General Project Thread & Feedback

Short answer is yes then =P
Man, I'd love to see a complete HPZ in HD *wants*

 

Would you prefer a "pure" a-la S3&K story connected HPZ, (unlocking Knuckles and extra stages) or just new levels?

 

If you mean about releasing the source, it doesn't seem likely by reading the replies.

 

Even if people do know C++, who outside of the community would care about modding some game like this at the stage it is in.

 

Would HPZ be an oppunity for the community to put forward Level Desgins and a boss? That'd be pretty rad. You could even have Knuckles as the boss from S3K to unlock him.

 

To my knowledge we're working on getting a solid foundation down for the original game in its entirety. HPZ is still a good ways off at this point. However, any ideas that you or the rest of the community have on it are the very things we're interested in hearing. If you can get some form of 'proof of concept' out in the open with art, so much the better! There are no guarantees right now on what will or will not be used for that area, of course, but quality ideas are the driving force behind this project.

 

Small interruption to announce that Canned Karma joined us as one of S2HD General Project Coordinators!

Congratulations and Welcome on board!

 

Damn, I could've sworn I quoted a post.
I can't even remember what it was in reply to now. =P

 

Firstly - Congrats Canned Karma!

But late, sorry. :P

Secondly, if I may ask, what are guys going to do on the (un?)intentional pallet effects? Such as flashing Flickies, Tornado, and Knuckles' colour changes? (Gray shield, Red Flickers Green Menu etc etc.)

 

The staff just discussed this very thing recently. While the project is no longer limited to a 256 color palette, there are some technical details that LOst is currently working to resolve. They are definitely on our list of issues being addressed.

 

If I may, this project is starting to look nicely, but It trouble me to see the huge requirements needed to run this game. I for one think that because this is a PC game it should have various level of quality so it can cater a big audience. Having an performance menu where you could turn off or on or the levels of detail, including the pixel shader. Best of luck with this project.

 

Thanks Epsilonsama,

You'll be happy to know that from the next release onwards, we'll include Pixels Shaders on/off options, just like any normal game has.
But that's only a small part of the huge improvements, graphically and techincally speaking, we are working on.

 

As I'm trying to move onto Illustrator, I needed to make some adaptations, the normal AI palette sucks xD (It is very small!). So I manually ported the Corel Draw Default RGB Color Palette (and put the color names in english too, this part was very boring!).

Corel Draw original palette:

(Translation for "Padrão: Paleta RGB Padrão": Default: Default RGB Palette)

Corel Draw ported palette:


I think this can help when uberizing frames so here is the DOWNLOAD LINK for "Corel Draw - Default RGB.ai"

HINT: Put that AI file in the default folder for swatches (usually C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS2\Presets\Swatches) and it will appear on the "Open Swatch Library" menu! And when you see it click on the little arrow in a circle and click on "Persistent" so it will be there on the next startup (you will not need to open it again).

 

Thanks for the file ME.

Corel Draw users will find this pretty handy!

 

So like, I totally want to start contributing to this project. I've been following it for a while, and I need something to kick my artistic arse back into gear. I was thinking of drawing some sort of Box-art, in the same vein as the Megaman 9 team did, and I've had a few ideas for it, taking inspiration from the JP Sonic 2 Manual.



I only just noticed that awesome Eggman art in the BG, with the Badniks, and was thinking of re-drawing it and completely colouring it in Mega Drive style, and incorporating it into the design.

The only problem I have now is that my Trial copy of Photoshop CS3 has expired, and every single crack I've come across so far has been riddled with viruses (which I don't really fancy chancing, considering I'm just after wiping my HDD recently due to them). Anybody up for pointing me in the right direction ?

Just so people don't feel I'm wasting their time, here's something I did (but never finished) for the Black Knight contest - http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a325/Jof...ng?t=1228321661

 

Thus not the current aim at the moment, we'll need several Special BG images so any HD quality remastered image like that is more than welcome.

Before starting on, remember:

-Source file with Layers must be kept. (never rasterize Art)
-Vector Art is preferred (it's easily scalable at any res, plus is line-perfect, looking like pro art)


Keep us updated, and amaze us!

 

<!--quoteo(post=253964:date=Dec 6 2008, 08:49 PM:name=Vincent)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Vincent @ Dec 6 2008, 08:49 PM) TD Uber


Because details makes HD.[/quote]I wouldn't say that. These new details throw the whole "geometrical shapes" scheme out of the window, kinda like drawing leaves in Green Hill's palms...

I think the pedicle and the receptacle should just look like a perfectly shaped calice. Less organic, more artificial-like.

 

And that's why also the Palmtree has evolved from a flat glass like form to a detailed frondes one.
Like the Grass now full of real spikes, the flower has more details like a real one.
REAL HD, in this case

After TD was out, on the horde of "cool", "wow" feedback we got by a 15% unsatisfied, especially from the rest of the web:
"S2HD looks like a Flash game, the color shades are so flat and the only nice HD is provided by the waterfall and the flowers on the background".

While an harsh comment to say, it got deep within me and let me test out if an UBER version would be even possible to attain to.
Since that day, we made tons of miles in quality

 

I understand what your saying ICE but think about this; the changes made to Sonic since the tech demo, I think you will agree, are a definite improvement . If we left everything else in the td style then sonic would look out of place.

Also more generally the previous art style fitted EHz very well IMO, as you say the perfect lines, shapes and geometry, but it would have limited the look and feel of other zones so the change was essential. I know its late to voice this now but if you have problems with the new art style they must be resolved!

 

I... don't like where this is going.

For example, the added green parts and organic stuff in the quoted post. I don't see that as an improvement, as it's just something changed from the graphics I liked back then. Flowers in other games from the time were meant to look organic and even realistic, but it wasn't the case in the first Sonic games. Else, they would have added more details to them, somewhere in the development process.

In this case, it's a small thing, but also an unneeded change that alters something from the original designs. I fear this could lead to many other changes here and there that will gradually detract from the nostalgia factor.


Nobody expected this project to be about creativity, as all the design work has already been done and it's been proven to work as it is. You see, when reimagining things you can't expect everybody to like them (see: the character designs in Castlevania Judgement). When keeping things faithful to the source, most of the people who like the originals will like the new version (see: SA2 Green Hill Zone, despites its incompleteness).

So, I don't see why we should start taking liberties with the art style because a few anonymous internet people (possibly kids that were raised playing realistic 3D games) said the graphics were too plain. They probably thought the same when seeing the original game, so we shouldn't care much about what they say.

I'm sure that some of them would also love to see something like this in the project, for example:
=\


There must be a way to make the original plain shapes stand out in HD, making them look geometrically perfect with the needed volume and lightning (it's a shame that nobody has tried making them in 3D, like the Special Stage attempts). It could be a challenge, that's for sure, but adding stuff that wasn't there is like saying that the original designs needed fixing.



I might be alone on this one, but I'd still like to see this project evolve while staying as faithful as possible to what we've been playing since 1992.