Rawr makes music and the artz

[LarkSS]

I kinda enjoyed the song even if it's not the genre of music I normally listen to. =P The vocals are nice except for the point Aerosol mentioned. The tone issues may work themselves out though if you make sure that you're singing from your heart and not just to sing.

Nice stuff dude; I thought the backgrounds look great. If knuckles is the only character in your game, then I'd recommend redoing his sprite since it would give your game more orginality and also set an art style that is more unique than the classic genesis 16bit style. Also, once the sprite is done then you don't have to worry about fitting the rest of your bgs to a certain style.

[Rawr]

Ah yeah, see I had to learn the song in pretty much under an hour, lay down the vocals as quick as I could, and then kind of try and beef it up a bit. If I had spent more time learning it I'm sure I could have probably been a bit more in tune. Not trying to say I'm a good vocalist though by any means, I've just improved a lot over stuff I had done last year (and if I remember correctly I have/had a recording from back in 06 which was terrible).

As for the character stuff, yeah Knuckles will be the only character in the game but I'm not sure if I have the time to actually sprite an entirely new sprite sheet for him right now ^^. I'm going to be spriting pretty much all my backgrounds and stuff first before I even think about changing the sprite. Maybe once I get the backgrounds all done (or at least the basic parts of it) then I'll get working on new sprites =). That is far down the road though xD

Thanks a lot for the comments and critique guys! I appreciate it!

Edit: I wonder, would the Chaotix sprite work better than the Genesis sprite? It'd save me a lot of time xD. I can't actually check right now since I'm not on my own comp.

[Icecreamkid]

I like the artwork. Its very vibrant. I noticed that last night in your sig way before I even saw this thread. Good job.

[Rael0505]

The Chaotix sprite might work. Post a couple screens!

[Rawr]

I'll have to put it in then to check (unless I quickly did something up in Paint), but I will probably only be working on this game on the weekends. Right now I've just started college so I've been going to bed at a normal time now, as opposed to just staying up late and sleeping in during the week like I did during the summer (I live in a small town, there is nothing to do here D: ).

Seeing as my computer takes forever to start up I'm probably not going to do much stuff during the week. Right now I'm using my sisters laptop because it doesn't take about half an hour to start up like my comp xD. My college course right now is 2D animation, and so I've been getting a tiny bit of homework so far - it is the drive back into my town that really takes most of my time anyway. Rush hour traffic sucks.

Anyway, I'll probably have something by the weekend. I'll probably end up finishing the level stuff too, like shading underneath the grass and possibly messing around with the hue and stuff or something just to see what more I can do with that, then I'll start working on some other level graphics (or find a way to animate that waterfall in Edge Falls' BG, whichever I feel like first xD).

[Rawr]

Argh, I was trying to get the Chaotix sprite to work and then I realized that my custom tiles sucked major balls since they didn't work properly with that sprite either, so I went back to Genesis Knuckles and since I don't have time to try and sprite in the Sonic 3 style (college has been keeping me busy) I'm taking the easy way out I guess and I'm merging previous graphics and tweaking them a bit. So this is what the new graphics look like (still incomplete):

I really wanted to have 100% custom graphics, but right now I don't have the time. Maybe next year or something I'll start something with 100% original graphics (since I am in animation now, the walk cycles for original sprites will be easier too next year).

Oh well, I'll keep working on this more over the weekend I think.

[Slingerland]

Yeah, bud, looking okay there. Just add some shadow underneath the grass (at least 10 pixels).

[Rawr]

Thanks Slingerland =D. I'll definitely add the shading in, I just wanted to see if it looked better there. I'm quite bummed my original graphics didn't quite work out how I wanted them too though.

[LarkSS]

Man, I liked the style of the original graphics. i-i

Background mix looks nice so far; I'd give the grass some more saturation and a bit of contrast to help its coloring fit in a bit better.

[Rawr]

Thanks Lark! I won't get rid of those graphics because I can always use them in something else I guess. I have an incomplete sprite sheet of that skunk thing from the mock screenshots, I can always just one day finish that stuff up and see how it looks with that sprite xD.

Thanks for the comment too, I've got a lot of tweaking to do to those graphics still.

But psh, instead of working on that I was sketching in opencanvas with some friends and this is what came out of it:

Link to pic since it is big

The guy in red with the horns, the creepy hug dude, and the animal eared girl are all my own original characters. The guy saying 'I cut hair' is a character that belongs to my bud Airlight. Then of course Sonic isn't my own character, and the Prinny isn't mine either dood.

Hope you guys like the sketches. Its really late here so they kind of suck heh. The Sonic one was done about an hour ago though so it came out the best I think.

[Rael0505]

Like Lark and Brad said, making the colors more saturated and adding a shadow would probably fix the grass problems. The other problem I see is that there is no "edge" piece - it just gets cut off like paper. If you look at this sheet, Lava Reef does have those end pieces you need. These new foreground pieces certainly match the style better. Keep at it

The other thing is I want to make sure you're working with a 128x128 tile size format. Actually designing the level will be hell if you're not.

[Rawr]

Oh, I know about the edge pieces...that is actually the sheet I'm using =D. I just haven't put them in yet . I can also check the tile size to make it fit that, thanks!. If it isn't that size then I can always shrink it down.

[Rael0505]

Be careful about shrinking - if you're going to shrink something, make sure everything else is shrunk the same way so it all fits. Also, shrinking could ruin graphical quality. In the sprite sheet, everything is already 128x128, so make things easy on yourself and make sure the grass is put on flat at the top so it doesn't break anything.

[Rawr]

Ah, alright. I kind of like how it goes up and down and whatnot though. Angel Island did it .

Or is there something I might not be getting then. I just make the objects and put them overtop of the tiles that came with the engine just to be safe.

[Rael0505]

For the basic tiles, try to stick to 128x128 (or 64, 32). You can have the grass sticking up unevenly by chopping it off and making it an extra object.

Tell me if that made no sense...

[Rawr]

It made sense. I think I get what you mean anyway. I'll just make the surface of the tile flat, and then add the extra grass and stuff on as its own backdrop object and just line it up?

[Rawr]

Some new music stuff, just two test songs I guess (though I like test song 2 much better than test 1) which are just instrumentals and I'll probably use bits and pieces of them for whatever later on (as in, do something with them). I was just testing out some EZ Drummer thing which I didn't install right. Anyway, the songs I made with the drum loops were mostly on the spot except for the chords in Song 2 because I had came up with that riff about a month ago. Test song 1 sounds really cruddy since the drum loop is pretty much the exact same the entire way through and the rythym doesn't go well with the riff I came up with after the fact.

Anyway, enjoy - they aren't all that great though =)

Test Song 1

Test Song 2

[Rawr]

New level graphics, with a very WIP name. The background image there is temporary as well (I slapped that one together in a few minutes, I'll do a better one sometime soon) for one of the levels I have planned. I think once I get an entire level's sheet done, I'll make a game topic here since then I'll at least be able to work on an actual level. Anyway, if you couldn't guess - this is a fusion between Hydrocity and Ice Cap with many a color tweak on the hydrocity part. I think it turned out pretty nice so far. Its hard to properly see the loop though, but I think it looks pretty good =). The area around the loop doesn't have the snow on top of it yet, but I figured since it was just a test area I'll only try it at the beginning. The loop works quite good though (I had to adjust the loop pieces size though to make it work).

Scenery is on its way, and of course a new background for it. I also was working a bit on Edge Falls (renamed Fleeting Falls for now) but nothing too significant was done on it other than the shading underneath the grass. I was working more on this one. I wanted to make an ice zone, but really didn't have too much to work with in terms of icy environments in the Sonic games on the Genesis, but for some reason I thought Hydrocity and Ice Cap would go okay together to make a unique looking level. I think it turned out nice =D

Anyway, here are my planned names for the zones for now (not too many zones since I don't want to get too ahead of myself here). Any thoughts on 'em would be cool, especially for Icicle Island anyway xD. These aren't quite in order, cept for a few. I really like Soundscape Sands though and will probably keep that one the same.

Planned Zones:

Origin Zone

Fleeting Falls

Soundscape Sands

Resolve Ruins

Icicle Island

Mad Machine

Genesis Gateway

Final Zone

Anyway, hope you guys like what I have so far. I always test my pieces in the worlds engine first to make sure they'll fit with it, and I took the advice too of keeping each tile 128 by 128 (well, for everything but the scenery stuff that goes on top of the tiles). So far its been working out real good, I made fast progress on this level's graphics compared to the last since I seperated pretty much all I needed into 128 by 128.

Also - sorry for the triple postage ^^. But yeah, next update I'll be making a game topic for this one since I'll have a sufficient amount of stuff to start building the actual levels

[Rawr]

Wow its been almost forever since I've updated this, or actually posted around here. I've been trying to juggle college on top of my health (doctors visits oh boy) and work.

But I've found I'll have a bit more free time over this weekend hopefully, well...I know I have Monday off.

I remember that I had plans to make custom sprites for the game and that fell through due to time issues, but seeing as how I cannot code whatsoever or really use MMF (XD I just need to get Knuckles working is all, then I can design levels when I have the time) I figure I'll actually get working on some custom sprites. I'll be making 100% custom sprites for everything in the game (or so I hope). I might just use generic huds and stuff like that from other games, but I'll see how much time I have for that stuff.

Since these are not complete and I would like peoples thoughts on how they look so far I'm posting it here rather than in my topic for 'Red'. Sonic is just there...cause I felt like modifying Knuckles into him xD.

Obviously most of the heights and stuff were done in relation to where they are on the genesis sprites so when I put them into Worlds it'll work fine. Oh, and most of the palette is from the genesis sprites as well, since I wanted to make them as accurate as I possibly could.

Eggman's moustache is a bit iffy but I have no time to go and fix that up. I kept his classic look since my game takes place after Sonic 3K but before SA so I figured I would. I gave him yellow cuffs though just 'cause.

The Eggmobile I'm quite proud of. I obviously modeled it off the Sonic 3 Eggmobile. My fave part about it is probably the pipe thingy, it just came out well I think. I made a few adjustments here and there though to make it look more how I wanted it to.

So yeah, thoughts ? These will definitely fit with any backgrounds I end up making for sure =D.

[Rael0505]

Holy crap, I love it! I think you need to touch up Knuckles' spines, though. I think the darker color that separates them needs to be much lighter. I don't have anything else to criticize though, great job. I'd love to see some mock-ups.

[Spike]

Up for critique? While those sprites are AWESOME, a few things bug me. Sonic's bottom spine on his head looks off... I think it's too long and curled downward too much. And as for Knuckles, I think his eyebrow-ridge-thing is too prominent.

Like, do this, maybe...:

[Rawr]

Thanks a lot for the critique guys! I will definitely fix things up when I get home from work today. Thanks for pointing that quill out for me too Spike, I had trouble with the last of Sonic's quills and I intend to also fix that up now too =D

[Zenor]

They are neat, but they have some small shading issues( knuckles' spines). Also, Sonic's shoes seem a bit flat, and knuckles' left shoe makes it seem like his foot has a tumor..

[LarkSS]

Gotta love how people not only critique, but actually make the corrections for you! ;>

Awesome sprites btw; much better than anything I could do. i-i

[Rawr]

Ah, I see what you mean now about the shading issues and the foot tumor thing. I'll get working on corrections now like fixing Sonic's flat shoe issue, his spine, and Knuckles' shading + shoe tumor thing. I won't copy and paste the corrections made though since I want to make this completely by myself and It'd feel wrong to just copy and paste that stuff. I also see a few other things I might fine tune here and there as well (such as forgetting some of the shading in Sonic's eye for example).

Thanks a lot =D!

And thanks Lark for the compliment =)

Edit:

Fixed up things I think. Sonic's shoe looks a little more round on the one that is facing the camera. I didn't do much to tweak his other one cause I think I like it with that shape rather than a more rounded look, but I did cut off a bit at the end to make it less flat at the toe. Knuckles' shoe was tweaked with the suggestion, as well as I brightened up his shadows a bit more. The color I used before was the same as the color used on his Sonic 3 palette, but I did brighten it up. I also fixed up the shading I think on his quills as well. I shaded in Sonic's eye as well as fixed up his quill and touched up on the shading here and there a tiny bit. I also got rid of the boring text there since I figured just scribbling all over there would be more fun *shot*.

Thanks a lot for the help guys =D! I shall start making a sheet soon I guess. Any other comments and critique you guys want to make I will alter before I start the sheets =).