Levels & Items Art

And some more that I found [Googled 'tree cross section']:

 

Hey everyone! I am just about to start working on a mockup for CPZ (unless someone has another suggestion ), but before I start, I have one thing that I'm not sure about and I wanted to run it by you guys first.

I can't tell for the life of me if that's supposed to be cement or some kind of rugged or textured metal... If all else fails I will just make two versions of that chunk and post both of them, but if anyone knows I'd really appreciate the advice

@ MaximusDM: The logs seem to be missing something, but I'm liking the look of them so far

 

I would say that it's water-damaged metal. Chemical Plant Zone? Think about the sort of context and how it applies to the graphics. I would personally interpret this as a light staining from some sort of liquid.

 

When you said cement I knew exactly what you meant but when looking at those lines that are at the top of the section it makes me think its more like rough metal

 

I like to draw using Corel, I don't draw only to have my work published but for pleasure too. I'm not expecting to have theese blocks used since it's easy to change the hue of the EHz blocks that are already done.

My pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-alpha HTz blocks



And a (crappy, very crappy, incredibly crappy, totally fucked up o.o) preview



Suggestions.

 

These HTZ Tiles need moar shading.

 

Wow, those actually look pretty good. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they look very good! There is however one main thing I see that could be improved on. The threshold between the shading seems to be just a bit too sharp. If you look at it from a few feet back, it's fairly easy to see where the lines were for original shading. Other than that I think it's looking really good. And they look a whole heck of a lot better than my HTZ blocks.

 

I think it would be better to create the blocks and grass together to better judge if the art is sufficient for the project, rather than judging but a couple of block graphics. To me, I'm indifferent to the designs of the blocks here and the block from EHZ.

 

I like those blocks but I always imagined the tiles on HTZ to be made from rock, hence "hill top" and the mountains in the background of the level, I think this is somewhere we can show the quality of our HD version by adding a lot of detail and texture not seen in the original as well as, like mentioned earlier, differentiating between HTZ and EHZ beyond a simple hue change

 

Can't you just take the EHZ tiles that were made and change the color?

 

I think one of the things we want to do is differentiate EHZ from HTZ because we can this time around. Regarding the grass, the grass mockup I made (orginally for EHZ) in the first post in the mockups thread has received support as good HTZ grass from at least one member, so we might consider going with that concept unless somebody has a better idea.

Master Emerald, I think those blocks are cool, but they look almost like gems to me; they're too perfect. I think we'll ultimately want to deface them a bit with some texturing to make them look more rocky. Exodus, I agree that HTZ should appear "rocky" whereas EHZ should appear "dirty." Exactly how we intend to make these distinctions I don't yet know.

 

Something like this?



And an HD Emerald from HPZ (That's my logo!):



Suggestions and C&C.

 

That's a great start; I think you should see how it looks with less shine and some more pronounced texturing

The rocks not the emerald that is :p

 

I say the texturing on that HTZ looks fine. It's subtle and doesn't overwhelm the image. It looks much better than a lot of the other texturing efforts I've seen. The only big problem I see is that the checkerboard pattern breaks the illusion of the 3D block.

<!--quoteo(post=202808:date=Jun 25 2008, 04:22 PM:name=StereoTypicalPickle)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (StereoTypicalPickle @ Jun 25 2008, 04:22 PM) [/quote]

I'd say that has the look of galvanized steel (at least the kind I always see). Here are some images for reference.

 

I think the same. More texture, less gloss

 

I took Master Emerald's original tile and did a bunch of texturing. Hopefully it looks reasonably rock-like and not too glossy or flat. I also corrected the size to be precisely 128x128 too. Notably, the texture on the side is actually slanted (thanks to a little bit of modeling in Blender). C&C is welcomed.

 

way too much texturing.

while I agree that the previous attempt had a bit too much gloss to it, the texturing seemed quite right. I really don't see the sense in giving things these very detailed textures when the game's overall style is supposed to be more cartoony. going that far with the detail seems out of place and is really overwhelming. IMO, it becomes an eyesore. a cliff wall like that isn't very realistic to begin with, so why strive for realism with it?

 

Right guys, as much as I am going to dislike this project as you fuss over one lousy detail, I will give my constructive criticism.

I like that texturing. As much as you may hate it, it's a level. Not Sonic, or badniks and the like. It's like a scenery, it's natural. If I was to do that (Which I can't) I would put texture on it too, because, look at a cliff now; they are textured, and we are a sort of cartoon compared to it.

If you were to make a game, consider that scenery is natural and meant to have texture, not the other way around.

EDIT: Not where, were

 

it may simply look like fussing over one detail, but the decision on it should hopefully set the standard for what all other things should look like.

I knew somebody would pull out the "environments should look different from character entities" argument. there is a point there, but I feel like the logic in bringing it up is not entirely there. the easiest thing to do is to just look at the game. I think we can all agree that Sonic 2 has elements of cartoon style and a few elements of 3D. However, I don't think there is much of an argument for the case of it having elements of realism, which is what's being brought up with this "real mountains vs. people" idea.

Sure, real mountains have rugged edges, but how does that really apply to Sonic 2? Is Hill Top Zone a real mountain? It's based on one, but the cliff wall is meant to give you the idea of it being a bit surreal. I know they were limited on the Genesis, but they could've drawn some ruggedness on there if their intention really was for it to look that rough.

The idea of giving it a little extra detail to give it the look of some material is novel, but going THAT far with the texturing is just tasteless. Look at any respectable cartoon out there (preferrably the old ones, and some of the better anime films) and you'll find that they achieve the effect you're talking about (character vs. environment) in far more subtle ways. for a cartoon, it seems like the effect is best achieved with the blending of colors and how the shading is done. any extra detail or defined texturing is kept to a light minimum; less really is more.

the idea of character vs. environment is valid, but it takes some finessing to get the balance of it right, because there is a point where it's overboard.

 

I agree with what burpingcat is saying, to an extent, that the environment isn't meant to be realistic however I think the fact that the cliff part of the level is made up of brightly coloured quadratics provides this surrealism. Adding to it by giving it texture just seems logical to me for this project as we are trying to update the original.

I think the first tile shown with texturing had too little texturing and the second tile had too much texturing. I think the second tile would be too distracting from the gameplay, in the original I think Sonic really stands out from the environment in all levels, also I prefer the texture map used on the first textured tile anyway but there still could be a better one out there.

Edit: Also, wanted to let people know that I completed a spring set about a week ago, its in sanik's database if anyone wants to take a look, please give me c&c. I've noticed a mistake in the red, angled compressed spring which I will fix shortly