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Peter Morawiec

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by hxc, Jan 11, 2006.

  1. hxc

    hxc

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    Check for the kickass concept stuff at the bottom, I stupidly put the questions in quotes.


    P: Sonic 2 (Bonus Stage design assistance), Sonic Spinball (Lead Design), Comix Zone (Lead Design), Sonic Saturn & Sonic Pool (Saturn concepts/prototypes)



    P: Spinball was my first full project, so it was super exciting, but it was also a title we had to get out in something like 9 months, so it showed. ComixZone was a game I was extremely passionate about -- definitely my favorite project while at STI.

    P: Long. I was single and had no kids back then, so I was in no hurry to get home. I loved the job and would stick around doing and learning stuff. The Sonic Team guys were notorious for working ridiculously long hours (some of them slept on the floor in their cubes) and I enjoyed venturing over to their area to see what they had going on ? some of those guys were just amazing artists, just drawing these great designs non-stop. As for diversions, a few times a week I?d go play b?ball with Chris Senn and every Friday night a number of us would carpool to North Beach in San Francisco (Little Italy) for food, beers and to hang out; it became part of our routine for solid 2-3 years.


    P: I joined in early 1992, when Mark Cerny was in charge. I was very green but I was thrilled to be a part of the industry and working with some of Sega guys from Japan. STI was very experimental back then with many cool and wacky game concepts in the works. This was a time when the Genesis was starting to seriously take off and SEGA was beginning to grow, so there was a lot of excitement around the company ? I would always look forward to the SoA employee meetings to see what cool new titles or hardware were in the works. Initially, there was a lot of camaraderie and co-mingling with the Japanese team, but it didn?t last and soon they were moved off to a separate room. By 1995 most of the Sonic Team were back in Japan (working on Nights) and STI became pretty corporate and political. But it was definitely good times!

    P: Sonic X-treme was Chris Senn?s and Ofer Alon?s baby, started while Adrian and I were still working on Comix Zone. After that, we struck a deal with Sega to let us set up a satellite office in LA (STI Burbank) to work on next-gen Saturn tech/concepts, but those were unrelated to X-treme.

    P: Gee, I don?t really recognize these screenshots. Chris Senn is your best bet here. I do remember a very cool level editor Ofer was developing for the game on a Mac, but that?s about it. I do know that there was some serious anxiety about X-treme toward the end and some other programmer within STI hacked together some quick demos to appease the execs; perhaps this is one of those builds?

    P: I dug up some concept artwork from the Sonic Saturn projects Adrian and I worked on at STI Burbank (see attached).



    Questions for you



    A beta ROM image of Comix Zone was leaked to the internet at some point, a member of our community got their hands on it and has a few questions.




    P: The original concept had the main hero as a scrawny artist dude by the name of Joe Pencil, but we ultimately changed him to be a tough Gen-Xer; the marketing people came up with the name Sketch Turner much later in development. So, the first header must be some legacy text. The second string, I think it was Adrian?s own localization, you know, placeholder text. Obviously, he replaced them for the final release.



    P: It must?ve been Howard Drossin (our in-house sound/music composer) swapping in the final theme at the last minute. I recall that we were going for a really grungy sound for the game and it took a good effort on Howard?s part to achieve it on the Genesis sound chip.



    P: Don?t remember. We probably needed to get some memory back for stability reasons.



    P: I bet these were Howard?s placeholder sounds. Adrian and Dean Lester (our producer) are both Brits, and Howard loved poking fun at them, really at everybody. These sounds definitely had nothing to do with the Mortus character.



    P: I think she was speaking on behalf of the ?empire? or something like that. She was the only (human) sidekick planned, but of course, Sketch also had his interactive pet rat.


    P: There were no concrete plans at that time, but we left it open for that possibility. I even made some quick prelim storyboards for how the Comix Zone concept could work in 3D on the Saturn (see attached), but ultimately Sega wanted us to work on a Sonic property next.




    Comix Zone 3D: http://xtreme.projectsonic.com/PeterStuff/..._PanelEntry.jpg
    SonicSaturn BackGround: http://xtreme.projectsonic.com/PeterStuff/..._Background.JPG

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  2. Shade

    Shade

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    Right, Brainfart of the century. Nevermind.

    Even so, great stuff, and very interesting. You win at life again HXC.
     
  3. Tweaker

    Tweaker

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    Interesting stuff. I didn't know Peter was willing to give another interview.
     
  4. Quickman

    Quickman

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    Uh, dude...that's not Xtreme stuff.
     
  5. hxc

    hxc

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    SonicSaturn. that's what has been said by Peter.
     
  6. Shade

    Shade

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    Wow...I feel like a complete idiot. I really WAS half alseep :blushing: My apologies guys, I'm not usually that dimwitted. I was half asleep, and in my first class in school, so It must not have registered. My god, I am so sorry.

    So..what exactly is SonicSaturn?
     
  7. hxc

    hxc

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    Ohshit, seems I misread something.
     
  8. Shade

    Shade

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    EDIT: Well, now that we finally have this mess sorted out, I edit my post once again.

    Now, I am very curious: What exactly IS SonicSaturn?
     
  9. hxc

    hxc

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    Sorry no it isn't, I misread something
     
  10. Rosiero

    Rosiero

    Mmph! Oldbie
    I now demand a 3D Comix Zone =D
     
  11. Jigen

    Jigen

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    A 3D comix zone, wouldn't really have that comic feel to it. Bad idea if you ask me.
     
  12. Rosiero

    Rosiero

    Mmph! Oldbie
    It could have mostly 2D gameplay, only with some panels where you actually go deeper into the panel as the concept art seems to imply.
     
  13. hxc

    hxc

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    Sonic X-treme was for the 32X Genesis add-on (at least initially). That project was started at STI in early 1994 (I think).



    Sonic Saturn (or Sonic3D) was a different project, which Adrian and I started at STI Burbank in early 1996. It was supposed to be a 3D Sonic game for the Saturn ? those concept images I sent you previously are from that game. Adrian had a very nifty and fast spherical renderer going on for it, for things like bodies and heads. This game was going for a more realistic rendition of Sonic?s world, but Naka didn?t like it so the project was axed. (Ironically, the subsequent Sonic game for the Dreamcast was much more realistic). Following that, there was a slight chance of salvaging our tech and assets to create a bonus game for the Travelers Tales developed Sonic 3D Blast, although we will never know just how seriously this was ever considered. Nonetheless, we quickly whipped out a prototype, which we called Sonic Pool, but it never went past that.



    -P.

    aaaannd

    A title Screen :(
    [​IMG]

    PS. I am now in full contact with Adrian Stephens, who DID NOT, work on any title before Comix Zone, and No sonic games other than this. He was pulled in by MTV to do the talk as he could talk the talk, as it were :P
     
  14. LocalH

    LocalH

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    Actually, Chris said that X-Treme was initially for the Genesis, but was quickly moved to the 32X before reaching the Saturn.
     
  15. Shade

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    that's extremely interesting, I never knew half of that, especially the 32X bit. I also had no idea another Sonic Saturn game other than Xtreme or what eventually became Sonic Adventure was under development.

    Excellent stuff HXC. I'd tell you how hard you rock, but I think you've got the idea by now :P
     
  16. Robjoe

    Robjoe

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    Eh? Sonic X-Treme for the 32X? Really interesting. Thanks for the enlightenment.
     
  17. ICEknight

    ICEknight

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    According to what he told me a couple of months ago, he's willing to share even more stuff than this. If he can find enough time.
     
  18. LOst

    LOst

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    Aww. I knew something was wrong with that MTV video. Adrian seemed too involved in Knuckles' gameplay. It was unrealistic.

    Comix Zone is a nice game, and very well programmed. If you talk to him soon, tell him that I think he did a really awesome job on the programming side!




    This is one really important question since Adrian is the only one directly involved with the source and game library that STI had:
    I would really want to know about the compression name used for art in Comix Zone and other Genesis games made by STI! If he knows even more names of compression algorithms used in Genesis games in STI productions such as level layout compression and other data compression, Please try to ask him that when you/him get the time.
     
  19. Ben2k9

    Ben2k9

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    I knew that.

    there was an article I read ages ago, it should be on SoSt
     
  20. LocalH

    LocalH

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    Shit, did everyone just completely ignore me? It didn't start on the 32x. Quote directly from Chris himself: