To touch a Hedgehog

What do the spikes in Mega Man feel like? I wanna know since robots seem to die upon touch...

 

What's funny is that a lot of the robots in the X verse (And the classic one as well, I think) have red dots on the bottom of their feet, and spikes in the X games usually point upwards. It gives the impression that the reploids have recessed self destruct buttons on the bottom of their feet.

 

...you wanna talk?

 

This is actually a very interesting subject.

Sonic suffers from a rather unfortunate situation. He was designed as a cartoon - look at all the early Ohshima concept art. He's got a black outline, flat shading. His "spines" are clearly groups of spines. There aren't always even the same amount in the earliest drawings, they just come together however the artist wants in the picture.

But Sonic 1's graphics were supposed to have a 3D look to them (this was years before DKC, but it's generally the same idea). So Sonic was 3D-ised. Take this for example:



This little guy is clearly a cartoon. The black lines above his eyes suggest eyebrows. They might be "hair", or they might be outlining a shape. It doesn't really matter, 'cos he's a cartoon.

But when he's 3D-ised (sorry the pic is so bad, I couldn't find a better one):



The inked line for the eyebrows is now a 3D shape. In the full-res version, it looks for all the world like licorice flavoured toothpaste squeezed on top of the guy's head. It even has a loop in the middle! It's not part of the texture, but a fully 3D rope shape strewn over the forehead.

The point is that 3D-ising a cartoon turns lines, which are purely meant for suggestion, into true objects that react to lighting. I've actually always hated this - cartoons look terrible in 3D for just this reason.

The trouble with Sonic is that he went one step further. They didn't render him in 3D in the early days, because it was probably too expensive in 1991. So, they turned him back into a cartoon.

This is why the drawings have lovingly rendered, glossy, banana shaped quills. Sonic, as a cartoon, is just supposed to have spiky hair. I'm sure you've all seen Goku a million times (just see Tweaker's avatar), or YuGiOh. Sonic is just a hip dude with wild spiky locks.

Due to an odd translation into and back out of 3D, he's turned into a finny, rubbery monstrosity. This is why I'll always prefer Sonic from the OVA and Sonic CD 'toons. He's like any other Anime hero - he's got hair that sticks straight up.

That's the way I like to think of it anyway, as it makes the most sense. After all, do we really want to imagine fleshy appendages growing from his head? Are they covered with skin? Do they grow their own fur? Do they - God forbid - contain bones? The very thought is ridiculous. It's just hair, drawn in groups for ease.

This also helps explain his eyes, which again make sense for a cartoon, but look retarded when they're fully ray-traced. Are we supposed to believe he has an enourmous double-pupilled eyeball? Puh-lease.

 

Mario's mustache and hair does a lot of the same thing, I think that part of the problem is how they use realistic textures on everything else, and that a lot of the newer games have been animating them strangely.

 

/necessary pic

After all, it's not impossible to get a decent real-life Mario, because, you know, he's supposed to be a human, not a hedgehog <_<

 

Yeah, but the point is they're doing the same thing with Sonic's quills, a bunch of hairs/quills depicted as a single object. It's the same principle as how they're drawn.

 

This topic:

 

So I wonder what his eye feels like?

 

I am actualy surprised that picture was not posted sooner. As for his Eye, Yeah, I would think it is squishy.

 

His expression says: "Fuck, quick Sonic! Remember what it was you told Tails years ago!"

 

Only if you consider uncontrollable laughter not work-safe.


After that, it's probably all true.

 

Honestly, when I look at Sonic's mos current renders his quills look like they'd feel like abnormally large hair follicles.

One thing that always bothered me about big-eyed cartoon characters in CGI render form is how easily they can get poked in the eye. It's especially jarring if their eyes are realistically textured and all . o_O

 

Was it this?

 

Alright, this might be a little too long, or it might be funny, but I've put all the quotes in these posts in the CORRECT order, in the way they were meant o be viewed. =3

You've all managed to rub Sonic the wrong way.

Ok, serious time.

I've always wondered that also. It's always been more obvious he's furry, not so much with Sonic, but why? Sure he has whiskers and chest fur and bangs and obviously when we think of fox tails we think of fluff, but his design's the same as everyone else's. Maybe because he's never had a glare in his official art? Or at least, a plastic-like glare,

I thought about Sonic's feel once. I thought his quils were smaller quils streamlined into straight quils from years of running really fast, his tan parts were skin and his shoes were some type of metal that could withstand his speed. (Actually, I thought his shoes were the source of his speed. At least, in the Western manual of Sonic 1 it sayys this.) I just figured his gloves felt like those rubber gloves you wear when you're dyeing someone's hair. His socks are probably cotton.

 

http://userdisk.webry.biglobe.ne.jp/016/17...807226263_5.jpg <- This render will probably aid the discussion.

 

Go here: Tails, Shadow, Knuckles, Amy, Charmy, Espio, Eggman, Rouge, etc.

 

This is the setup to an extremely elaborate Sonic Sez joke isn't it?

 

Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, left our laptop, and drove the 3463 miles back only to find it gone for eternity along with 99.875% of our bank balance.