YASH: S2: Resurrection

Ok, I may be ending the Trial Member period but, I've finally decided to go for it. I'm going to make my own platform engine.

I want to make it a community based thing (I.e. Open Source but for a more specific group), whether I get to stay here or not, I'm going to continue with this, it's something I can use to learn the programming skills I should be in Uni learning right now anyway.

There are a couple of questions I would like to ask you lot first before I show a tiny glimpse of some of the graphics I've been making over the past 2 years of random tedium.

Questions:

I want to make this support 32 bit graphics (24 bit alpha at the very least), but as my current programming experience is purely application based (I've made a very poor iCal clone at college (it didn't even look the part although it was a working calendar) and a basic image manipulation program (converted file formats and could rotate images)) I'm not sure where I should start (Do I need to learn DirectX?, what would be the smoothest way of showing the tiles) so some beginner pointers would be wonderful if anyone has them.

Secondly, should I program this to support a modular format or lump all the parts into one program (I.e. should I make a base version that contains the code required to clone Sonic 1, and then do modules for the extras from sonic 2, 3, Sonic Advance, etc. or should I just program all the routines into the base code)?

Random Preview

I asked a while ago about a 32bit Engine to put my level ideas into and, as I'm now goign to start on my own, it may now be a couple of years before I actually get to use this. So, as a little present for being kind to me while I've been here (even though I feel I've had very little input into the actual beta stuff), I'm showing a preview of my graphics work.

This little pipe from Hidden Palace has taken me about 4 hours to make (mainly because I couldn't work out how to do gradients around corners), has a semi-transparent tube and a hue/saturation layer over it in photoshop to allow me to make it any colour I choose. (For a preview of these, visit http://www.geocities.com/acaeris/sonic.html after about 20:30 GMT (AsI need to upload it first))

 

Last Post as a Trial Member, so here's an update...

Currently sorting out space on my hard drive for installing Visual Studio .NET (although I don't like the .NET version I haven't much choice).

I'm not using a vector graphics format as a game that uses as many images as sonic would crawl on even a fast computer because Windows isn't very good at vector graphics yet (You try converting a really high quality movie to flash format and watch it). I have scaled up my art, but the program should allow the person making the game to use art a whatever scale they want due to sprite size etc. not affect the way the game calculates what it needs to.

As for Geocities, that isn't my main home, it's a junkpile of random images that I link to every now and again, my real site is currently down for a re-design and new host.

Things I have decided on so far:

The first version will use just 4 layers (1 background, 2 level, 1 sprite layer), this is to make it simple to program the basics.

I'm going to concentrate first on Sonic's physics more than any effects or the enemies and things. Everything else should be easier to do if I can predict Sonic's reaction to things (The same will happen for the other characters as I add them).

I've decided not to make it plugin based, the reason being that this will cause massive amounts of useless repetition of code although this does mean that each game would probably be more resource hungry (As there will be code it won't use loaded).

I'm not going to actually make any fully playable levels as I'm developing it, so if you want to test a version be aware that all there will be is a bunch of random test rooms (Similar to S2B's Mystic Caves)

The program will use function assignment system, so that any piece of code can be attached to any sprite (e.g. you can have bouncers that not only bounce you but move like the boxes in Mystic Cave, or for that matter boxes that cause you to bounce). I'm sure you can come up with some more interesting uses for this...

Thanks

Thanks QJimbo for the pic of Sonic but I'm not that great at doing the sprites, at the moment I'm using HQ2X versions of the Sonic 3 sprites.

BobXP: that orb took me 2 minutes, it's a circular gradient and that's it.

.hack//zero: This may be a long wait... As I said in my first post, this is my first time with DirectX/OpenGL...

Kles: Yes, I decided to finish off the advert a bit... If it doesn't attach properly, check the Geocities link on page 1. --- (It won't upload as it's 80K, oh well... check the link for the new advert)

Thanks everyone, and hope to see you around soon, keep checking the geocities link as I'll post any news on the progress there for the time being... See you soon.