Sonic 2 Titanium Upgrade

Discussion in 'Showroom Archive' started by ThomasThePencil, Mar 23, 2013.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. ThomasThePencil

    ThomasThePencil resident psycho Member

    Joined:
    Jan 29, 2013
    Messages:
    910
    Location:
    the united states. where else?
    That reverse gravity feature has suddenly become something I want to return to, just because of this post. Plus, without it, only Knuckles can clear the level (thanks to his wall-climbing and gliding abilities). So really, it's more of an important thing to use than a design choice :U

    Only thing I don't know how to repair is the Spiny art not loading properly.
     
  2. Crash

    Crash Well-Known Member Member

    Joined:
    Jul 15, 2010
    Messages:
    302
    Location:
    Australia
    Also, half the runtime of your videos is of you entering the level select code. Edit that shit out in Windows Movie Maker or something similar.
     
  3. Spanner

    Spanner The Tool Member

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2007
    Messages:
    2,570
    None of them to be honest. It's not the response you were expecting but both do not look good!
     
  4. redhotsonic

    redhotsonic Also known as RHS Member

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2007
    Messages:
    2,969
    Location:
    England
    They're both terrible palettes, but if I had to pick, A.

    Plus, in the second video, at 0:36, whats going on with the background (or is it forground?  I can't tell)?
     
  5. DanielHall

    DanielHall Well-Known Member Member

    Joined:
    Jan 18, 2010
    Messages:
    860
    Location:
    North Wales
    To be honest, it isn't really the BG that's the problem (except for the white trees), it's the FG. None of the colours match. What I'd advise you to do is to stick to realism. Otherwise, use colours that blend. Purple goes nice with a bit of blue, not brown or grey.
     
  6. StephenUK

    StephenUK Working on a Quackshot disassembly Member

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2007
    Messages:
    1,026
    Ok, so on the basis that you clearly don't know what a good palette looks like, allow me to post some examples of palettes I threw together in about 15 mins total, each with a different style. If from comparing these to your palettes, you can't see the difference, I truly believe you are beyond help as far as palettes go, and possibly art in general.

    [​IMG]

    This one is based on your palette from one of your videos. I've tried to copy the colours, just with proper shading and flowing tones. I've also added my own alterations to make it a bit more appealing.

    [​IMG]

    This is a Good Future sort of palette. I'm actually quite pleased with the results on this one because I wasn't really trying with it. I was only trying to throw something together as an example.

    [​IMG]

    Traditional snow palette, no example set would be complete without one.

    [​IMG]

    Apocalyptic style palette, tried making the background grass look on fire, dark tones all round. How Aquatic Ruin would look if EA got their hands on it.

    Hopefully comparing these examples to your own will help you see how you've gone wrong. Use a fresh copy of the ARZ palette, pay attention to the shades in the palettes and make sure that your colours gradient on the palette in the same way the originals do. You can't just put the colours anywhere and expect the game to sort the shading for you, it just doesn't work like that.
     
  7. JoenickROS

    JoenickROS ROS (bug fixing in progress) Member

    Joined:
    Feb 5, 2012
    Messages:
    929
    Wow StephenUK those are some good looking palettes, well done!

    Edit: The last one is a little too bright though but they are examples so still, well done.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 6, 2013
  8. SpirituInsanum

    SpirituInsanum Well-Known Member Member

    Joined:
    Feb 11, 2010
    Messages:
    642
    Stephen is doing a palette battle with himself, eye candies :eek:

    @TSR: To make it much easier for everyone, there's this palette editor in lua script for gens (you'll need to load your game in gens, then open the lua script 'tools > lua scripting'). Pause your game in the level you want (game pause, not emulator pause), then edit the palette and save it (it always exports as pal.bin, so you'll have to make copies of the ones you like after saving them).

    http://info.sonicretro.org/Tribeam's_Realtime_Palette_Editor
     
  9. JoenickROS

    JoenickROS ROS (bug fixing in progress) Member

    Joined:
    Feb 5, 2012
    Messages:
    929
    Yeah I already told him about that and he just said he can use the palette editor in SonED2, btw TSR the real time palette editor is way easier to use and see the differences. SonED2s palette editor is obviously not working for you.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 6, 2013
  10. Selbi

    Selbi The Euphonic Mess Member

    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2008
    Messages:
    2,429
    Location:
    Northern Germany
    Gotta be honest, when I saw the screenshots I was thinking "Finally, he learned how t-", but then I saw the poster's name.
     
  11. nineko

    nineko I am the Holy Cat Member

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2008
    Messages:
    1,902
    Location:
    italy
    Stephen's second and third palettes are great indeed.


    And I like what Cinossu did.
     
  12. ThomasThePencil

    ThomasThePencil resident psycho Member

    Joined:
    Jan 29, 2013
    Messages:
    910
    Location:
    the united states. where else?
    Well, I decided to upload another update today, and this one is rather big. It shows a lot of things I've done with the hack.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr-Rx8Pymd0

    Changelist:

     - Watered Relic Zone's palette has been changed drastically to better suit the theme of the level.

     - Continues have been disabled entirely. This is because keeping them enabled would make no sense due to a feature to be implemented in the future.

     - Winter Hill Zone's palette has also been changed, though nowhere near as drastic as the WRZ palette change.


    Comments, questions, and/or criticisms are very much appreciated.
     
  13. rika_chou

    rika_chou Adopt Member

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2007
    Messages:
    689
    EHZ's palette is still using horrible inverted shading for the ground. I feel like there are too many areas where you cannot tell if something is a bottomless pit or the path forward.

    ARZ's palette is better, I don't get why you added water to the boss (especially if you're not going to sort out the water surface and bubble art). It doesn't seem to make the boss harder, and water doesn't make sense with the background of the boss area. I also see a lot of broken tiles in this level.

    MCZ's palette is ok, but seems mostly unchanged. The layout seems kind of boring, too straight and not much going on.

    I don't like the jump-dash move. It makes it too easy to gain speed, but this is just my personal opinion on the move. I don't like it in most hacks that it's in.

    I see you got the © text looking better, but I feel like it should still say "© 1992 SEGA" somewhere.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 10, 2013
  14. SuperEgg

    SuperEgg I'm a guy that knows that you know that I know Member

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2009
    Messages:
    Location:
    THE BEST GOD DAMN STATE OF TEXAS
    This....this hack. It makes me cry tears of sadness, and laughter. It seems that Sonic 2 still needs dat Titanium Upgrade.

    Ok, list time!!!

    - God level awful palettes.

    We've already discussed this months ago. The EHZ palette actually got worse from what I remembered. ARZ is decent...barely, but enough to not be eyerape.

    - Layouts.

    ...Dafuq? I swear, I told you this last time, and it seems you thought I was just being an ass with no meaning behind it. I was being serious. Quit with the fucking bottomless pits. It is annoying as fuck, and just horrible level design. I'm not even joking. MCZ you just fall to your death from a very high place. Why? That is wasted space that could be used for ACTUAL ALTERNATE LEVEL PATHS!!! Objects placement isn't as atrocious, but it's still bad. Luckily, you got rid of those damned "leap of faith" bullshit. So kudos on that regard.

    - JumpDash

    Seriously? Why? From the look of things, it really doesn't help with progressing through the level. Hell, I've seen it kill you more than I see it help you, except for when you almost died and did a quick jumpdash back onto land. Otherwise, I don't get it. If the Jumpdash aided in a way that would warrant the need for it in the level design, I'd be all for it, but it doesn't. Which as I see it, a waste of time. 

    - Bugs Bugs Bugs

    If you ever leave (or get banned), the one thing I hope you get out of this time with us here is to bug test things. Sweet Christ. With all the bugs I've seen in the game, you might need to call an exterminator.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 10, 2013
  15. nineko

    nineko I am the Holy Cat Member

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2008
    Messages:
    1,902
    Location:
    italy
    This is partially my fault, I clicked on "approve" on his post while I was still watching his video instead of letting it finish, so I thought "these MCZ edits aren't that bad, there is a missing row of tiles at the top of the background, but hey, it could be worse" *approves* *EHZ arrives* "wait what, noooooooooo what have I done D:"
     
  16. SuperEgg

    SuperEgg I'm a guy that knows that you know that I know Member

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2009
    Messages:
    Location:
    THE BEST GOD DAMN STATE OF TEXAS
    DAMN YOU NINKEO!!!!! COULD'VE YOU ACCIDENTALLY PRESSED THE BAN BUTTON!!!!?!?!!??!!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!

    =P Love you
     
  17. nineko

    nineko I am the Holy Cat Member

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2008
    Messages:
    1,902
    Location:
    italy
    I need at least 4 "accidental" clicks to just warn someone, but sure it would be fun :p
     
  18. SuperEgg

    SuperEgg I'm a guy that knows that you know that I know Member

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2009
    Messages:
    Location:
    THE BEST GOD DAMN STATE OF TEXAS
    How many clicks is that?
     
  19. StephenUK

    StephenUK Working on a Quackshot disassembly Member

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2007
    Messages:
    1,026
    In fairness, a fair amount of this is an improvement on what he had, so despite the problems it's a step in the right direction. I would advise the following:

    1. Revert back to the original EHZ palette and start again, following the shading scheme. You did a relatively goodjob of it in ARZ compared to what you had, so use the same process again.

    2. Fix the grass and leaves shading in ARZ, it's the one thing that really lets the palette down. The rest isn't too bad at all.

    3. Give DEZ the correct palette from S3K then alter it from there to suit your needs. If you copy the last 2 lines of the palette from S3K into the last 2 lines of the S2 palette, you should be good to go.

    4. Make alternate paths for your levels. You could start out by making a single path to the end, but then look over it again and see where you could offer branches and make new paths. This will keep the levels interesting to the player and give a greater depth to your levels.

    5. Make sure all tiles line up properly, nothing looks worse in a layout than mismatched tiles.

    6. Find out what you've done to your background scrolling and fix it. I've noticed now on both ARZ and MCZ, the background suddenly starts twitching when you get to a certain height. It seems like you may have altered the level size code in a way the game doesn't like, but that's purely speculation.

    7. Keep the bottomless pits to a minimum. Classic Sonic games did use them sparingly, so there's nothing wrong with the odd couple here and there. Never mislead the player into jumping into them though or make them too big.

    Those points aside, it seems that you are slowly starting to find your feet when it comes to hacking, so keep working on it and you may eventually get to a high standard. Don't settle for "It will do", push for "This looks awesome".
     
  20. ThomasThePencil

    ThomasThePencil resident psycho Member

    Joined:
    Jan 29, 2013
    Messages:
    910
    Location:
    the united states. where else?
    Well, I have a new update to post, and this one focuses on Death Egg Zone.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CqNGHlFqGY

    Video explains it all, really.

    EDIT: Forgot to mention, I will gladly accept criticisms ON THIS PARTICULAR LEVEL ONLY. 
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 11, 2013
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.