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Sonic Mania


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#31 Koh

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Posted 25 July 2016 - 12:37 AM

That's fair enough. I misunderstood your first argument.
 

Why not a 10?
 

Everything's about the hue-shifting with you. Sometimes I regret telling you about it. :P It's just another tool, like anti-aliasing for example, and like anti-aliasing it can be overdone or inappropriately used. Sonic Mania is almost overdone, since it has a very noticeable yellow-blue-purple ramp going on. I personally like that look, but that's a personal preference. It doesn't make the art objectively better than something more subtle, and I disagree with you that the lack of it causes the art not to "pop". Terraria's art uses vibrancy, contrast and outlining to make things "pop", and does so effectively IMO. That said, Terraria's art is overall mediocre. Like Minecraft it gets the job done, but it's far from amazing to look at.

Not a 10 because I still need to see how everything related to one another throughout the whole thing, in better non-video quality, lol.

 

Well, there's a way to use HS less dramatically, that'll still make the colors pop.  I've grown to dislike monochrome shading (not monochrome style, like sepia, but just non-HS shading), because it doesn't do anything but add depth, not make the world stand out in any amazing way, lol.

 

Minecraft and Terraria are programmer art :P

I'd agree for Terraria, lol.



#32 Moonbread

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Posted 25 July 2016 - 03:17 PM

So, obviously I'm pretty hyped for this.  I'm a massive fan of Genesis Sonic and of not much else, though admittedly I haven't played much beyond Genesis and some of the GBA games (I mean I did play Generations and it's fantastic, and I've heard Lost World and Colors are both pretty good and I wanna try them at some point).  I was recently reading a post that Taxman made about the game, saying that the visual style he's going for is if they had put a 2D Sonic game on the Saturn (makes sense, looking at the trailer).  He also made some subtle jabs at Sonic 4, and confirmed that the game will have a CRT mode, which is wonderful, considering that's what I use for the 3D Classics version of Sonic 1.  I do really like that it's going about the what-if-Saturn look, because it sorta felt like Mega Man 9 (and 10 to some extent though it was better) was playing it way too safe with trying to look like earlier MM games rather than treating them like late-era NES titles, although we got that anyway in the form of Shovel Knight.

 

Also fuck whoever made that trailer music because it's been stuck in my head for the past two days.  Also Studiopolis Zone's music is utterly fantastic.  I want this so baddddddddd.



#33 Cukeman

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Posted 25 July 2016 - 03:37 PM

What would CRT mode make different?



#34 Anthus

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Posted 25 July 2016 - 05:29 PM

CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) mode makes it look like it is on an old (non-HD) TV. Low resolution sprite games look really clear on new displays, and the individual pixels can really stand out, so CRT mode makes it look smoother as if running on a tube television.

#35 UZF

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Posted 25 July 2016 - 06:14 PM

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this trailer. 

As a big fan of the old school Genesis games and a big fan of Sonic Generations, this was a great way to pique my curiosity and get me hyped for these games.

I also see that they got, Christian Whitehead to help, he helped with the IOS ports of Sonic 1, 2 and Sonic CD so surely he has a good grasp of how a classic 16 bit Sonic should run and move.

 

The animations looks very fluid and the music sounds great, and the visuals are killer.

The new "Drop Dash" mechanic is very interesting to me as well. I always hated losing my speed because I fell in the wrong spot, or the platform I was on wasn't large enough to get a get running start on it.

 

As for the new 3D, Sonic trailer. It looks like a possible Sonic Generations 2, and well... That just tickles me pink.


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#36 The Satellite

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Posted 25 July 2016 - 06:17 PM

Didn't just help on the mobile ports of those games, I think he was almost singlehandedly responsible for all of them, rebuilt from scratch. For some reason though, Sega has yet to approve his S3&K remake for distribution.


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#37 Koh

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Posted 25 July 2016 - 06:30 PM

Didn't just help on the mobile ports of those games, I think he was almost singlehandedly responsible for all of them, rebuilt from scratch. For some reason though, Sega has yet to approve his S3&K remake for distribution.

I think it's not possible due to licensing issues.  The same reason they had to swap out some of the tracks for Sonic 3 when they made the PC port.  They could probably make a port using that music and such, but who knows.  



#38 The Satellite

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Posted 26 July 2016 - 12:10 AM

I don't really want to come out in defense of Sonic 4, per se, but I enjoyed it for what it was. Episode 1 played it too safe and was too linear, perhaps, but Episode 2 was a lot better and edging more towards originality than the first. Sure, not all the way, but at least the bosses were original and not just rehashes. Even if the boss music was an obnoxiously-short loop. I was actually left hoping for Episode 3, which didn't came and never will.

 

Would I have preferred Mania existed as the true Sonic 4? I can't say that yet, not until I play the game myself. I could say that, if I were to judge on the trailers alone... hell yeah, I would have preferred Mania. And I have little reason to believe Mania won't end up being the better product. I just didn't think Sonic 4 was terrible by any means.


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#39 Moonbread

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Posted 26 July 2016 - 01:04 AM

CRT mode makes it look like it is on an old TV. Low resolution sprite games look really clear, and extra pixelated, so CRT mode makes it look smoother it is running on a tube television.

I find I prefer things such as Sonic's sprite and waterfalls in "CRT mode". Particularly in the case of waterfalls, the dithering effect isn't meant to be seen in pixel perfect quality, otherwise it ruins the blurry animated effect.
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#40 Anthus

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Posted 26 July 2016 - 01:19 AM

I find I prefer things such as Sonic's sprite and waterfalls in "CRT mode". Particularly in the case of waterfalls, the dithering effect isn't meant to be seen in pixel perfect quality, otherwise it ruins the blurry animated effect.

Yeah, HD displays wreck dithering, and other older spriting methods so CRT mode makes it as fuzzy, and beautifully awesome as your heart can remember :D

And as for Sonic 4, I actually did enjoy it a lot. I just feel like it tried too hard, in some ways. As far as a true, spiritual successor to the Mega Drive/ CD games, from the trailers alone, this looks like it might be amazing. I wanna play it so bad.

I seriously haven't been this excited for a Sonic game since... shit, probably Sonic Heroes (which I love except for fucking Rail Canyon die in a fire Rail Canyon.)
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#41 The Satellite

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Posted 26 July 2016 - 01:45 AM

I'm blind and didn't realize there were two other tracks released from Mania, but just the invincibility and title tracks.

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=3GbgGS-U0Uw

https://www.youtube....h?v=XqeVn6Zv8xw

 

These sound pretty solid too.



#42 Nicholas Steel

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Posted 26 July 2016 - 02:03 AM

I'm blind and didn't realize there were two other tracks released from Mania, but just the invincibility and title tracks.
 
https://www.youtube....h?v=3GbgGS-U0Uw
https://www.youtube....h?v=XqeVn6Zv8xw
 
These sound pretty solid too.

Some music got leaked. It's actually really good.

The Invincibility and Title Screen music sound great, however the other song sounds way too repetitive (It has a real good piano jam section though). I mean that it repeats the same sounding 3 second bit over and over adnauseum where as the others at least last 20 seconds or longer before any semblance of a repetition can be heard.



#43 SpikeReynolds

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Posted 26 July 2016 - 07:47 AM

The Satellite will now be burned at the stake for even insinuating there was anything wrong with Sonic CD.

 

This game looks insanely good. Honestly, I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate Sonic's 25th anniversary, considering Sega hasn't made a good solid game themselves since his 10th.


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#44 Koh

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Posted 26 July 2016 - 08:00 AM

I'm not so sure about CRT mode myself.  You see, I already wear glasses, and having a bunch of blurriness in whatever I'm looking at doesn't help my poor vision at all; I shouldn't ever have to squint at a screen.  This is one of the reasons I preferred the PS1 graphics over the N64 graphics, because the PS1 didn't have the texture filtering the N64 had that made everything blurrier.  Dithering isn't so bad when the display resolution is higher.

 

Madou_Monogatari_-_ARS-2.jpg

madout2.png


Edited by Koh, 26 July 2016 - 08:02 AM.

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#45 kurt91

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Posted 26 July 2016 - 04:31 PM

Koh, did you grow up with PC games exclusively, or did you have any consoles back then?

 

PC games have their artwork done they way they are because they take the monitor type into account. You don't have the same pixel bleeding as you would on a CRT television, and the artists took that into account.

 

Console games back then, at least the particularly well-designed ones, not only accounted for the effect that the CRT monitor would have, but oftentimes relied on it. The pixel bleeding, when combined with dithering effects, caused tricks like additional colors or transparencies when those could not be done through the art alone.

 

Using Sonic as an example, Chemical Plant Zone in Sonic 2 used this effect for water. If I recall correctly, the game did not have any real transparency due to hardware limitations. (I know there wasn't transparency, but I may be wrong in the hardware being the reason) What they did was they alternated dithering in the water, as well as alternated the tiles for the surface waves of the water with blank tiles. Because they flickered at 60 FPS, the surface had the illusion of transparency. The dithering effect coupled with the pixel bleeding for the underwater areas made a unique transparency effect that looks great on the televisions they were designed for.

 

Another good example would be the Donkey Kong Country games. Played in HD, those games look absolutely terrible. The Kongs become an unidentifiable mess of pixels. Played on a proper old-school television, with the pixel bleeding in effect, the games become one of the most beautiful series released in their generation.

 

Besides, the CRT effect is an optional filter you can activate on the game. If you want to play them in HD pixelation, you have the ability to. The art style of the game was designed as though the original art style continued to evolve from the Genesis (and Sega CD) to the 32X (Knuckles Chaotix), and had continued onto the Saturn, which would have been played on the old-school CRT televisions.


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