[Azukara]

RGamer2009, on 19 September 2011 - 09:44 PM, said:

So...whats goin on guys? Is this still being worked on?

Yes, it's still being worked on. Not everyone's first priority, but nevertheless it's still being worked on.

We've been mostly secluding all our progress to an IRC chatroom, but things are happening, connections are being made and progress, while slow and steady, is happening. We're taking our sweet time, just to make sure we get exactly what we want out of this. We could get quicker progress if we obtain more modelers, programmers and designers for the team, so if anyone is interested then please hook me up in the SFR's chatroom, PM me here, e-mail me from codyryancollins@yahoo(dot)com (with a '.' replacing the '(dot)', of course), or however you can access me. ( Please take note that the SFR forums are basically dead, so please contact me through one of these ways instead. )

If this helps with interesting anyone, I'd like to make note that we've left behind Blitzsonic in favor of development on SonicGDK. We will need some programmers to help get this off the ground. Anyone with knowledge on using the Unreal Engine and/or SonicGDK, and is willing to help out, let us know. We already have a good bit of assets done , but at the same time, we need the help of more modelers as well, so like said, any help from that as well would be great. Designers / texture artists, we're calling out for you guys as well.

Spoiler

Freerunner's Blitzsonic engine may be released for open source and then used for a mini-fangame, currently called "Sonic Saturn". Like a pet project within a pet project.

[Impish]

Hooray! I was against the change of engine that was proposed way back, but now with all the improvements made to GDK, and the lovely examples I've seen on Youtube, I think its a good idea. I kinda disappeared from the forums before they did, what kind of level design has been settled on for Freerunner now? Open-world-ish, Unleashed-esque, or what?

This post has been edited by Impish: 20 September 2011 - 10:29 PM

[Mester Keel98]

Azukara, on 20 September 2011 - 11:03 AM, said:

If this helps with interesting anyone, I'd like to make note that we've left behind Blitzsonic in favor of development on SonicGDK.

Ah, crap. Now I won't be able to play it. Good luck with this, folks!

[Azukara]

Impish, on 20 September 2011 - 10:28 PM, said:

Hooray! I was against the change of engine that was proposed way back, but now with all the improvements made to GDK, and the lovely examples I've seen on Youtube, I think its a good idea. I kinda disappeared from the forums before they did, what kind of level design has been settled on for Freerunner now? Open-world-ish, Unleashed-esque, or what?

Stages are A-to-B gameplay, similar in structure to a blend of what SA1 did and Generations is doing in the modern stages. However, at the same time, it's expanding off into many different side-paths and shortcuts to take across the stage. You either progress through them naturally within Story Mode, speedrun them and go for high ranks in Time Attack Mode, or roam wherever and do what you want in Free Run Mode.

[8-Bit Dragon]

Yes, the switch to GDK at this point is a good move. I did not want to switch initially because Sonic GDK needed some improvement, but now it seems to be a well enough engine to make the switch. Also, we have certainly reached the limitations of Blitz3D. Creating the lightmaps are too cumbersome, and while the improvements provided by the Fast Extension library would resolve some issues, apparently some people cannot run it...roughly half, believe it or not. If we loose half the people who can play it, we may as well loose half of them while making the switch to a better engine.

As for the Blitz3D Freerunner engine, that is up to Azukara. We may either make a different Sonic game completely, or possibly release the source. In the mean time, we are still in need of modelers and texture artists, so if you would like to help, please let Azukara know.

One more thing I wanted to mention, I may soon have a new laptop with which I can run the Sonic GDK engine, so I'm not out of the game yet. I'm studying Unreal script, and I hope to port some of the improvements we made to Freerunner like the menu and level select when I have learned enough about it. Additionally, I finally started setting up a more permanent render farm for animated cut scenes.

[angelXwind]

Just to let you guys know, the Sonic Freerunner site is back up, after a rather long downtime. It now can be found at http://sonicfreerunner.angelxwind.net/ with the forums over at http://sonicfreerunn...wind.net/forum/ and a wiki set up at http://sonicfreerunn...xwind.net/wiki/. I'm still setting things up, so it'll be empty for a little while. Expect it to fill up soon.

For those wondering about the progress of Sonic Freerunner at this current time, it's going fine as of now. We just recently made the switch to UE3/UDK/SonicGDK, so it'll take some time for let's say, the next public beta to surface.

[8-Bit Dragon]

angelXwind, on 13 February 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

Just to let you guys know, the Sonic Freerunner site is back up, after a rather long downtime. It now can be found at http://sonicfreerunner.angelxwind.net/ with the forums over at http://sonicfreerunn...wind.net/forum/ and a wiki set up at http://sonicfreerunn...xwind.net/wiki/. I'm still setting things up, so it'll be empty for a little while. Expect it to fill up soon.

For those wondering about the progress of Sonic Freerunner at this current time, it's going fine as of now. We just recently made the switch to UE3/UDK/SonicGDK, so it'll take some time for let's say, the next public beta to surface.

The activation email seems to be broken. I registered at about 9:55am -5GMT and it has been 45 minutes and still no email.

I wanted to comment on the old Freerunner engine, but I'm just going to quote myself from the "OUR Blitz Sonic Game" forum where I am currently helping others with their BlitzSonic mods.

EightBitDragon said:

I don't consider this version to be a big release. The only thing changed in 1.3 is that I've added editable keyframes. Also, there are a few bug fixes and slightly better documentation.

Version 1.4 will be a big release. I've started organizing and adding comments to some of the code so that people will know what does what and where to find it. I started breaking the objects up into their own source files - even each object's parser has been separated from stage.bb and put into it's source file...

EightBitDragon said:

...The camera will also be improved, and I may finally implement a more efficient and easier to edit menu system. Also, physics will be editable. Scrolling textures will also be added for making waterfalls and such...

EightBitDragon said:

...I will instead continue to improve and document Freerunner's code, and add more of my own features. Azukara, the project leader of Freerunner, and other team members, has agreed to release the Blitz3D source code for Freerunner.

I hope to have most of the organizing done soon. Stay tuned for another release!

And as for our switch to GDK, I think it is the best thing we could do for the project. B3D is too outdated, and with computers becoming cheaper every day, I don't think there will be many people unable to play it by the time we get a stage and a few badniks completed.