Walk Cycles

Meanwhile I may not be speaking for other members here. I believe however that people prefer the Sonic 1 sprites, simply because it is where Sonic originated from (Forgoing Comics/Telly Shows) and they seem to enjoy making their first time with the hedgehog more enjoyable by putting him into new situations, new zones and giving him new company or abilities.

As I said, I could be wrong in saying this, but this is how I believe it is, from what I have seen.

 

Well... Sonic's head looks a bit different, if you compare both sets.

Those sprites are in fact the only ones SEGA used in more than one game (Sonic 1, Sonic CD, Sonic Crackers/Chaotix), and they also look quite nice without having to use so much space.




As a personal observation, I think the "new" smoother animation in Sonic 2 made him look more like he had only one row of spines.

 

I think the Sonic 2 walk cycle has more sprites and that takes up valuable VRAM space.

 

Nope, not at all. Sonic's frames are dynamicly loaded and unloaded into Vram per frame. At all times Sonic only takes about $400 bytes of Vram.

 

Which is the most rational explanation for using S1's.

 

Those take up more ROM space, not VRAM.

 

Only problem I find with Sonic 1 sprites is the eyes, which generally just look awful (They're too flat). Sonic 2 did a better job with that, which makes me wonder why people don't atleast use the Sonic 2 style eyes more often.

 

The reason Megamix uses the Sonic 1 "walk cycle" is simply because nobody has changed it to use anything else. Theoritically (and realistically) speaking, it would take little to no effort to add it - just changing one line of code in Sonic_Animate and slamming in the art, mappings, DPLCs and animations for the frames. Super Sonic uses it since that's part of the animation set for Super Sonic from S2, and having it use 6 frames instead of 8 would make things look awkward.

 

A better explanation would be that everyone's just too lazy to implement an 8 frame walk cycle and fix the shading and shit to fit the Sonic 1 style. It's just a minor cosmetic thing and unless you love animation and pixel work (like myself) there's really no need to go with Sonic 2 if Sonic 1's work just fine.

And no, the Sonic 2 and Sonic 1 style are not exact, there's still some modifications you have to do to get it like Sonic 1. Sure, the thing takes at least a minute to fix it up, but now multiply that by the number of frames in a walk cycle, then the number of angles of the walk cycle. Of course, if you're using the latest SonMapED, you can just divide the last one by two because of the lovely rotate feature.

 

I don't know about you all, but I preferred the Sonic 3 animations if for no other reasons than the Sonic art didn't look as dorky. However, I would have liked it more if Tails had the added definition of the red in his sprites they removed from Sonic 2.
I don't like the Sonic 1 art as much because it's actually a bit bland. The Sonic 2 animation is more fluid, and the Sonic 3 art looks similar to Sonic 2's with more detail and maybe a slightly smaller Sonic (not as lanky).

 

Damn I should have noticed that mistake. VRAM is Genesis video memory isn't it?
So that's not in the ROM.

Don't wanna talk out of my ass here lol.

 

Sonic 2's Tails with a red outline was just terrible...

Yes.

 

I use the Sonic 1 cycles because Sonic 2 sprites suck (you asked why didn't you?). I'd use S3K sprites but I like when the game has a more retro feel.

 

Sonic 2 sprites suck, I never liked them. Tails with red outline was terrible, I'm glad they got rid of it in S3K, and Sonic was kind of chubby, I didn't like his head at all. The interesting thing though, through the development of Sonic 2 the sprites were changed many times (like we have a different one in beta), but still they ended up pretty poor.

 

Yes, regarding hacks of Sonic 1, adding the art, mappings, and extra frames can be a lot of work for the average (amateur) hacker. The kind of time that it takes to do that can be put into something more important and noticeable, like constructing level art, design, or other technical features into a hack. Nobody's going to beat you up for not having sprites from Sonic 2 or 3, but no special new features does not make a hack. As for the reason Sonic 1 sprites are commonly used in fangames or other hacks, I think it may have to do with the fact that they were used in Sonic CD, which many fangames and hacks are inspired by. And then of course, there's always the "beauty is in the eye of the beholde r" factor. =/