[8-Bit Dragon]

Sonic 3 Adventure

I was going to wait until after SAGE to announce this project, but I decided I should go ahead and get this out there before too many people are too busy with other projects to help.

This project aims to re-create the look and feel of Sonic Adventure 2, but with Sonic 3 levels, enemies, gimmicks, and story. The game engine will be based on the Sonic Freerunner mod of Damizean and Mark the Hedgehog's BlitzSonic engine. Recently I've been working hard to tweak the controls, and to add and improve existing features to make the engine feel more like SA2. The engine will, of course, use free libraries and effects demos. Like BlitzSonic Freerunner's source, the source for Sonic 3 Adventure will likely be released to the public.

If you are curious where you can find BlitzSonic Freerunner's source, I haven't released it quite yet. I've been planning on releasing it at SAGE 2012. You can see a short list of upgrades I've made since the last release of BlitzSonic Freerunner here.

I've been looking forward to making a BlitzSonic mod like this for some time. I have even tried once before to make Lava Reef Zone, but I was too inexperienced at the time to continue making the stage and the badniks.


Now, I believe I have enough experience in 3D modeling and Blitz3D that I could get this project going, and sustain it long enough to get at least the first stage of each level in Sonic 3 completed.

However balancing the development of a game with real life can be a challenge, and if I want this project to get done within a reasonable amount of time, I will need help with it. So here comes the part where I ask for assistance.

I am in need of texture artists, modelers, animators, musicians, programmers (Blitz3D), and maybe storyboard artists. I haven't decided yet if the last one is necessary, because if I make cut scenes they will likely center around the original Sonic 3 story, which is incredibly simple. The only instance I would need the story board artists would be for deciding camera angles and for drawing out things that the characters do during the sequence.

This is mostly an open project, and I'm not going to be especially strict about anything, and this isn't necessarily team oriented. The only thing I will not tolerate is perfection. Nobody is perfect, and neither will the texture or model you produce. To prevent this project from dragging out indefinitely, chasing impossible dreams of perfection, I will accept just about any model or texture, provided it is at least 256x256 in size, and matches the overall color scheme of the level and other textures. Models are just as forgiving; I will accept any model because I plan on improving the LOD system later on. Models that are low poly may be featured as a low-detail model, and models with too much detail will get used in the production of high-res baked textures. Basically I don't want to dwell on how well something looks or how accurate it is, I just want to get the resources into the game and get it done. Later, if someone makes a better model or texture, we can always upgrade it. I don't want this fan game to drag out indefinitely!

Now that you know the general idea, what engine I'm using, what I need help with, and what I expect out of this project, I hope you will take interest in the project and I look forward to seeing what the community has to offer!

I will update this page with more information, progress, and demos as the project progresses. The first phase in the project is creating resources for Angel Island. In the mean time, I am continuing to refine BlitzSonic Freerunner's code for release to the public, and to get it ready for this project.

[dsrb]

Pretty OT, but is Freerunner now separate from this World Runner thing I've seen around? At first, I thought it had just been renamed, but the continued use of the former name suggests otherwise.

Anyhow, this is interesting, especially your (initial) approach to assets and their quality; I'm intrigued to see how that goes. So, good luck!

[8-Bit Dragon]

dsrb, on 12 June 2012 - 04:20 PM, said:

Pretty OT, but is Freerunner now separate from this World Runner thing I've seen around? At first, I thought it had just been renamed, but the continued use of the former name suggests otherwise.

Anyhow, this is interesting, especially your (initial) approach to assets and their quality; I'm intrigued to see how that goes. So, good luck!

Yes, the BlitzSonic version of Freerunner is a completely separate project that I am continuing. It is basically going to be an upgraded version of BlitzSonic (just the engine), and this project will use it for the creation of a full game. I kept the old Freerunner name for the Freerunner engine project because that's what it was called initially. WorldRunner, as it is called now, is continuing under Sonic GDK.

This post has been edited by 8-Bit Dragon: 12 June 2012 - 04:30 PM

[dsrb]

Thanks for the info!

[Vinchenz]

I guess you can't use shaders in there? Because it looks horribly bland to me without even a little lighting. :/

But I bid you good luck. If I could model I would help.

[Kharen]

I've tried playing BlitzSonic levels before. While I love the idea behind it, the controls while turning left and right are horrible enough that I couldn't bother with it. Are you planning to fix the turning so that it feels more like a sonic game and less like a hovercraft/bumper boat?

I'm sorry if I sound irritated with my question. It's just such a wonderful idea that I want to see happen, but once I heard that you were using a BlitzSonic engine, my heart fell for the same reason I asked about.

[Morph]

Anti-hovercraft was pretty much the centerpiece of the Freerunner engine (on top of rolling), so that's been (arguably) fixed.

[Aerosol]

If you're goal is to be Sonic Adventure with Sonic 3 levels, your first order of business should be to get some Sonic Adventure tightness with those controls. I'm still seeing "hovercraft" dynamics going on here. Tighten that up, and you'll have something special.

[8-Bit Dragon]

The hovercraft handling has been fixed, but it still needs fine tuning. However, that may not be necessary if I can manage to get this completed:
Game_Character_Parser.bb
I don't mind sharing this because it will be made public anyway. Its not finished yet, but this will allow you to create profiles, which will be nothing more than mesh/animation data, and physics/handling. Its like Stage.xml for characters. This would enable you to tweak the handling to your liking on a per-character basis. I have to get a character select working before it will work because that parser will eventually read the characters automatically, like the stage folder does now. I think this is the best approach because characters can be made portable; If you make a character or refine the handling, you can share it with others, and they don't need to do anything to get it into the game, other than plop it into the character folder.

[Mr Lange]

I really like this idea, and if you can show some good results with the engine, I'd love to do some work for it in the way of models, animations, and/or textures.

[8-Bit Dragon]

This isn't exactly a progress shot, I'm just testing the new auxiliary object placement code. Redlerred7 gave me the idea to use pyramids for object placement on the Worldrunner forums, and it seems to work pretty well. The power of the spring is adjusted by moving the center vertex of the pyramid objects while editing them in your 3D editor.

And, Sonic doesn't bounce randomly in the cage like he does in the Megadrive/Genesis games, he bounces perfectly clockwise around it. Weird!

[Kharen]

Dang, if the turning issues have already been fixed, then I'm loving this idea already! I've tried running Sonic GDK and several other 3D setups on my laptop, and the only two that seem to work are SRB2 and BlitzSonic, and I already mentioned my issues with it.

Anyways, I've always wanted to see a 3D version of the Sonic 3 game, but I've got to ask: by "Sonic 3", do you mean Angel Island through Launch Base, or are we traveling all the way to Sky Sanctuary and Death Egg? My first experience with the game was from the Sonic & Knuckles Collection on PC, and because of that stupid CNZ barrel, I came to like S&K better. I still enjoyed Sonic 3 though, and will love this project either way.

By the way, is there anywhere that explains how to make a BlitzSonic level? I've always been able to find players, but no editors or level creating software.

---

EDIT: Also, why is it that BlitzSonic doesn't seem to have a page on the wiki? Enough people use it for stuff that you would think we would have an entry on it somewhere.

This post has been edited by Kharen: 13 June 2012 - 05:33 PM

[8-Bit Dragon]

Kharen, on 13 June 2012 - 05:33 PM, said:

Dang, if the turning issues have already been fixed, then I'm loving this idea already! I've tried running Sonic GDK and several other 3D setups on my laptop, and the only two that seem to work are SRB2 and BlitzSonic, and I already mentioned my issues with it.

Anyways, I've always wanted to see a 3D version of the Sonic 3 game, but I've got to ask: by "Sonic 3", do you mean Angel Island through Launch Base, or are we traveling all the way to Sky Sanctuary and Death Egg? My first experience with the game was from the Sonic & Knuckles Collection on PC, and because of that stupid CNZ barrel, I came to like S&K better. I still enjoyed Sonic 3 though, and will love this project either way.

By the way, is there anywhere that explains how to make a BlitzSonic level? I've always been able to find players, but no editors or level creating software.

---

EDIT: Also, why is it that BlitzSonic doesn't seem to have a page on the wiki? Enough people use it for stuff that you would think we would have an entry on it somewhere.

The game is going to feature Angel Island through Launch Base. If I can get enough people to help out, I might consider going all the way through S&K levels as well.

There isn't really a dedicated editor. Blitz3D accepts .3ds, .md2, .x, and it's native format .b3d. Many people use Fragmotion for work in Blitz3D because it supports the .b3d extension so well. But there are plugins for 3DS Max, and you could also export to one of the other formats using another software. As for filling the level with objects after you have modeled it, I'm writing up a help file for BlitzSonic Freerunner to guide you through it.

[8-Bit Dragon]

Bloominator model. I may have put a little too much ambient lighting on it. I'll tweak it later when I get it into the game.

[Mr Lange]

That model is great. Why don't other game artists recognize things like vibrant shades and gradients in 3d lighting and shading? Sonic Team had it down in the early 90s. Today everyone thinks ambient fucking occlusion passes off as legitimate shading. I can agree that there is a little too much ambient lighting, but only a little.