[Guess Who]

SANiK, on 22 April 2012 - 01:42 PM, said:

If people defeated the DRM to get the assets from Kirby HD, would Volpino cry foul, while still proclaiming that the DRM in Kirby HD is entirely LOst's fault, citing the DRM as unnecessary?
Undefined.

Firstly: let's not turn this thread into personal attacks, no matter how stupid you think someone's being.

Second: the art team never asked LOst to protect their assets in such a way and when they found out, they requested him to remove it. So yes, it's still his fault.

[scanline99]

SANiK, on 22 April 2012 - 12:58 PM, said:

Someone else mentioned not releasing the assets because of the issue of art styles not matching "so it's better to have the new people redo all the art." That is just plain wrong. The collaborative animation industry shows this is not a problem. Art styles can be learned.

From how you've phrased yourself SANiK, it appears as though you are looking at this process through an incredibly narrow lens (though feel free to correct me if I've gotten the wrong end of the stick, and please do note that I do not intend any of the following to come off as patronising, I'm just stating a few facts).

Yes, art teams can (and must) work together to be on the same page - someone leads and then teaches and manages the others to ensure consistency throughout production. Having worked out in the animation industry and now that I am running my own company as an art director, I can assure you that this process runs far deeper than you have insinuated. To provide an example or two, on projects I have worked on in the past, it was not simply a case of taking the lead artists work and just copying their cels and in-betweening them or whatever and then my work would all match right off the bat. It is the job of the director, producer, concept artists and lead artists to ensure the lackeys underneath become embroiled in the subject matter and understand it to its very core. This means model sheets (poses, facial expressions, clothing, etc), character bio's, hours of pencil tests, and of course, the script for said film/show. The other big issue at hand here is that to ensure things are kept in line and on time is having the team closely knit. A 'revolving door' principle as is something of a trend with open-source community projects is not compliant to rapidly produced visuals with a cohesive aesthetic.

Bringing this specifically to the context of a game, simply mimicking a sprite or tile's look is like merely taking a lick of the frosting from a cake rather than taking a bite of all the layers at once and sampling how all the ingredients work together to make something tasty. If you want a work to be proud of and that can stand the test of time, you need to work from the ground up, go through your own creative journey of trial and error and produce something that is inherently your own doing. By only rigidly copying another's work and trying to bend yourself to their intentions, the result will almost always come off as flimsy and totally lacking in confidence. Turning the spotlight to two members who seem fairly active on this board, both Sonica and Flare have clearly been through this journey and as such their work shows an incredibly solid foundation from which they are able to drive themselves further and continue to improve off of their own backs, now evidenced in Sonica's Sonic 4 project which takes a refreshing creative step beyond the limits of S2HD. I know Flare has worked in his particular style for many years, and as a matter of fact, I was very inspired by his work back in 2009 and it drove me to go and experiment, devising my own methods to improve my work in certain areas - I never once hounded him for assets though, I just took glances, asked some questions internally, took inspiration and went on my way. I could be wrong here, but it looks as though Sonica was one whose work was very much shaped by what he saw in S2HD, with only basic screenshots, a couple of "how they made it" pngs and a trailer to go from since 2011 I can only assume that he simply took inspiration from those combined with his own solid skillset base and brought himself to where he is now - and you can colour me impressed with those early results.

The bottom line here guys is this: I am not giving out my contribution to the assets for the game, but I am not keeping them back to simply stir the pot and ruffle feathers. I see alot of desire and ambition in folks on this board to also embark on a journey to improve their work and create tributes to their favourite video game character and that is great! But, some of you are looking in the wrong place. You need to look further back (to the source), just as we did when first making the assets and ask yourself why the art teams back then took certain directions with their work, where they were inspired, what the theory behind it all is and then ask yourself those very same questions about your own work as you head off down that creative path. The alpha is there for all to see and have done with it whatever you please. Play it, study what's there and then go off and put that inspiration into action. Don't sit down at your proverbial microscope with tweezers in hand picking asset pixels apart because in the long run you will not find the ultimate satisfaction you are after. The proof of this is in the pudding comparing tech demo to alpha, and I needn't say more than that.

Now, let's see which of you come back and lynch me for turning down your consistent requests for assets. If you feel annoyed at what I've said then you might need to throw your old mentality about art and design out of the window and start afresh (or look for a new hobby). If you see where I'm coming from then, fantastic, you will have a blast with your creativity as it can know no bounds!!

Edit: If SANiK or whomever is able to extract the assets from the game through reverse engineering, then, fair enough, no one is stopping you but you should think long and hard about why you would want to extract those in lieu of what I've said. Despite my little rant above, I don't approve of the way LOst locked down the assets for the game like he did because he is only prolonging the inevitable and it was simply wasting everybody's time. And don't even get me started on how underhanded and pathetic it was for him to try and prevent folks from taking printscreens of the game. That was simply ludicrous and dim-witted and I'm glad that your right to film/screenshot the game was not revoked due to one man's incomprehensible paranoia.

This post has been edited by scanline99: 22 April 2012 - 02:45 PM

[Volpino]

Guess Who, on 22 April 2012 - 01:58 PM, said:

SANiK, on 22 April 2012 - 01:42 PM, said:

If people defeated the DRM to get the assets from Kirby HD, would Volpino cry foul, while still proclaiming that the DRM in Kirby HD is entirely LOst's fault, citing the DRM as unnecessary?
Undefined.

Firstly: let's not turn this thread into personal attacks, no matter how stupid you think someone's being.

Second: the art team never asked LOst to protect their assets in such a way and when they found out, they requested him to remove it. So yes, it's still his fault.

I don't take offense, I think he's just trying to make a point. No, I wouldn't, but at the same time, it probably depends on what people are asking for. Just a raster image with transparency for a programmer to work with seems harmless (Because the vector origin makes it hard to edit and look legitimately yours, especially if you're talking about a 13 year old kid making a fangame with no art experience) but I'm not Vincent, I have no idea what his limit is, in truth. I'm just shooting off potentially unhelpful opinions.

scanline99, on 22 April 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

Bringing this specifically to the context of a game, simply mimicking a sprite or tile's look is like merely taking a lick of the frosting from a cake rather than taking a bite of all the layers at once and sampling how all the ingredients work together to make something tasty. If you want a work to be proud of and that can stand the test of time, you need to work from the ground up, go through your own creative journey of trial and error and produce something that is inherently your own doing. By only rigidly copying another's work and trying to bend yourself to their intentions, the result will almost always come off as flimsy and totally lacking in confidence.

Not making this comment to be argumentative, but isn't that basically what you guys were doing with the concept art for your animations?

[scanline99]

You're completely welcome to argue a point Volpino. At a glance, my argument may sound somewhat hypocritical as it is hot off the back of a fan project re-creating existing assets. However, as is evidenced all over this thread and elsewhere on the net, the assets could have been interpreted any number of ways, and they were over the course of 4 years. When I came on, I made a decision to push for something that resembled and reminded folks of the concept art as this was the implied intention of the project's existence in the first place. Likewise, you can do the very same in creating your own art if you so desire, rather than looking so far up the chain and stopping at our assets - go deeper!

Had I been one to start my own Sonic project, I would have absolutely taken a completely different style from what was seen in S2HD and try and re-brand Sonic in such a way that embodies the way I see his character. With S2HD by the time I arrived on the scene there was a certain spec to follow though (with some wiggle room that could be fought for) and so that is why it looks the way it does. My point on a general scale still stands tall though and I really don't want you to overlook it because you are so transfixed on one minute end.

This post has been edited by scanline99: 22 April 2012 - 03:09 PM

[Aerosol]

Can't you just watermark an image and get it over with? Seriously, I could care less whether S2HD gets revived or not. I just what other things that were completed looked like. Put a big fat honking "DO NOT STEAL" watermark over the whole thing for all I care. I don't want "assets". I just want to see what you did.

It's whatever, though. Remake projects don't interest me anymore.

[Lapper]

AerosolSP, on 22 April 2012 - 03:08 PM, said:

Can't you just watermark an image and get it over with? Seriously, I could care less whether S2HD gets revived or not. I just what other things that were completed looked like. Put a big fat honking "DO NOT STEAL" watermark over the whole thing for all I care. I don't want "assets". I just want to see what you did.

It's whatever, though. Remake projects don't interest me anymore.

I would be very happy if you did this, even with watermarks. It would be even better to see things animated if at all possible.

[Black Squirrel]

I just want to throw this out there

releasing assets =/= using assets. Good chunks of it would be re-done to address all the gradient complaints anyway

but it does help others learn.

scanline99, on 22 April 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

I just took glances, asked some questions internally, took inspiration and went on my way.

a bit like this

though I imagine Flare had some plans for his work, even if it was just demonstrating leet skilz on the net. This is opposed to leaving them to rot on a hard drive somewhere for nobody to benefit from.

if I fell down a hole I would learn something. Mostly, that there's a hole there. If someone told me there was a hole, I'd be less likely to fall down, yet still learn the hole existed.


as a side, I'm against watermarking. I try to have more faith in the human race.

This post has been edited by Black Squirrel: 22 April 2012 - 03:43 PM

[SANiK]

Guess Who, on 22 April 2012 - 01:58 PM, said:

SANiK, on 22 April 2012 - 01:42 PM, said:

If people defeated the DRM to get the assets from Kirby HD, would Volpino cry foul, while still proclaiming that the DRM in Kirby HD is entirely LOst's fault, citing the DRM as unnecessary?
Undefined.

Firstly: let's not turn this thread into personal attacks, no matter how stupid you think someone's being.

Second: the art team never asked LOst to protect their assets in such a way and when they found out, they requested him to remove it. So yes, it's still his fault.

I apologize for reading as if I was personally attacking Volpino. I just wanted to better relate the idea being discussed.

scanline99, on 22 April 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

...

scanline99, interesting read, but:

Sonic 2 HD started as a goal to make Sonic 2 in HD because of a photo that someone posted as a concept.

The goal was to make it happen, even if it looked like it was held together by glue.

* * *
But then LOst came in worrying about pixel perfection in his engine,
arguing that OpenGL is bad because the standard does not guarenttee pixel perfection across platforms,
so he secluded himself to DirectX and Windows only.

* * *
Then you guys came in worrying about matching art styles and pixel perfection,
making it a closed community project so that the style was easier to control and define,
all while missing out on:

Making it happen.

* * *
"But we released an Alpha!"
Sure you made it happen, somewhat, just like how a dead pilot who crashed his plane into the ground might say, "I landed!"

And now you have a chance to let the community continue off where you left,
but, you don't want to.

Because to you it's no longer about making it happen.
To you, it's about keeping some aesthetic style pure, and preventing it from being mixed with other styles,

to the point that having a community (who just wants to make it happen) redo probably 80% of non-level art which you guys have already done, sounds sane.

* * *
If the project was still community including the assets - any bump in the road would present itself as a pause,
and not a project death.

* * *
If the project was still community, and the guy who did 99% of the Sonic sprite set decided to quit,
the sane choice would be to have another guy finish the 1%,
and not have him redo the 100%,
because making it happen is priority number one.

* * *
But, I understand your point.

This post has been edited by SANiK: 22 April 2012 - 04:09 PM

[The Growler]

I don't know if it's been asked already, but does anyone know if you can record or take screenshots with FRAPS on S2HD?

[Volpino]

The Growler, on 22 April 2012 - 05:55 PM, said:

I don't know if it's been asked already, but does anyone know if you can record or take screenshots with FRAPS on S2HD?

You can, people already have. o.o

[Vincent]

SANiK, on 22 April 2012 - 04:06 PM, said:

to the point that having a community (who just wants to make it happen)

Speaking in name of Team S2HD,
We are very proud hearing back so much appreciation and positive feedback to our art work -It really pays off all the hardships we went through to create a dream game "from fans to fans".
Yes, S2HD could had been much more, yet an unreliable programmer and our lives getting busier in these 4 years won't allow us to, especially when we have to feed our families with work.

It's simply not realistic to even consider to reprise the community work a-la- Hill Top Tree, which took months to end up with nothing done. Not only I am betting by experience it will just end up in an endless nitpick cycle; there will be fights for a cohesive vision until it hits the end of the road, and I lack the time to look after that process.
Everything you see in Alpha Release is entirely made by a strict production chain exploiting years of experience and combined strengths of 2-3 artists.
Study, experiment and find what works best for your art team and you'll achieve incredible results. A set mind and a burning heart with passion can create -literally anything!

You don't need to reverse engineer Alpha Release to save S2HD. As said earlier, If you really wish to prove a point that the community is able to "help S2HD" beside words, jump on the challenge and create an engine supporting HD and 4X graphics of the original Sonic 2. By that time, I'll be glad to evaluate the possibility to promote this new engine by transferring S2HD art pack into that.
Until and IF that happen, please stop begging for art for the sake of continuing S2HD in some hypothetical circumstance.

[Volpino]

Vincent, on 22 April 2012 - 06:06 PM, said:

SANiK, on 22 April 2012 - 04:06 PM, said:

to the point that having a community (who just wants to make it happen)

Speaking in name of Team S2HD,
We are very proud hearing back so much appreciation and positive feedback to our art work -It really pays off all the hardships we went through to create a dream game "from fans to fans".
Yes, S2HD could had been much more, yet an unreliable programmer and our lives getting busier in these 4 years won't allow us to, especially when we have to feed our families with work.

It's simply not realistic to even consider to reprise the community work a-la- Hill Top Tree, which took months to end up with nothing done. Not only I am betting by experience it will just end up in an endless nitpick cycle; there will be fights for a cohesive vision until it hits the end of the road, and I lack the time to look after that process.
Everything you see in Alpha Release is entirely made by a strict production chain exploiting years of experience and combined strengths of 2-3 artists.
Study, experiment and find what works best for your art team and you'll achieve incredible results. A set mind and a burning heart with passion can create -literally anything!

You don't need to reverse engineer Alpha Release to save S2HD. As said earlier, If you really wish to prove a point that the community is able to "help S2HD" beside words, jump on the challenge and create an engine supporting HD and 4X graphics of the original Sonic 2. By that time, I'll be glad to evaluate the possibility to promote this new engine by transferring S2HD art pack into that.
Until and IF that happen, please stop begging for art for the sake of continuing S2HD in some hypothetical circumstance.

How come you haven't replied to AesosolSP or Sonica about their requests?

[Guess Who]

WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT FURTHER DISCUSSION OF RELEASING THE ASSETS?

WHAT. DID. I. SAY?

[Cinossu]

Right guys and girls, it's been coming to this for a while, and now it's been requested. The "give us the assets" thing has become old real quick. Either some of you didn't see the request of a mod to knock it off, on pain of suspension, or you are just ignoring it. Either way, it's time to put it to rest, it's time for this topic to be locked.

The programmer has a nap. Hold out, programmer!