it's more the specifics of collision and pre-calculated values that ultimately effect the 'fine tuning' of how the physics behave.

With a port of Sonic 2, you wouldn't be testing physics step by step. It's just re-organising the original code into C/C++. The only things the programmer needs to create from scratch is graphics/sound/input and file loading code to replace the functions that are no longer available due to the switch of platforms from MD to PC. Like I said I don't have the time/interest to do this myself since I already have my own engine.

So your goals for the programmer(s) of this project (if a port from disassembly is used) should be something like this:

-Examine the ASM code and split it into relevant parts (e.g. Title Screen, Player stuff, SST object system etc)
-Do a paper draft of how these parts should be organised in C++
-Work out what parts of the original code can't be translated directly to PC (e.g. graphics sound etc)
-Start translating the useable code into C++ syntax
-Develop a graphic system capable of displaying the original graphics to test if the port is working correctly
-If that's successful, add sound and the other remaining parts that couldn't be ported over directly

By this stage a complete port of the original Sonic 2 would be done

The next step would be to start implementing the changes for HD, such as enhanced graphic engine and any other new elements

 

ok, removed life icon.