Sonic 2 HD

Was that lava ever animated? It'd even be interesting to see a concept animation if there was one.

 

So about the soft shading... Did you do that with vector blur effects? Or did you polish up the vectors in a raster format? I was always curious how you actually went about it...

Edit: Oh and I don't mean the blur effects in those animations. I mean shading on the artwork.

 

I don't think they used blurred vectors, but with blurred vectors you can get pretty similar results.

I made this ages ago using just that.

 

It was Sonica, though I half-heartedly cobbled the animation together a while back (roughly March 2011 when my hope had practically evaporated that an Alpha would be ever be ready any time soon) and so it really isn't up to snuff with the other assets that made it in game. It needed alot of clean up work done, though, based on that still, I'm sure you can imagine what it's doing (bubbles rising up and bursting, rinse, repeat). It's buried on one of my drives stashed away somewhere so it's not immediately accessible and there isn't a rough export up anywhere online sadly (bar that token frame you see on facebook) so I'm afraid I've nothing else to share at this point in time .

 

What a shame. Well, I would love to see anything that hasn't yet been shown, that you lot can get your hands on, it's all very interesting even though it probably won't be used.

 

Was the first link animated? If it is, it isn't showing up in my browser. (I use Chrome)

 

The top middle and right are the only animated. I don't think Chrome supports APNG though.

 

Oh. Had to open Firefox to see it, but that was worth it. I am amazed at how little was done due to lack of interest. (Well, more than I could ever do, admittedly, but still less than I'd ever expected)

A bit unrelated but it wouldn't be considered callous and insensitive to post any HD concepts of our own here, would it? I do not want to insult the people who worked hard on this game.

 

It's a wonder even that stuff got made, particularly the additional Sonic/Super Sonic/Tails frames in that fb .png post which were all Vince's handiwork (I hadn't touched any of those frames) which were made only a few months back and when there was barely a hope in hell of adding any additional bonus content to the game. It's incredibly hard to drive oneself to make new assets when it seems likely to be in vain (and additionally when, as I said before, Vince, CN and I had to fight hard to get many basic and necessary changes made).

I just want to highlight (just in case it isn't clear) that there were those of us who at the project's height (staff morale-wise) in 2010 behind the scenes who really worked our bollocks off to get things done, looking cohesive and best reflecting that of the Japanese boxart and concept work from the early 90's. All visuals were remade from scratch in that year and if it were our day jobs, it probably would have taken around 2-3 months to get everything straight, but of course, this ends up being very spread out when it is merely a weekend or evening task. From the outside it could well have looked like we sat around making the occasional tweak here and there to stagnant assets from 2008 up until 2012, but this simply wasn't the case. When there isn't that carrot on the end of the stick any more, you run out of steam .

 

I wasn't criticizing you, I was sympathizing, moreso. I know you've all said that you didn't have the drive, but actually seeing the work with the stories behind it really reinforces that point.

 

(Possibly Wrong Speculation: The attempt to block out printscreen might have explained the DirectInput "bug" - trying to listen for the printscreen button even when the game's out of focus)

The reason LOst put in the DRM and went as far to attempt to block out print screen is really simple: He did not want fan games being made using the S2HD assets.
And you shared this goal with him, and you still share it now.

So LOst encrypted the game data, and to slow down someone from finding the decryption code within the game,
he encrypted the game program itself and packaged it with DRM.
The things LOst did in terms of DRM were matching your (subconscious?) wishes of keeping the assets out of community hands.

Someone else mentioned not releasing the assets because of the issue of art styles not matching "so it's better to have the new people redo all the art." That is just plain wrong. The collaborative animation industry shows this is not a problem. Art styles can be learned.

 

I actually have to agree, as much as I'd like to see the assets, it's not the same as what LOst did by keeping them private. Not wishing to openly share art assets you worked on is not the same thing as putting infamous DRM in a fan game. DRM in a fan game is illegal, keeping your art to yourself on your machine is not. I drew some Kirby fan art a while ago, but only released a version of it with one layer. I'm not stopping people from looking at it or printscreening it by putting shit in their computer but I'm not releasing all the individual layers either, and for a similar reason Vincent doesn't want to; this took me a week to do over my winter break, I don't want someone else taking credit for it.

Edit: At the same time, I do feel somewhat disappointed that an originally open project has become so closed. If the project were closed from the beginning, I would not mind the reluctance to release assets at all, the project's origins are why I mind at all, really.

 

Volpino's Kirby in Creation:
Bunch of layers

Volpino's Kirby if used in a Game:
Just the collapsed image with transparency.

Volpino's Kirby if used in LOst's engine:
An encrypted collapsed image with transparency.

What people want when asking for assets?
The collapsed image with transparency.

What does LOst's DRM protect?
The collapsed image with transparency.

Does the artist have to give up the layered creation image?
No.

What does Volpino (if she were working on Kirby HD) prefer to keep out of the community's hands?
Both, the collapsed image with transparency, and the layered creation image.

What could people get right away with no problem if LOst never implemented DRM?
The collapsed image with transparency.

If people defeated the DRM to get the assets from Kirby HD, would Volpino cry foul, while still proclaiming that the DRM in Kirby HD is entirely LOst's fault, citing the DRM as unnecessary?
Undefined.

 

Hope I don't come off as crass or anything, not my intent, but you do know that the issue of people taking credit for it without actually having done it CAN be overcome without locking it down, right?

Didn't seem to be much of an issue in the Sonic fan game community - or at least, when it became a problem it was dealt with swiftly, and I had been lurking about there for nearly what, 13 years now [fuck, I feel old], so I got to witness quite a few things go down / get resolved.

 

From how you've phrased yourself SANiK, it appears as though you are looking at this process through an incredibly narrow lens (though feel free to correct me if I've gotten the wrong end of the stick, and please do note that I do not intend any of the following to come off as patronising, I'm just stating a few facts).

Yes, art teams can (and must) work together to be on the same page - someone leads and then teaches and manages the others to ensure consistency throughout production. Having worked out in the animation industry and now that I am running my own company as an art director, I can assure you that this process runs far deeper than you have insinuated. To provide an example or two, on projects I have worked on in the past, it was not simply a case of taking the lead artists work and just copying their cels and in-betweening them or whatever and then my work would all match right off the bat. It is the job of the director, producer, concept artists and lead artists to ensure the lackeys underneath become embroiled in the subject matter and understand it to its very core. This means model sheets (poses, facial expressions, clothing, etc), character bio's, hours of pencil tests, and of course, the script for said film/show. The other big issue at hand here is that to ensure things are kept in line and on time is having the team closely knit. A 'revolving door' principle as is something of a trend with open-source community projects is not compliant to rapidly produced visuals with a cohesive aesthetic.

Bringing this specifically to the context of a game, simply mimicking a sprite or tile's look is like merely taking a lick of the frosting from a cake rather than taking a bite of all the layers at once and sampling how all the ingredients work together to make something tasty. If you want a work to be proud of and that can stand the test of time, you need to work from the ground up, go through your own creative journey of trial and error and produce something that is inherently your own doing. By only rigidly copying another's work and trying to bend yourself to their intentions, the result will almost always come off as flimsy and totally lacking in confidence. Turning the spotlight to two members who seem fairly active on this board, both Sonica and Flare have clearly been through this journey and as such their work shows an incredibly solid foundation from which they are able to drive themselves further and continue to improve off of their own backs, now evidenced in Sonica's Sonic 4 project which takes a refreshing creative step beyond the limits of S2HD. I know Flare has worked in his particular style for many years, and as a matter of fact, I was very inspired by his work back in 2009 and it drove me to go and experiment, devising my own methods to improve my work in certain areas - I never once hounded him for assets though, I just took glances, asked some questions internally, took inspiration and went on my way. I could be wrong here, but it looks as though Sonica was one whose work was very much shaped by what he saw in S2HD, with only basic screenshots, a couple of "how they made it" pngs and a trailer to go from since 2011 I can only assume that he simply took inspiration from those combined with his own solid skillset base and brought himself to where he is now - and you can colour me impressed with those early results.

The bottom line here guys is this: I am not giving out my contribution to the assets for the game, but I am not keeping them back to simply stir the pot and ruffle feathers. I see alot of desire and ambition in folks on this board to also embark on a journey to improve their work and create tributes to their favourite video game character and that is great! But, some of you are looking in the wrong place. You need to look further back (to the source), just as we did when first making the assets and ask yourself why the art teams back then took certain directions with their work, where they were inspired, what the theory behind it all is and then ask yourself those very same questions about your own work as you head off down that creative path. The alpha is there for all to see and have done with it whatever you please. Play it, study what's there and then go off and put that inspiration into action. Don't sit down at your proverbial microscope with tweezers in hand picking asset pixels apart because in the long run you will not find the ultimate satisfaction you are after. The proof of this is in the pudding comparing tech demo to alpha, and I needn't say more than that.

Now, let's see which of you come back and lynch me for turning down your consistent requests for assets. If you feel annoyed at what I've said then you might need to throw your old mentality about art and design out of the window and start afresh (or look for a new hobby). If you see where I'm coming from then, fantastic, you will have a blast with your creativity as it can know no bounds!!

Edit: If SANiK or whomever is able to extract the assets from the game through reverse engineering, then, fair enough, no one is stopping you but you should think long and hard about why you would want to extract those in lieu of what I've said. Despite my little rant above, I don't approve of the way LOst locked down the assets for the game like he did because he is only prolonging the inevitable and it was simply wasting everybody's time. And don't even get me started on how underhanded and pathetic it was for him to try and prevent folks from taking printscreens of the game. That was simply ludicrous and dim-witted and I'm glad that your right to film/screenshot the game was not revoked due to one man's incomprehensible paranoia.

 

I don't take offense, I think he's just trying to make a point. No, I wouldn't, but at the same time, it probably depends on what people are asking for. Just a raster image with transparency for a programmer to work with seems harmless (Because the vector origin makes it hard to edit and look legitimately yours, especially if you're talking about a 13 year old kid making a fangame with no art experience) but I'm not Vincent, I have no idea what his limit is, in truth. I'm just shooting off potentially unhelpful opinions.

Not making this comment to be argumentative, but isn't that basically what you guys were doing with the concept art for your animations?

 

You're completely welcome to argue a point Volpino. At a glance, my argument may sound somewhat hypocritical as it is hot off the back of a fan project re-creating existing assets. However, as is evidenced all over this thread and elsewhere on the net, the assets could have been interpreted any number of ways, and they were over the course of 4 years. When I came on, I made a decision to push for something that resembled and reminded folks of the concept art as this was the implied intention of the project's existence in the first place. Likewise, you can do the very same in creating your own art if you so desire, rather than looking so far up the chain and stopping at our assets - go deeper!

Had I been one to start my own Sonic project, I would have absolutely taken a completely different style from what was seen in S2HD and try and re-brand Sonic in such a way that embodies the way I see his character. With S2HD by the time I arrived on the scene there was a certain spec to follow though (with some wiggle room that could be fought for) and so that is why it looks the way it does. My point on a general scale still stands tall though and I really don't want you to overlook it because you are so transfixed on one minute end.