[BlazeHedgehog]

This looks super great, but as I said in the comments of the Youtube video, the scale seems a little too big. Wide-open spaces are great, but the spaces in that Emerald Coast video are a little too wide-open. Infact, in general, there seems to be a little too much space between everything.

Glad to see someone doing more than just verbatim ports of existing levels, though (not that those aren't also super important and awesome, too!)

Lobotomy, on 06 May 2012 - 02:42 AM, said:

AerosolSP, on 06 May 2012 - 01:27 AM, said:

Enough of this "the fans one-up Sega!!!" shit. I'm so sick of hearing it.

This, don't fucking pretend like Generations isn't a good game in it's own right. Yes, this is a hacking community, and we do cool shit in here, but there are VERY few people on this site who can actually produce a completed, polished work that outdoes SEGA's team, if any at all. If we didn't have their original code to tweak, we'd be SOL to any fan engine that can produce this level of quality, visually, audially and in gameplay. That includes Sonic Fan Remix and especially Sonic GDK and BlitzSonic.

I'd say this is a case of "fans one-up Sega!!!!". It is a crime that Sega never followed up Generations with DLC.

I want to play more Sonic Generations levels. Sega isn't providing me with any. But, since the formats were figured out, fans are. Therefore, fans are doing something I would like Sega to do, but they aren't. That is the very definition of "one-upping".

I would have gladly paid for expansion content to Sonic Generations. Now I don't have to.

[KingofHarts]

BlazeHedgehog, on 06 May 2012 - 03:42 AM, said:

I'd say this is a case of "fans one-up Sega!!!!". It is a crime that Sega never followed up Generations with DLC.

I want to play more Sonic Generations levels. Sega isn't providing me with any. But, since the formats were figured out, fans are. Therefore, fans are doing something I would like Sega to do, but they aren't. That is the very definition of "one-upping".

I would have gladly paid for expansion content to Sonic Generations. Now I don't have to.

This may be, or not, depending on your POV... not what he meant though. He meant that its annoying to hear some douche making this claim on EVERY single hacking topic...
It's fine if many people believe its one-upping something they did... but it's really not... cuz if they didn't do it first, we wouldn't have followed up on it with this. That's not one upping them at all. If we come up with something completely original before they do, THEN we 1-up them... BUT that's not the purpose of Sonic Retro. The site exists for the research and education of Sonic... and expansion upon what we know by hacking and programming.

[BlazeHedgehog]

KingofHarts, on 06 May 2012 - 03:47 AM, said:

BlazeHedgehog, on 06 May 2012 - 03:42 AM, said:

I'd say this is a case of "fans one-up Sega!!!!". It is a crime that Sega never followed up Generations with DLC.

I want to play more Sonic Generations levels. Sega isn't providing me with any. But, since the formats were figured out, fans are. Therefore, fans are doing something I would like Sega to do, but they aren't. That is the very definition of "one-upping".

I would have gladly paid for expansion content to Sonic Generations. Now I don't have to.

This may be, or not, depending on your POV... not what he meant though. He meant that its annoying to hear some douche making this claim on EVERY single hacking topic...
It's fine if many people believe its one-upping something they did... but it's really not... cuz if they didn't do it first, we wouldn't have followed up on it with this. That's not one upping them at all. If we come up with something completely original before they do, THEN we 1-up them... BUT that's not the purpose of Sonic Retro. The site exists for the research and education of Sonic... and expansion upon what we know by hacking and programming.

I get why he was saying, but my point is: Tough nuts, dude. People are saying it because that's what is happening. I understand not wanting to make Sega mad and all - we basically developed a rule over at SFGHQ (and I was the one to bring it up to make it a rule) to never put one's self above Sega, because that's a rude thing to do - and it paints a target on your back with regards to copyright. Sega allows fangames to exist out of respect for the fandom, so we show respect back.

But, man. I was primed and ready to go for some Sonic Generations DLC that filled in the blanks of notable levels that Generations missed. Sega chose to move on instead. Maybe the game didn't sell enough, maybe they knew they were about to post a huge loss and couldn't budget for more DLC... whatever.

Where they let me down, guys like Dario and Dude are picking up. It's cool. Can't be too mad, as long as Sega doesn't put out a patch on Steam to block mods.

This post has been edited by BlazeHedgehog: 06 May 2012 - 06:14 AM

[KingofHarts]

Oh I totally agree on that front... Generations would've been the perfect game for DLC. My no1 pick has been, since before release, and still is Carnival Night Zone.

That is a shame that SEGA never capitalized... But at the same time... it's great that we can freely mod it... One thing I've wondered, is how it got hacked and modded so quickly. As talented as the members here are, SEGA could've made a lick of effort to try to prevent it during production. By my estimation, they did no such thing, probably with the knowledge that Retro could accomplish such things as this. If thats the case, then it could be a good part of the reason why we get no DLC. (Although that does no good for console users...) I could be completely wrong, but that's how I see it. That's my reasoning for NOT seeing this as a 1-up, as talented and great as this is.

Anyway, after this is done, I'd like someone to get that DAMN CNZ... That'd make me a very happy panda... I would, but it would end up looking more like Atomic Sonic Generations than anything else. Oh well.

EDIT: BTW I doubt that Generations was a loss of money... Highly. Wasn't it the most preordered game in Sonic franchise history? I'm gonna go do some fact digging now, be right back... AND I WAS WRONG... God damn... That sucks.

This post has been edited by KingofHarts: 06 May 2012 - 07:03 AM

[Falk]

Lanzer, on 06 May 2012 - 01:14 AM, said:

fine, whatever, I'll be glad to throw money towards fans who can one-up your job anyways.

This guy knows where it's at.

edit: derp, remind me not to leave windows open overnight. Everything that needed to be said already has been said; feel free to trash, etc.

edit2: in reply to some of the discussions: I'd take a shot in the dark and say that the lack of DLC for Generations is likely due to developmental man-hours. SEGA would be insane not to already be full-swing balls-deep in the next big title, and taking resources off that to put into DLC which essentially requires new art assets might not be the best business decision. There always is the option to outsource additional levels to other companies, but the only known quantity w.r.t. the franchise would be DIMPS and... yeah.

And before anyone states the obvious that Unleashed stage DLC could have been essentially been free $$$, from a company standpoint they'd probably have wanted people to go buy Unleashed to play Unleashed rather than get labelled a Modern Warfare-style rehash DLC factory.

This post has been edited by Falk: 06 May 2012 - 07:54 AM

[synchronizer]

I'm going to echo what BlazeHedgehog and I posted on youtube:

I know that a larger-scale map may be good for the speedier modern Sonic, but I think you should resize the map so Sonic's size is in proportion to his surroundings using the same ratio from Sonic Adventure.
See if that's possible, because otherwise, the gameplay looks a tad bland.

Also, I'm afraid that the block platforming wasn't the best aspect of Colors or Generations. You should probably aim to make a replica of the map OR make new geometry instead of using Sega's safe, simple, but banal level building tool: the generic cube.

Hopefully you take this as positive criticism though. What you've made so far IS great.

This post has been edited by synchronizer: 06 May 2012 - 08:25 AM

[Dario FF]

Just wanted to remind everyone this has no GIA rendered so far. The only problem with that is I haven't discovered yet how it's supposed to be rendered exactly, since giving the stage proper normals generates the stock lighting you see in the video.

The problem is how is the GIA supposed to be rendered with this though? And what controls Sonic's and terrain shadow blending? Hopefully that stuff will have an answer sooner or later. Although rendering something of this magnitude is gonna take a while unless a joint effort is done. (Which even if no network rendering can work out, the GIA rendering scripts can only render the selected objects if needed, so it could be done manually somehow)

Quote

BTW I doubt that Generations was a loss of money... Highly. Wasn't it the most preordered game in Sonic franchise history? I'm gonna go do some fact digging now, be right back... AND I WAS WRONG... God damn... That sucks.

Which is the point I was making to Chimera the other day. DLC can likely only sell to people who bought the game and rarely cause new game purchases. If not that much people bought it, and considering how expensive it can be to even develop one single stage(Assets, network farm rendering, etc.), it would have to be really profitable for them to do it. Truth sucks, but I'd rather set my expectations to zero and be surprised if they DO come out with DLC.

All in all, this is a great project to learn how the game works. Splines for loops, 2D paths, cameras, materials, etc. Once the process for making one level is refined, streamlined, etc., churning out more levels should take way less time. I would recommend other people to start doing something as well if they have the slightest technical knowledge and have the will to put up with this game's limitations... only to discover it's way easier to modify than everyone thought.

[Dark Sonic]

I love the idea of this, but three things. The level looks way too big (scale it down a little bit. Speed Highway and City Escape may have been scaled higher but it did so in a way that looked right). The textures are the same as those from adventure, and thus look kind of cheesy. Try taking textures from other sources that have more high res versions of similar things. Like, for example, I'm sure many textures from Wave Ocean from Sonic 06 could be used to make an HD looking Emerald Coast, and in some places that may cause problems in the future, like Sky Deck, there are some textures from planet wisp that fit the red metal look really well. Try to avoid pure dreamcast textures if possible. Oh and finally, take some creative liberties with the art. While you've done a nice job making the level layout new yet familiar, the art needs the same. Try adding more scenery or things (I know this is early on, but I just thought I'd say it).

But still, I like where this is going. Good luck on your project sir (I'm eager to see someone's take on Emerald Coast Generations since the one on the 3DS was kind of boring).

Oh and as for DLC, Sega's recent release of new content for SaSASR for the iOS platforms has given me new hope that maybe, just maybe, we'll see some Generations DLC for Sonic's birthday (Keep in mind they never said there wasn't going to be DLC. They just never said there would be)

This post has been edited by Dark Sonic: 06 May 2012 - 08:57 AM

[Joltanz Mantis]

I was scared you were talking about this stuff :

Spoiler

I'm happy it isn't. I hope you can port all 10 stages! The only unfortunate thing is the physics differences. You won't be able to spin dash up walls. Air Boost only :/
Will you import Big's levels?

Oh, and Dark Sonic, perhaps he could use the 06 Egg Carrier / Egg Wyvern textures for Sky Deck.

[Lanzer]

KingofHarts, on 06 May 2012 - 03:47 AM, said:

This may be, or not, depending on your POV... not what he meant though. He meant that its annoying to hear some douche making this claim on EVERY single hacking topic...

Since when have I have been saying this on every single hacking topic?

Jesus christ didn't mean to start a fucking war of words here. My view on this is the same as BlazeHedgehog's, SEGA and Sonic Team released a fantastic anniversary game no doubt about that. But instead on focusing on what could've been a very profitible venture, DownLoadable Content, they chose to move on and focus on something else completely ignoring Generations as a still profitible venture. A very stupid move on their part because dispite the man-hours, it would've turned a profit overall especially if the 2nd favorite fan demaned stages were made.

Now we fans have just about ripped this game to pieces and rebuilding it anew making our own DLC centent for us. Maybe everything else is a gray area but in this very case, yes we are one-upping SEGA and Sonic Team with Generations DLC for PC. But I thank SEGA and Sonic Team for leaving the game this open for us to do anything with unlike Sonic 4 which is next to near impossible to hack anything save for textures.

Now can we drop this please? I started this as a snide poke at ST's lack of focusing on expanding games but everyone took it too seriously and I want it to end here. Unless you guys want to go off and make another topic about this issue...

[Aerosol]

You're calling it one-upping simply because Sega and Sonic Team aren't doing it for financial reasons? Yea I'm not going to argue with this kind of logic, so this is the last I'll say on it.

Dude, you haven't mentioned if you're gonna tweak that running animation yet. Like I (and someone else) said, it likes goofy on the Generations model as it is.

[Josh]

I think another thing to keep in mind that could be affecting the DLC/finance situation is the good ol' used game market.

Like it or not, most people are not going to do what I've done and play the game for more than 120 hours after they've beaten it, scouring for every path, easter egg, mission, and red ring. Most people are going to miss out on all that replay value, beat the game one time in about 10-12 hours, and then rarely pick it up again. That style is kind of the nature of a good Sonic game, and Generations nails it, but games like that are prime candidates to be traded in.

Generations also came out right at the beginning of the holiday rush. Gamers with a 360/PS3 were waiting on CoD, or Skyrim, or Uncharted 3, or a bevy of other AAA titles. And while Sega may be depending on the game having a "long tail" like New Super Mario Bros, I really don't think Sonic has the same widespread appeal, at least not to that extent.

I want DLC, would absolutely love it, to the point that I'd probably pay upwards of $15-$20 for a three-stage pack. But I'm in the tiny minority, and as bad as Sega's hurting right now, they can't take the risk. It's understandable.

But, to bring this full-circle, I'm really, really happy to see people like Dude busting the game wide open and giving us more content for Generations' excellent engine.

[Kharen]

I saw the video for the level, and I think that it's a bit too big. I mean, I know that Modern Sonic moves faster than Dreamcast-Era Sonic, but some of the things seemed like they overcompensated a bit too much. For example, that first big jump has Sonic fail to land on the next portion of the dock, and he has to climb up on the "fake" platforms (That's what I'm calling them. In the original, they didn't feel like part of the actual level and they were just thrown in there to get in the way) to get back up to where he needed to be. Also, near the end, the vertical portions were stretched out too far as well. If you could just kind of pull everything in just a little bit, you'd have something really amazing going. I like what you've got so far, and it's more than I've done (which is absolutely nothing. I NEED a new computer!), but it needs just a bit more to be perfect.

Although, now I'm kind of wanting to know if there are enough HD textures to do updated versions of each Sonic Adventure level. Like what was mentioned before, Wave Ocean looks close enough to Emerald Coast to work for HD graphics, and Planet Wisp textures could help for Sky Deck. What about the other levels, though? We've still got several other levels that need new graphics. Do the Modern Sonic games have enough counterparts to finish the job?

[Trunks]

Very interesting and promising. I don't know what to say that hasn't been said already; spaces seem a little too wide open, and the platforms seem like they might be a little too unforgiving. Otherwise, excellent work, can't wait to see more.

[Tiranno]

Looks fantastic so far! I love the Sonic Adventure running animation. Are you going to be using Drummond clips?