I know that you were focusing on S3K as inspiration for your graphics. Especially in your hack, I play it frequently because that design is spectacular. I would like to continue to go the S3K direction if all else agrees?
I personally don't. One of the things that really puts me off about the "S3K style" is that the leaning toward more realistic graphics (Upping the ante, as was the trend with all Megadrive games after a few years of the console being out) greated a very 'grainy' feeling to levels such as Angel Island, Launch Base and Sandopolis -- the dithering here looks pretty ugly, wheras cleaner Sonic art such as Green/Emerald Hill Zone and Palmtree Panic has aged much more gracefully due to it's abstract nature. Of course, I'm not saying that abstraction is the key, because I don't see why we can't do a more representational take on zone art, but at least some off-kilter surrealism to keep the classic touch is needed; repetetive patterns, unrealistic colours and gravity-defying structures are all things that have since been lost from the series; I'd like to bring them back personally. I guess a nod toward the levels S3K did well (And I'm mostly looking at Mushroom Hill and Flying Battery here; they're pretty oldschool in themselves) is worthwhile, but not fully swinging in that direction. After all, we don't merely want to make S3K++, do we?
No we don't actually. What we need here is to keep the classic thing going. I'm with you on that, I want to bring it all back too. Clean art would be important. I've been experimenting with some different art designs of my own and my art seems to look a lot like Sonic 1 and CD mixed. I'm assuming now the S3K art direction is not going to fly here?
The better, cleaner stuff will fly; as I cited, MHZ and FBZ are quite nice, and I've personally nothing against Lava Reef Zone 1, either. Although Sky Sanctuary is one of my favourite zones, I'm not so keen on the dithering on the bricks in the art. Nonetheless, Rika's style seems very clean and not grainy at all, his work as yet has been very nice.
I personally like Death Egg Zone but Lava Reef Zone 1 and 2 have always been my favorite in S3K. I'm still fascinated by Sonic CD's graphics. Rika's hack is one of the best, I play it frequently. I still don't know where the music came from in HSIZ NSIZ, I like it too. Clean art like in the hack is probably going to play an important role in this project as it will really bring classic back. I guess this means I'll be doing some random sprite work to see if I can come up with something that looks more like Sonic 2 rather than 1 & CD.
If I recall correctly, the music was from a game called Dyna Bros., and the track was "Get Crazy, More Rave." The song was also used in Sonic 1 Megamix's Scrap Brain Zone. And I agree that Sonic CD had some of the most beautiful sprites in the history of Sonic games. Anyway, as for the style of the game, this screenshot from Sonic 1 Megamix is something that I feel should be used as a reference: Most of us will quickly recognize this as Misty Maze Zone. This is my favorite zone in Megamix, not only because of its choices of music, but mostly because of its clever amalgamation of sprites. As you can see, some of these sprites (particularly the tiles) are similar to the Chaotix style, and the plants have a kind of abstract yet appealing look to them. You can also see that some sprites reference the Sonic 3 style (the rocks), and there's a Sonic CD sprite in the background. In my opinion, we should try to give the game this same abstract and appealing look for each zone, much like what Megamix has. I guess what I'm really trying to say is, we can always make the graphics a combination of CD and Chaotix, with a hint of Advanced Edit (although Advanced Edit borrowed tiles from other non-Sonic games, but the main focus is its overall detail in the sprites, without being too detailed like Sonic 3).
The bricks in the screenshot and the plants are from Chaotix, and the background is from Sonic CD. Most of Megamix's "new" art is from other Sonic games.
I'm aware of that. Most of it's just been recolored to look new, so instead of saying they borrowed the sprites, I instead said they were similar to them, which is just as accurate.
Well, that's kinda like saying "an apple is similar to an apple". True, but an apple IS an apple, know what I mean?
You also have to remember that Sonic 1 was made to fight NES games at the time. They created a game with bigger, more detailed sprites that ran faster and smoother than the majority of NES games on the market. By Sonic 3 they were fighting the SNES. They couldn't really afford to keep simplistic GHZ-like graphics, they needed graphics that said "hey the MegaDrive is just as good as that console". If you're saying this is a game that would have been released in the Saturn era you should really be trying to push the graphics to their limits "to fight the 3D games", not taking a step back. That doesn't mean you have to go down the pre-rendered route but reviewers of that time would shoot it down if it looked like a MegaDrive game :v:
I see your point, and a rather valid point at that. But I think in this day and age, we all need a little Blast Processing.
And possibly better, smoother scrolling.. that is, if it's possible. I don't know much about that kind of stuff. IS it possible??
Depends. If the game is being programmed with limits of the consoles (I guess Genesis/32x/Sega CD?) then no. Otherwise it's possible to work with float point positions (or what ever the hell they call it). Which also means you'll get some form of anti-aliasing. And it'd look gorgeous when running on 100fps. But yeah. Not very old-skoolish.
<!--quoteo(post=243508:date=Nov 10 2008, 04:56 PM:name=Black Squirrel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Black Squirrel @ Nov 10 2008, 04:56 PM) because circle tool sucks. My alternative isn't perfect but it's an improvement. Personally I think you'd be better off animating it in some way, like Oil Ocean's. and as far as your hexagonal ground goes maybe do what I've just done and have one or two a lighter (or darker) shade? Oh and while I'm here, a while back this little project inspired me to make a few mockups of my own: I mean I wouldn't recommend using it since there's a lot of sucky parts and I've no intention of going back and finishing the bits I'm missing, but I thought it might be worth posting. I've got an improved tileset if you're interested.[/quote] Stunning - THIS is definetly the way a Traditinal Sonic game should start. If Sonic 4 came out, they would want to impress us by showing us a better detailed, and complex version of the original Sonic concept. I don't think the name theme of Tropical fits though. I think we should stick to tradition and Include the 'Hill' to the zone name. Like Scorne Hill Zone or Checker Hill Zone. What do you guys think? Also, I think I have the ideal music for this zone... Shall post it in the music section as soon as I can.
<!--quoteo(post=263856:date=Jan 6 2009, 06:24 AM:name=Delusphere)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Delusphere @ Jan 6 2009, 06:24 AM) because circle tool sucks. My alternative isn't perfect but it's an improvement. Personally I think you'd be better off animating it in some way, like Oil Ocean's. and as far as your hexagonal ground goes maybe do what I've just done and have one or two a lighter (or darker) shade? Oh and while I'm here, a while back this little project inspired me to make a few mockups of my own: I mean I wouldn't recommend using it since there's a lot of sucky parts and I've no intention of going back and finishing the bits I'm missing, but I thought it might be worth posting. I've got an improved tileset if you're interested.[/quote] Stunning - THIS is definetly the way a Traditinal Sonic game should start. If Sonic 4 came out, they would want to impress us by showing us a better detailed, and complex version of the original Sonic concept. I don't think the name theme of Tropical fits though. I think we should stick to tradition and Include the 'Hill' to the zone name. Like Scorne Hill Zone or Checker Hill Zone. What do you guys think? Also, I think I have the ideal music for this zone... Shall post it in the music section as soon as I can. [/quote] It seems you haven't seen the mix between Rika's and Black Squirrel's? Also, there's been discussion of giving the Canadian zone the Hill title. But anyway, we should really discuss what we could do next instead of what's already been done, and save the names for after we finish the zones.
<!--quoteo(post=263856:date=Jan 6 2009, 07:24 AM:name=Delusphere)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Delusphere @ Jan 6 2009, 07:24 AM) because circle tool sucks. My alternative isn't perfect but it's an improvement. Personally I think you'd be better off animating it in some way, like Oil Ocean's. and as far as your hexagonal ground goes maybe do what I've just done and have one or two a lighter (or darker) shade? Oh and while I'm here, a while back this little project inspired me to make a few mockups of my own: I mean I wouldn't recommend using it since there's a lot of sucky parts and I've no intention of going back and finishing the bits I'm missing, but I thought it might be worth posting. I've got an improved tileset if you're interested.[/quote] Stunning - THIS is definetly the way a Traditinal Sonic game should start. If Sonic 4 came out, they would want to impress us by showing us a better detailed, and complex version of the original Sonic concept. I don't think the name theme of Tropical fits though. I think we should stick to tradition and Include the 'Hill' to the zone name. Like Scorne Hill Zone or Checker Hill Zone. What do you guys think? Also, I think I have the ideal music for this zone... Shall post it in the music section as soon as I can. [/quote] It's GHZ, that's like 4 steps back in art style from the last Genesis game...
I like the art seen in Pheonix's post moreso than your's, Black Squirrel. It's good, but it looks too much like Green Hill Zone and Emerald Hill zone, while Pheonix's adapts on the Hill theme and makes it a bit different. Though, is it possible to include some sort of a weather/time gimmick as seen in Black Squirrel's? Maybe as you progress through the level, the time of day will change? I guess it can sort of work like Robotnik burning down Angel Island did in Sonic 3, perhaps after the first boss is beaten and you enter act II the time of day will change from morning to evening? Also, regarding the name. Why not just call it Tropical Hill Zone?
Just in case you didn't know already, that is PC2's hybrid. I really took no part in that. Like I said, the name is going to be the last thing we do before the first release.
