I find the new song to be alright at best. I don't think I mind the melody? But with the current instruments it almost ear peircing. I'll be on the lookout for some fan covers of it + - *coughteelopesplzcough* .
"Q: The impression of the footage is very different; it's much more photo-realistic. A: The greatest difference is that in addition to Global Illumination, it has physically-based rendering which physically calculates actual light, enabling optimal lighting for each objects just by preparing values for light source, weather and so on, without the need of artists painting objects one by one. Sure, the stages in twilight time have overexpressed color, but this engine reproduces the real existing lighting. Also, the fast paced movement is necessary in Sonic series, so we don't use a general purpose game engine but the one specially designed with our longtime know-how for high-speed processing."
If you haven't understood yet, then I'll attempt to make it clearer. It's likely that they can't just take the textures from Generations and put it in Sonic Forces because of the differences in the way that a typical physically based renderer works compared to previous ones. If they did use the textures without either altering them or making new ones, then it would risk causing the appearance of the levels to worsen. Basically, they don't need to paint the same objects over and over so that they will look good at different lighting conditions with the new renderer and using older textures with those alterations in the new renderer wouldn't be ideal.
Basically, you don't actually know what is different about a physically based renderer and so accused me of not knowing what I was saying. I was curious about it the first time I saw the term, so I looked up what it was beforehand. Besides, I'm sure that the developers would know what they're talking about since they made the Hedgehog Engine 2 in the first place.
I'm going to join the 'you don't know what you're talking about' side. Its pretty obvious they reused assets from generations. In fact if they didn't they have wasted a huge amount of their time seeing as it looks almost identical. It's really easy to just tinker with existing textures and geometry to give them a slightly different feel. Import that into a new engine and give it different lighting and volla, you'll get what we see in the video. Not impressed with GHZ but i guess that's only the introduction level - They want to start simple and give new players a sandbox ( :v: ) level to play around in before introducing new elements. I wouldn't look into this too much because it probably gets better in the later, harder levels.
Once again, it's apparent that you don't know what a physically based renderer entails, much less bothered to look it up. The only assets that I see reused are the tiki statue models, and even those appear to use different textures and have different appearances. Of course, you would claim that the Green Hill Zone in Generations, which uses a more realistic art style and still has it appear lush with a large lake and waterfalls, looks exactly like the one in Sonic Forces, which uses a more cartoonish artstyle similar to the one in Sonic Lost World, has a blocky structure, and is in the process of becoming a complete desert.
I would like to say just cause they say they are doesn't mean that all the shaders are doing that. We definitely know Sonic's aren't since they are the exact same textures. Besides already know they are reusing textures and models already. I mean they are reusing assets from Gens and Lost World. Besides most of the Gens and Lost World textures don't have baked lighting on them or AO to work for a PBR solution. I understand they made the 'main' path geometry from scratch thats easy to tell. But most of all the small objects are reused and are the same textures as well. Obviously the baked lightmap and shadow maps make it look darker but they are the same model and texture. Besides at this point they've already lied about the real time GI and Shadows seeing as how in the footage we've seen its baked lighting. Only thing that looks realtime is the Light Field for getting GI color from dynamic objects that looks more updated than anything. Will be interesting to see how the game works once it comes out if it really is PBR based materials and not some knockoff which I'm thinking it is.
The Green Hill assets themselves are actually fairly new, people did a comparison weeks ago with the Direct footage and the Generations GHZ is more "realistic" and lavishly detailed. While not necessarily Lost World levels of simplified, Forces' GHZ is a lot more simplistic when it comes to overall textures in things like the checkerboard hills and walls or the like, but they packed on the grass and shader detail while still having the sandy backgrounds be a work in progress. The more blatantly reused assets are things like items, springs, animations for the various enemies and so forth. Even Classic Sonic, while refined or perhaps looking different thanks to different shaders, seems recycled.
A good question would be to ask: does them reusing some assets actually matter? The initial context of this is that this is apparently the reason for people claiming that the new Green Hill stage looks just like the one in Sonic Generations, which is blatantly false. To even claim that is to deliberately ignore what they did change and what the obvious differences are. All that it boils down into is nitpicking about them using similar assets and the claims of the stage looking just like the one in Generations aren't justifiable. I'm sure that fewer people mind Sonic Mania reusing the majority of Green Hill Act 1's layout and art for its Act 1.
Even with all the fuss of the stage's theming, I'm pretty sure this amounts to the tutorial act given the length and minimal effort gone into new assets. Story wise it's shows somethings wrong in Sonic Country and whatever Eggman does to send Classic Sonic into the mix happens shortly after you complete the stage. It doesn't change my concerns that Sonic Team doesn't have the faintest inclination of seriously improving the actual gameplay mechanics. It's like they're trying to imitate the look of how classic Sonic should play without actually building the core mechanics that they work off of. What's the point?
For critics to go "OMG IT'S LITERALLY CLASSIC SONIC" and throw money at it. That's basically the purpose of Classic Sonic even being here. Anyway, I don't think it's any surprise or any secret that this GHZ reuses LW and Gens assets, but I think the fact that it looks distinctively different from (and better than?) Generations is a commendable one. I just hope that it's not the only act of GHZ, even for just classic Sonic. I mean, that video was the entire stage. It was like a minute and a half. If that's the length of one level, how long is the game gonna be? I really don't want to see something as short as Generations or even Colors or Lost World here, and that's kinda worrying tbh. I know that replayability factored into a lot of those games' eventual runtime, but if this is a whole eighteenth of the game's core levels, I'm not gonna be especially happy. Also, I've seen some buzz about physics with the enemy bouncing stopping Sonic's momentum being the prime candidate for criticism, and I think it's actually the player in the video deliberately stopping themselves, both to pace out the video length, and to show off the enemy destruction effects that are so present this time around. It's just too inconsistent to really be an accurate thing to cite, since (to quote my big dumb run-on sentence from SSMB): I really doubt they've done anything to classic Sonic's physics at all. It'd be expecting a lot from them to change it in the first place, and it'd be expecting a staggeringly low amount from them to purposefully change it just to make this one thing worse.
Lolp no it doesn't. Realtime global illumination was barely used in games in 2006, if at all - from what I've seen it's only seen widespread integration into games in the last few years now that the hardware and technology has advanced. (For the record, GI isn't a generic term for lighting. It refers to light reflections from one surface to another which help to ground objects in the environment and make them 'blend in'. All Sonic 06 had was a directional light and solid computed shadows, with a bit of colouring added to the vertices of the terrain to add variation to the surfaces.)
Speaking of music I'm pretty sure this is a WIP track that is going to be polished and tweaked so I'd rather hold my judgment for now.
This physically hurt me to read. I'm not sure where you got it in your head that people think the design is bad because it's "simple" but it's bad because it's... bad. There's barely any synergy or encouragement to use any of what should be momentum based skills. They make call-backs to sections from the original Green Hill but fail to understand what made their own level design competent, instead funneling the player along with boosters and springs - springs placed in the ground in front of waist-high ledges no less. Seriously, who was smoking when they came up with that? Not to mention that bridge-running section at the end, which poses no actual threat whatsoever. When people say "hold right to win" this is the kind of level design they mean. People feel most satisfied playing a game when there's a synergy between effort expended and result produced - this falls flat into the "boring" zone.
With people complaining about Ohtani's music, I think the main offense isn't the song itself. I mean, it's somewhat unfitting to use the "Keep Running!" style he did in Sonic Runners in a full 2D Sonic level, but the instruments are what really kill it. The good thing is that some of the songs in Runners for example went through revisions like Desert Ruins. I wouldn't worry about the music too much, Ohtani has done pretty good music so far, we can trust him. But then there's how this game comes out in approximately 7-8 months and much of the issues people here have with the game come from basic conceptual design choices. I wonder if the hold-right-and-dodge-ledges design they're going for was really a conscious decision, coupled with Ohtani doing Sonic Runners like music. Regardless, I'd personally hold judgement until it's out.
Most if not all of the complaints regarding the level design are pretty legitimate. Especially the dash panels and hidden yellow springs. Let the Player control their movement, I don't want the level playing itself for me. Automation has been a major criticism point towards the Sonic franchise for years already.. There's NO EXCUSE for it anymore. Yet, they continue to do this and never learn their lesson... Unless there is another act or something to Green Hill, it also really bothers me that the sand isn't incorporated in the stage as a hazard or gimmick in any way at all. If they weren't going to do anything with the sand to begin with, they should've just removed the whole hybrid-trope idea altogether (why even bother?) ... because as a cosmetic-only change, the level looks more visually boring and less appealing without the water. It's really disappointing. : / As well, for argument's sake, let's say Forces' Green Hill stage is short and simple to "ease-in" the player. Can we just like, get rid of ease-in levels altogether? Sonic games have been around for years already. It'd be nice to have beginning stages that offer a bit of challenge, length, and satisfaction from completing it. Sonic Team should go back to the drawing board on the level design of this Green Hill stage. It's very uninspired and unfulfilling, and a good chunk of the fan-base aren't impressed by it (hell, just look through the posts on this forum). If there was a reason to start hating the Green Hill Zone, it would be because of this incarnation of it. I don't know why this stage's layout got approved, but Sonic Team needs fans or game-testers to give them 2nd opinions on these things before they publicly show them off. I shouldn't have to only rely on Sonic Mania to give me a good 2D Sonic experience, that's not an excuse. I acknowledge that the game is "still in development" and it is possible that anything can change and it's possible the build presented could have been incomplete or old, etc.. but as for what was shown so far, I don't like it (and a good chunk of others don't like it either). At this point, I don't care if the Forces gets delayed for quality control. If they're going to cater to Classic 2D Sonic fans, then they need to start taking the criticism seriously and actually do something about it (physics, automation, etc.). Otherwise, Sonic Team deserve the negative reputation they get for giving fans mediocre experiences and for not listening to them. Not even trying to be a pessimist about Forces either, just tired of the bullshit. TL;DR: Sonic Team needs to seriously get their shit together.
The music sounds to silly, to cutesy. Not fitting of Sonic at all. This is not a Mario game. What's strange is that this is the first non Game Gear version of green hill that doesn't use the classic melody at all and its more jarring than it is refreshing.