Hill Top Zone

Congratulations on making those colors spot on, on the first try. It didn't even look like a 3D model this time.

The problem here is that the holes in the diagonal parts are bigger than the others, thus making all of them look the same size when viewed from the side, creating an illusion of flatness. You could try making all of them the same size, perhaps, and then those will start looking thinner giving it its needed volume.


By the way, judging from the original shading, I'd say that one of the handles (the right one) is supposed to be in front and the other one behind.

This way, somebody could at least theoretically stand in there without falling.

 

LOL, I don't think they're handles somehow; they're probably just what the vines are tied on to.

 

I would guess there are four, only you can't see the other two in the original because of angle.

 

That would make the most sense, but notice how the rightmost vine and handle look brighter.

 

I can't believe some of you can't imagine the handles being in the middle of the platform attached to the floor. That's why I put them there in the middle of that quick birds eye view. It might help if it's seen from an isometric view.



ICEKnight having the hooks there just doesn't work without turning the platform to a different angle. And There can't be four otherwise it would require two vines to slide down.

 

Ah-ha, beat me too it. I whipped up this image as an example. The darker ring is further, away than the brighter.

 

We saw it, but that idea conflicts with both the original shading and the laws of physics...

 

Eh? How. Explain. If you are on about the weight of sonic will tip the platform over. Then maybe you should think about how a double decker bus doesn't tip over when turning.

 

Double decker buses have two sets of supports, one at the front, and one at the back. The HTZ platform has two, both at the exact center. You'd have to stand at the exact center and stay perfectly still to keep the platform from tilting in either direction.

I'm assuming that's what ICEknight meant, at least. The way I see it, there are either four supports, or two diagonal from each other. Most likely 4, because it would still be somewhat unstable with the two diagonal ones.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Supports to what? A bus is free standing. The reason it stays up is because the upper part is lighter than the bottom half. That's why you don't get it tipping over. You could have a bus full of people all sitting on one side of the upper section and it still wouldn't tip. And that's because it's designed like that for health and safety reasons. And this is the point I'm trying to make. Just because something doesn't look right doesn't mean it can't work. Just think about this please. If you put a feather at the edge of that platform, would it tip? If Sonic was the weight of that feather, would it tip? It's all about weight ratios. If you have more weight in the platform than the load. Or more weight central of the platform than the edge of the platform. Then you are going to make it balance.

 

Or you could just stop all the arguments about physics and give it four handles.

 

Why are we arguing over this? It doesn't matter how it works.

But to give my input after modeled; It made the most sense that both would be in the middle for optimal support. But when looked at from an 2D orthographic view, the base of the handles have no where to go assuming its the same thickness (which would make sense). So my interpretation would be the handles are in the middle held in place with bars either going horizontally or depth-wise (z-axis). But again, I didn't bother modeling because it doesn't matter.

Though I did notice the color differences in the handles and the vines, but it wouldn't make sense to be on different planes that met on a single vine. And 2 vines idea as far as I'm concerned is out of the question. Its 1 vine. Its always been 1 vine. You can't convince me its 2.

Well the version I proposed was brought through photoshop. So the comparison with the original next to it is layered over the render. The others I posted are straight renders.

What point would that make, the render would look IDENTICAL.

 

Oh I'm not arguing over this. This ain't a nerd rage thing LOL. I'm just a bit of a detail freak. This kind of discussion reminds me of that chemical stuff debate.

 

Because its harder to intentionally model half of something than the entire thing. Unless you are talking about something complex and detailed. Plus when modeling something in 3D it helps give a better sense of angles and workings of the object. In this case, it caused like an entire page and a half of trying to figure out how the handles worked. Pointless, but it happened.

What ideas did you have in mind for the back of the platform? I understand about the bottom and making it more chiseled and beveled. I'll give that a shot, but I posted an example of the platform in a 3D view to show the perspective of the back if that is what you had in mind then there it is.

But since it IS one model, and to keep the view of the original sprite, it would be best to just it on a layer under my platform in photoshop rather than chop up the model or render with showing a back that I have no control over.

 

Sure! It's barely started. Everything there is just placeholders. The part in my image earlier is really tiny at the top left.

Here it is. (by the way, does anyone know an easier way to share small files like this?)

Just a quick concept:



Clearly one vine is behind the other (talking about the sprite now). It's hard to tell how much though. I don't think there are four vines. Also not everything in Sonic has to make perfect physical sense (and not much does). The platform looks like it's supposed to be pretty rickety and unstable anyway. If I were to guess I'd just say it was a narrow platform and the shading on the vines is a bit exaggerated for visual effect. But whatever it is I don't think it matters a lot. Just follow the shading already on the original sprite. Looks fine to me in 2D if you don't think about it too much. No one's going to see the 3D angles in the final product anyway.

I'm just wondering about how the vines actually hold onto the handles in the sprite... would it be worth doing something like this where they wrap back around themselves?



(god I hate drawing with a mouse) I suppose if it were like that then part of the vine would have to break off with the platform.

 

If your goal is to align squares, Instead of using calculations follow my tip:

-Draw a square, check if the antialiasing is correct by switching to pixelpreview.
-On the View menu, enable "align to point", "align to pixel" and "smart guides".
-Now copy - paste your new square vector to overlap edges, you'll notice green guides that will do the job for you!

 

I really just wouldn't worry about how the vines connect to the platform. It isn't really necessary to make a solid piece for this. I do think your idea of having that one vine look like it's farther back will work out nicely, though.

 

Must have been a miss-communication or something because I thought you were saying you WANTED something in back which left me scratching my head.
And here's my revision.