General Screenshot/Movie Thread

Try removing the "dl=x" tags and replacing "www" with "dl".

Glad to see progress on Cybernetic Outbreak as well. I'm especially digging Mighty's inclusion.

 

Didn't notice the flower being "mechanized" at first, just that it looked a bit different.
The layout from just the beginning section there in the screenshot really spikes my interest, though.
More so with the description of "being adventurous."

If this is a more open-world Sonic with huge adventurous maps, then my, oh my, am I excited.
_________________________________________
@Varion Icaria, I blame the "'?dl=0" at the end of the links. The image recognition script is probably looking for the PNG, while Dropbox is giving it a small photo viewing applet. Removing this section returns just the image file. If that doesn't work, try right clicking on the images, and selecting "copy image location." Xenoforums' reader likes these links a lot better.

On note of the screenshots themselves, though, that level select screen is such a tease.
Are you actually going to do that much? Exciting. I love the ambition.
Needless to say, I like the level artwork. Sonic's sprites are personally questionable in shape, but I still see that they are done really well, and deserve praise. As for Mighty.. "Cool." Not sure how he'll contribute, but it's a nice touch. Makes me want to see walljump on both, and maybe let Mighty's exclusive be the wall climb.

 

Above the starting area
Why don't you drop down the first hole you come across?
It's not as bad as you think
See...

 

@Varion Icaria To fix your links, change the dl=0 to raw=1. It's a stupid Dropbox issue but doing this fixes the links.

 

A gameplay in Cactus Canyon Zone act 1, with Metal Sonic.

 

Looks pretty cool!

Also, I like how Metal makes his CD pose.

 

Thank you @Burst

 

That Looks really impressive! Well Done!

 

Please excuse the all over the place frame rate oh and sorry for double post

 

The mod needed the logo in some form, so the player will be presented with stationary Crescent Moons and the Card Suit symbols in the background of the Level Select, although the horizontally flipped Crescent Moon on the Diamonds and Spades' row might be replaced with the year number for every Promotional Demo that is released.




It is moments such as this where I honestly feel bad that the palette of the text and character objects is the same as the background, and without knowledge of how to darken the background without being forced to strategically modify the palette, there will be clash, no matter what I do with it.
Alongside that, at least if we could find a way to scroll the seemingly looping tiles vertically or horizontally for each individual row or column, I would render this as graphically acceptable or impressive for the Level Select under current circumstances, but I know that we're far from learning how to do that at the moment, so it'll be a matter of patience on the subject for now, at least until both of those liberties happen.

 

For me this font color blend too much with BG, which can be pretty disorientating. Overall, good job.

 

Exactly what Xernom said... It clashes too much, making it difficult to see the text. I believe it's the grey spade, and possibly the yellow moon that are clashing it the most.

 

The grey's what's doing it, yeah. It makes the also-grey text difficult to read.

 

A simple recommendation to help with the contrast issue: Try darkening the BG. The darkening of the color scheme for it can help with contrasting. Either that, or take the background monochromatic with a color that better-contrasts against the text. I'd recommend trying both to see what provides a better result while still carrying the intended design.

 

For a backround that is incredibly saturated and it does not work at all. It also looks plain as all hell. Even the shitty background Sonic Team made for the level select originally had more tiles in it.

 

Mania's Sixteen by Sixteen tileset for the Level Select has each individual letter for "SONIC" and "MANIA" (plus an empty block) only using half of the width for each of the three tiles that it has available to edit per row (so they're Eight by Sixteen), the tile count is exactly the same when you compare the original to the edited PNG that I am working from, the only difference being that bigger pieces of art are being used that use up the whole tile rather than half, so it may look like less at first glance due to that.

As mentioned above, nobody to the current knowledge of the Mania Modding community has given us a way to decrease the background's contrast or brightness levels (at least in the way that Stardust Speedway Past and Titanic Monarch Act II's bosses do it) without being forced to manually edit the palette by hand; I would change the brightness myself if I knew exactly which offsets in the "Scene1", "StageConfig", and/or "TileConfig" binaries of the "Data\Stages\LSelect" folder to edit in HxD, but that is sadly not a luxury for us at the moment, it'll be a matter of patience until that is figured out.
For a more monochromatic approach, as you recommended, below is an example of what this screen would look like if the symbols were all shades of Periwinkle, as I was using for the Club Suit symbol; you can still notice that the brightness of the background is an issue here (this is thirteen shades of Blue, seven for the symbols and six for the lines behind it), but not as much as with the extended palette.

 

The monochrome does seem to aid it in contrast, and you could fake the contrast by using darker hues of the colors. I am not fully familiar with Mania's graphical system, though, so I may be considering something as doable that may not be. Alternatively, you may have to choose something simpler for the background. Something flatter and with less shading. Shading can work in some cases, but with the limitations you're talking about, it may not be feasible. You may have to ditch the shading and go flat, which would aid in contrast.

 

Here's a work-in-progress of the new Frosty Dusk Zone.

Yep. Pretty sure this is the last hack anyone expected to see resurfacing.
Let's see if I can at least do it justice this time around.

Feedback/constructive criticism is welcomed and appreciated. Have a lovely day/evening/afternoon/whatever.

 

It looks to me like you are only using about 6 different tiles for both the foreground and background. Try varying things up much more. You can use around 1000 tiles before you start getting problems. It helps to use an image editor to edit your art and then importing it with SonLVL. Also, you should have the snow(?) height vary to seem more natural and interesting. Lastly, the snow and bricks look too small and simplistic.