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(Sega Saturn homebrew) Sonic Z-Treme

Discussion in 'Fangaming Discussion' started by XL2, Jul 7, 2017.

  1. itsstillthinking

    itsstillthinking

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    Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 Dreamcast Website, Sega Saturn Netlink Voip
    Oh and the game also supports the 3D Pad, and it works great!
     
  2. SubCog

    SubCog

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    I tried the debug modes. I love seeing stuff like that! I like that you can really see the LOD system in action... actually it's alot more aggessive than I would have expected. You mentioned that it only works on polys on the same plane, and so it won't work so well on mario64 levels. Would it be possible for a level artist to manually create a low-fi version of the level and use that for the LOD instead of running it through your LOD processor? Maybe that would be a good alternative for more organic levels?
     
  3. XL2

    XL2

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    It wouldn't work unless I rewrite my converter pretty much fully, which I won't.
    Plus I don't see how it could work with an octree or anything else automatically processed, and that would be going the opposite direction I want to go.
    If you look at games on Saturn using a lod system, you have Quake, Duke Nukem, Wipeout, Tomb Raider and even, to a lesser degree, Sonic Jam with the far away cliffs.
    But Sonic Jam is all about controlling the camera to prevent you from seeing it's limitations, so you stare most if the time at a vdp2 plane with few polygons around.

    These games all use geometry on the same plane for their LOD instead of more advanced automatic retropology.
    And with no texture coordinates and using quads, it's just not a good option, it wouldn't work well.
     
  4. itsstillthinking

    itsstillthinking

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    https://www.vg247.com/2018/08/28/sonic-community-just-released-slew-amazing-fangame-demos/

    You made the news XL2! :specialed:
     
  5. Miles Prower

    Miles Prower

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    Tried the demo on my Saturn, it felt surreal. Haven't got past the third level so far (didn't get much free time to play it), but I'm really really enjoying this.

    I failed to burn the audio tracks with xfburn though. Could be because xfburn doesn't actually know how to to that, or because I'm on a case-sensitive filesystem. Haven't had a look at the cue file yet.
     
  6. XL2

    XL2

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    Try imgburn, it's what I use and it works great.
     
  7. itsstillthinking

    itsstillthinking

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    ImgBurn is the best one to use for Saturn's
     
  8. itsstillthinking

    itsstillthinking

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    As with usual TSSZ its a little too critical but the project got mentioned again on another site
    (Not sure what "Not Fun" is)
    http://www.cutefluffykittens.com/2018/08/26/sage-2018-review-slew-2/
     
  9. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    Is that link correct? Takes me to a Chinese website..
     
  10. winterhell

    winterhell

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    You probably meant this:
    http://www.cutefluffykittens.com/2018/08/26/sage-2018-review-slew-2/
    edit: the hell.. the site gets renamed.. censorship?
     
  11. XL2

    XL2

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    Yeah, the reactions have been very critical so far, which kind of convinced me to just focus on the FPS game I was starting instead.
    That would also make my life easier as it allows me to easily solve the occlusion problem as I can just use a bsp tree with portals/pvs instead without having to worry too much about stuff such as "What do I do if the camera gets in-between 2 nodes/leaves?".
    Pretty much everything I did so far (except Sonic and the badniks of course...) can be transposed to the FPS game as it's the same engine, so nothing is lost.

    Anyway, that's the kind of complains I keep hearing : someone plays on emulator, which can be slow if the pc is too slow, with a keyboard, then complains online.
    Like in that article, the guy says : the framerate is pretty stable. But how would he know if he played on emulator? I can run it at 60 fps on yabause, it doesn't mean the game runs at 60 fps on real hardware, and vice versa.
    Then he says it doesn't control well : has he played with a gamepad? With an analog pad?
    If not, that would be like saying "Super Mario 64 controls poorly. I played it with my Dance Dance Revolution mat. It's not fun"
    Then he says there is only one tiny map, Jade Gully...while there are 4 maps, that means the guy just fired the game on emulator, played 3 minutes, didn't even bother trying again after getting the game over screen and just wrote an article saying the game sucks...hmmm.
    But yeah, he's not the only one.

    The other complains I've often read : the game doesn't have a fisheye lens (like if there was a magic switch on the Saturn to suddenly overclock it to a i7 and do it. STI and Chris Coffin himself couldn't do it fast enough, how on earth could I do it?)
    Another one : The game uses 3D models instead of sprites (hmmm, it runs on Saturn, so I can't be accused of doing something the Saturn can't handle. Plus the game would have been destroyed by critics in 1996 since Crash and Mario came out fully 3D).
    For some it's too much like Sonic X-Treme, for others it's not enough.
    Some others couldn't even both to load the cue sheet instead of the iso and then say there's no music...
     
  12. Jason

    Jason

    *Results not lab tested. Member
    I'll say it's a nice tech demo, and shows a lot of potential using mostly existing assets. In that way, it's done everything it's needed to, and is a neat thing to play on actual hardware. If you want to focus on an FPS first, that's cool. I will say, however, I would prefer that you don't give up on the idea of a Sonic game in this engine. Bias from a member of a Sonic forum noted, but the promise of a 3D Sonic game on Saturn is still tantalizing more than 20 years later. Your ideas with VDP2's infinite plane would be especially interesting for a platformer on this hardware. I'm thoroughly impressed with what I've seen so far, and would like to see more of it.
     
  13. itsstillthinking

    itsstillthinking

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    Very weird, link keeps changing for some reason

    Its one of the many issues with the Sonic Community, super critical without knowing how much hard work and sweat that go into these. At least all the reaction's from the Sega community has been super positive!

    On a side note XL2 it seems most people have been very critical to the 3d Games of SAGE in contrast to some of the 2D stuff so don't take it personally, keep up the good work and i hope you don't fully give up on this :specialed:
     
  14. SubCog

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    Also I think people dismissed it because of the blocky levels. I think alot of the graphics work can't be properly appreciated when everything is cubes.

    I understand if you decide to focus on the fps project instead. It's a bummer though, as I think the Sonic game has a ton of potential, especially if you release the level editor and let the community churn out a ton of great levels. That, plus the analog controls, would really make it something special! Hopefully you can get back to this project eventually?
     
  15. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    Saying this just to add to the sprites comment above and to inform the community, The sprites take up so much memory, even if just using the walking and jump sprites and that's on top of all the level textures , I think it would be a technical feat to cram even 3 walking angles worth of sprites and leaving out the diagonals. Perhaps maybe if giving up some level textures, Sonic could just run at the screen to the left and away from screen, than mirror to walk right. Besides I don't think this project's goal was to recreate x-treme as seen in the original videos with the sprites or fisheye anyways. But some people don't know what's going on behind the scenes, or don't care to read anything at the Sage booths. I know that a later build of xtreme on the Nv1 had a percedural texture generation system that allowed you to produce visuals on the fly, it seemed to use a lot less memory than actual textures. I know this because when adding textures to the level editor, the memory would sky rocket, but the percedurals only took a very small amount.

    I hope you will continue on with the editor and maybe make it open source for others to jump in and maybe help out with the project. I think the project is good with the 3D models btw.
     
  16. Covarr

    Covarr

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    Trapped in my own thoughts.
    Two stageplays, a screenplay, and an album
    Yeah, there's been a forum filter on TSSZ's site for years. I don't really know the details, but I vaguely recall some sort of drama involved.
     
  17. SuperSnoopy

    SuperSnoopy

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    Slice of life visual novel, coming soon...?
    TSSZ involved in some drama ? Never heard of that before :v:

    Anyway just here to tell you that you shouldn't get discouraged. The reception has been more than positive on this forum so far, and it seems to be the same on Youtube.
    What you've done is very impressive.

    I can't test the game for myself because my computer is a piece of shit ¯\_(?)_/¯, but I'll be sure to give it a try and give (hopefully positive) feedback once I get around to get a new computer.
     
  18. Andrew75

    Andrew75

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    The SFHQ discord chat has been positive as well.
     
  19. RDNexus

    RDNexus

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    I may have not played the game, but the videos that have been posted so far are satisfying to me, given how little there was of the original game by the time it's creators were forced to give up on it.
    Keep up at it and try to filter the reviews you can easily perceive as shallow, since those don't help a developer grow as one.
    I, as an amateur writer, also depend on reviews from proofreaders to help me advance.
     
  20. Ritz

    Ritz

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    This project is a smash success and anyone who doesn't appreciate that surely never owned or cared about the Saturn to begin with. You picked what's probably the single most inconvenient platform for game distribution imaginable, for a game that's been panned even without a release, so I hope you weren't expecting a standing ovation- just don't doubt what an incredible achievement this is for the homebrew scene. Nobody's been able to lay a finger on this console in decades, but you're blowing the doors off it with a commercial quality product. Not bad, my dude

    Also this project has been a huge inspiration for me personally: For the past month, I've pretty much put everything else in my life on hold to grind on learning how to program, reading through stuff like Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book and studying matrix algebra with the hope of someday getting my head around coding a 3D engine. It's turned me into a geometry addict already. I'll probably never be good enough, but everything I want to do is framed with the Saturn as my target now that I know it's possible.