General Project Thread & Feedback

Spoiler: The programmer is LOst. :P

 

Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. We're not telling

 

Yeah, following Tweaker's example, I feel I must apologies for the sarcasm I poured out to this project. Though I don't agree with the way it's run at all, I guess I should just leave y'all to it. After all, if you're genuinely making progress, that's an actual result that no amount of ranting on either side can change.

I must say that I enjoyed the argument though; not necessarily from a troll's perspective, but from one which believes this -- if you aren't prepared to fight for what you believe, then you really don't believe it.

If anything, the recent drama should have proven how strong this project could be.

 

I think this tech demo will focus mostly on showing off some features of the engine (in conjunction with some of the current art) since pretty much no one has yet seen anything about that. We realize that essentially all the art and music is still in beta, and probably will still be by the time we release the demo, but hopefully having more context than just isolated sprites and level tiles will allow improved feedback and suggestions.

 

Would it be possible to easily edit the art used in the Tech Demo or would it only be using what has been made up to it's release and 4x tiles for everything else? I have no idea how this stuff works.

 

It pretty much depends on how the programming will go forward in those weeks.
If you want to edit Level Art, until we'll release the "Base HD Level Art" guide, it's better to contribute with mockups or general EHZ Zone objects.

--

I Like the idea Tweaker proposed in splitting and assign jobs to motivated and talented contributors with General Art / Music and Level Art.
This Topic was initially created for the casual contributors to help us, If someone want to give us suggestion in how to manage, expanding or modifying it, we are all hears!


I'll update that topic now, as some jobs had already been taken on/completed by us or privately by some new contributor.

 

At Vincent's request, here's a rough outline I've had in mind for awhile now concerning the concept art process:

1. Initial submission
2. Revisions based on general feedback
[this in-between point is where the project is currently at, getting bogged down by endless revisions that delay progress]
3. Concept art moved to an 'accepted submissions for further detailing area', or something along those lines (this gets us past the hump and keeps the project moving)
4. (Upon completion of major assets) Fine tuning of concept art to match decided area theme

I'm by no means saying it's a bad thing to have so many people contribute their ideas, but a somewhat formalized process should allow the project coordinators room to decide in a more streamlined fashion what needs to be created next. Currently it seems that concept art is spending far too long cycling through multiple revisions. Concept art is just that - ideas made visual for explanation. Taking the time in the concept art thread to fully realize them instead of taking the image chosen from general concensus or by project leadership and putting them into their respective threads for refinement at a later date doesn't seem like effective management of talent/resources.

I'll be happy to explain in more detail if someone has questions.

 

I'll try to put an example of your ideal process:


1)Squirrel gets to the Mockup / Concept Area - Improvements

2)Squirrel gets improved and fixed, until it's getting on a general positive consensus and then finally approved by S2HD Staff.

3)Moved to the Approved Art Topic (and gets uploaded to the database) or inside the proper Level / Character Art topic.

4)After a certain contextual area has been completed, tuning it to match any eventual updated "style".

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The question I'd like to expose is especially on number 2.
While the new contributor improves his work, another one may post a drastically different version thus getting mixed feedback, if that art is not excessively better.
If both are valid ones, that mixed feedback followed by different improvements, may potentially block everything for weeks or months, before another general consensus has been reached (at least not until S2HD Staff decides one of them and call it a day).

So the main question is: how to maximize general consensus to its beneficial extent ?
We were thinking of setting polls to solve this matter.

 

See, this is just the thing such a process could provide a solution for though - by following it, you get around the potential blockages by saying 'okay, we've got a roughed out concept of what we're after, to be refined at a later date. Even if two or more pieces are valid, there's no hard and fast rule saying they can't both be put to their respective approved art threads. If the artist behind the original design seeks to improve it, it can then be done inside that thread so as not to clutter up the concept one (like we're currently seeing).

I'm not against the polls, but trying to have one for each and every piece of concept art sounds like more of a hassle than anything really. General concensus in the threads so far seems to have worked well.

The bottom line in my mind is getting good concepts up, and then moving on from them as soon as can be considered feasible. Basic project management and streamlining.

 

I understood your point.

Yet how would you successfully manage (or reshape) the entire Topics structure in your idea?
It could lead to many topics "Monitor by XXX - Approved Art" or Huge clogged single XXX Art topics we have now, full of different contributions.


Provide me with some more detailed example

 

Alright. I agree that creating many additional topics on a per art basis is wasteful. That's not what I was trying to get at, so sorry if that was a bit vague.

Let's go with something recent in the concept art thread for context as an example. The slew of monitors we've seen lately works well.

Initial submission:
by Woot (contributing user)

Revisions:
by " "
by " "
by " "
by " "
by " "

Etc. as needed. I envision this as being part of a post either in Character Art, Level Art, Title & Item Art. Tweaker's already said that he doesn't want more topics in the subforum regardless. This collection post serves to sum up what's been created, and provides opportunity for the contributors and project leadership to see what theme will work best for a given piece. This could be an area where leader overrule helps to move the project along in favor of artists continuing to tweak their images for who knows how long. This is where it should be known that more ideas are still being accepted, but it is strongly encouraged to move onto the next concept piece (start the process over). More improvements to the art can be made after one of the following:

a) all workable concepts for a zone have been created (allows for a level to be in beta state much faster)
b) when asked for by a project staff member

This way, we have a workaround to creating additional topics, and concentrate the number of posts down to as few as are needed.

It might serve well to remove the artist's name from the collection post. People will know who was responsible for what, and the last thing we want is for this to turn into a contest of who's able to get approved art in.

 

Does the database not accomplish this to some point? After all it is split into categories based on the art and there are multiple contributions for each item

 

People are talking about having a restart function etc in the pause menu, but some extremists don't like this idea (because they are extreme fundamentalists, no doubt).

I think it is a good idea, but I wouldn't care if it was omitted, assuming that there is a console where you can punch in commands which call functions. ie restart would restart the map, map <mapname> would load a map.

If a console isn't in the game, I wouldn't mind implementing one (or at least attempting to ).

Also, is whoever is doing the coding using SDL?

Keep up the good work... Many thanks! :D

 

Seriously, igniting flames that have long gone out will not win you any favours here from either side of that argument. I personally have a lot more to say on the issue, but instead choose wisely to let it die. Extreme fundmamentalists my arse, there were decent opinions coming from either side.

What.

No wait, what. One of the things that is great about console games is the immediacy, simplicity and accesibility of them. Not accidentally hitting the tilde key and getting up some text window which accepts only arcane suggestions and parameters. For a special bonus suggestion, let us wait for the artists to do their thing, we're starting to see some good work from them - ICEknight's avatar being an awesome slice of cartoon comedy in the expression, I find it a crying shame that because it differs from the original (And yet has the same heart and soul, with the addition of a good, natural assymetrical facial expression which looks genuinely amusing) it's not likely to be included.

Ah well. Took me a while to realise I'm the only person in this community who genuinely sees Sonic as a sort of videogame cartoon. C'est la vie.

 

Actually, I believe it is being used. Maybe not that specific frame, but ICEknight's renditions of that animal are, as far as I know, the top preference and most likely to be used at this point.

Which is a good thing, because everything ICEknight has made so far is absolutely brilliant.

 

I actually mean the exact expression as used in his avatar. I know it won't be used, but (And I'm probably alone in this opinion) it is by far the image with the most damned character out of the whole project.

Although, the ones up for inclusion are very competent, I do feel they're a little stoic in execution; too precise. But I have actually recently learned I'm in a visible minority of people who feel such a way about the art for this project. I'm just sitting back and paying compliments to excellent stuff like ICEknight's squirrel from now on, I think.

 

I'm just giving my console comment some context. I'm not fussed about the pause menu. It seems as people are going to kill just to ensure this HD remake is exactly the same as the original, even down to aspects of the game which don't effect the GAMEPLAY. Hence "Extreme fundmamentalists".

Essentially, the end user would not even know the console exists, as long as the combo to get the console up is strange enough (ie not just tilde... Maybe tilde + 1 + 2 + 3), or do it the way many games do it and add -console when you run the game. Therefore the game IS simple and accessible, and gives the freedom and functionality that others enjoy.

I'll talk about this later, after the artists have don their thing. :v:

 

There has been many questions regarding what the Tech Demo will include, so I'd like to answer everyone:
SURPRISE!! :D

We are working REALLY HARD, to deliver you as much quality/features as we can within the deadline.
And we do not want to spoil anything out of it, so please patient only 2 weeks more!

and BTW:

****Contributors please complete your work by September 1ST****

 

<!--quoteo(post=217715:date=Aug 19 2008, 01:00 PM:name=Jayextee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jayextee @ Aug 19 2008, 01:00 PM)