Author Topic: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)  (Read 65041 times)

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Offline TerraEsperZ

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #15 on: March 13, 2008, 10:17:43 am »
Oh, it was never a question of not including the backgrounds. I was merely juggling with the idea of waiting a bit to do them since they used to take me a lot of time to do. Maybe I'm just lucky or maybe I've gotten better at noticing patterns, but the last few have been a lot easier to do than expected so there's no reason to deprive anyone of their beauty :)



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Current project:
Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)

Offline TerraEsperZ

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #16 on: March 14, 2008, 08:22:47 pm »
Oh that's it, I'm finally giving up on making those backgrounds fully accurate. I thought the parallax backgrounds had a set length and would start either repeating themselves entirely or start repeating the same blocks, but I just realized that the backgrounds, like the stages themselves, are made up of 256 x 256 pixels blocks. So when I thought I had found a repetition pattern, it was just because the first block was being used again. Anyway, I've decided to limit myself to the maximum number of blocks I can capture completely, and then repeat the whole sequence. I'll be removing blocks that might be new but incomplete, but I'm sure that nobody except me would have cared about such pointless details for so long anyway.



God, even when I'm ranting, I sound *so* nerdy...



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Current project:
Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)

Offline Maxim

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #17 on: March 15, 2008, 03:16:57 am »
I think what might be the issue is that some of the backgrounds have multi-level parallax, so unless you consider each "slice" of parallax (which could be as small as 1 row of pixels) individually, you'll never get a nice repeating pattern. The answer is to find some way to turn off the parallax and grab the tiles cleanly.



For example, here's a Master System game doing something similar, except of course with only one background layer:

http://www.smspower.org/meka/gallery/meka072-sagaia.png

On the right is a special window showing the background as fixed, with a white box showing how the screen is derived from skewed "slices" of it.



Figuring out how to make Gens do something useful with this is another question entirely...

Offline TerraEsperZ

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #18 on: March 15, 2008, 06:19:25 am »
Oh, I know about the multi-level parallax. The water in Green Hill Zone is entirely made of "slices" a single pixel in height for example. I actually tried separating those and assembling them and found out the water had a 512 pixels wide pattern repeating itself, as did the clouds.



But the waterfalls and mountains form a much longer pattern. After capturing as much as I could, separating the slices, assembling them separately and then pasting one over the other, I managed to make out 7 different blocks 256 pixels wide that are assembled in a pattern that doesn't seem to repeat itself. The block sequence goes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 3, 5, 2, 6, 1, 7, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 2. That's what I mean by pattern; there doesn't seem to be a set sequence that repeats itself even when not taking multi-level parallax in account.



It's the same for Marble Zone. While the top section with mountains, clouds and trees is made of 3 different blocks, they also don't repeat themselves in a pattern: 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 3, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2.



And after capturing as much of the bottom inner ruins part, it also doesn't repeat itself after a fashion even though it's made of the same 9 256 x 256 blocks. So like I said, I now capture as many blocks of it as I can, and then repeat the separate sections. That's a lot of time wasted over silly little details, but I'm glad that I now understand how the game manages the stages better.



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Current project:
Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)

Offline Maxim

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #19 on: March 16, 2008, 11:50:37 am »
Ah, that makes sense. Sorry for getting the wrong end of the stick.

Offline TerraEsperZ

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #20 on: March 16, 2008, 08:25:44 pm »
*Updated first post with Marble Zone Act 2 (new) and all the other previous maps (updated backgrounds)*



Since I'm obsessive like that, I redid all the previous backgrounds (though nobody would ever suspect it) to make them a bit more accurate. The most important change is the background of the Special Zones which is uglier but more functional than before, thus removing the need for separate maps with no background.



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Current project:
Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)

Offline marioman

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #21 on: March 17, 2008, 06:43:18 am »
Eh, I don't know.  I liked the deep blue Special Stage background better.  But that's just me.



Maybe if you removed the fish from the other background and left only the bubbles?

Offline TerraEsperZ

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #22 on: March 17, 2008, 07:29:16 am »
Sorry, I've finally made up my mind; the background I ended up using might not be as pretty as the others, but it's 100% authentic (even though it only appears for a split second right when you enter the stage and when it transitions between the birds and the fishes. The colors are a  bit loud, but I feel it's better than an amputated or plain one.



Mind you, I still appreciate the input, but I change my mind enough as it is so I have to make a stand at some point :)



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Current project:
Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)

Offline marioman

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #23 on: March 17, 2008, 04:44:56 pm »
No problem.  It was just a reaction/suggestion.

Offline TerraEsperZ

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #24 on: March 18, 2008, 09:31:09 pm »
*Updated first post with Marble Zone Act 3*



Woohoo! Two zones down, four more to go!



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Current project:
Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)

Offline TerraEsperZ

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #25 on: March 24, 2008, 05:40:57 pm »
*First post updated with Spring Yard Zone Act 1*



Incidentally, even though I first played this game

over a decade ago, I just now understood why this stage is called "Spring" Yard zone; until now, I could not figure out what the season of Spring had to do with a yard of any kind... Talk about dense :D



I also just found out that editing a post with a link to an image that isn't valid anymore (thank *you* ImageShack) always ends up failing after making me wait for several minutes. Grr...



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Current project:
Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)

Offline marioman

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #26 on: March 24, 2008, 06:49:09 pm »
Nice.  I still don't really understand the significance of the neon signs in the background.  I mean, there is no point in trying to go "UP" at the sign.  What CPU and COPE have to do in this context is a mystery to me too.

Offline TerraEsperZ

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #27 on: March 24, 2008, 07:16:14 pm »
Sonic's planet (officially Earth, but it can be Mobius too if you prefer that) is a really weird place, full of talking animals, gravity-defying ramps and loops (both natural and artificial), floating golden rings and an almost endless series of giant pinball/casino areas with bumpers, plungers and stuff. Floating neon signs are actually pretty normal considering :)



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Current project:
Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)

Offline JonLeung

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #28 on: March 25, 2008, 07:15:10 am »
I thought Mobius was the planet featured in the classic 2D games, whereas Earth was featured in the recent games.



I'm probably wrong, though...



(And then from what I can remember from the first episode of the Sonic X anime there are two distinct worlds, though I realize cartoons based on games are never canonical...)

Offline TerraEsperZ

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RE: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)
« Reply #29 on: March 25, 2008, 10:43:24 am »
Actually, from what I remember reading in a detailed storyline thread on a Sonic board, the Japanese game manuals never really mention the name of Sonic's planet, but it is heavily inferred to be Earth, which it is anyway in Adventure and afterward.



Chalk it up to how wacky translations used to be back then, and how little anyone seemed to care about back story and such. I mean, the manual for Super C is literally one huge acid trip into insanity.



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)
Current project:
Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)