TSS_Ty

I always like the Final Egg music, but I don't think even that could redeem Sonic on the 360

Epon: Oviedo, the happiest place on Earth.

Getting: 2 month trip to Florida to see someone sexay. Giving: A bottle of wee, because Wii jokes never get old.

I'm full of surprises Guess which SFGHQ member is getting married next...

I bet you didn't know I was gay, did you? Ok, so I'm not. I was just being an awkward bugger

http://sonic2.ocremix.org/ My favourites are "Traveling Through a Dream", "Sonik Caves" and "Super Sonic Ska".

There's a zip at a few of the mirrors. I love the S3&K soundtrack, and this remix project has made me very happy. I like it a lot more than the Sonic 2 remix album. Edit: I thought I'd give the Sonic 2 remix another listen, and it's growing on me.

I don't think it's anywhere near the quality of the final product, and I'm pretty sure Bungie know that. There's some nasty tiling on grass textures, but I'm quite happy that it has a more Halo 1 look to it. It'll probably be 10 to 12 months before it's released, so a lot can (and hopefully will) change in that time. It's a shame they're having to start hyping it early because of the PS3 release.

You asked for it. No rambling this time

He doesn't really tour, and he did talk about how strange it felt performing live when he's normally in the studio. I'm pretty sure this is one of the few times he's actually performed, so I definitely couldn't have missed it. The performance took place in a candlelit 13th century church, which was an interesting venue and suited the mood. The crowd wasn't particularly large, and they covered a large spectrum of people, young and old. A lot of folks looked like complete geeks, which made me sad because I realised it's how I must look to other people Facts about the Sonic 3D soundtrack: The whole Sonic 3D soundtrack for the Saturn was created in two weeks, and Rusty Ruin was composed, recorded and mixed in just six hours. The tea party with Sonic was a let-down. Sonic shook hands with me when he saw my Sonic t-shirt, but I think I upset his minders when I said "I bet he's really hot in that Sonic suit" in front of some little kids. Whoops. At least I got to speak to Mr Jacques, which was well worth the trip. There's a video-game recital in London on November 25th, although I'm not sure if I'll be going to that. They will be performing "Jack's Theme" from Headhunter though, which is one of my favourite game tracks of all time. I'm still rambling. Damnit.

[Jump to picture] My brother and I just got back from seeing Richard Jacques perform a live "Sega Retrospective" at "GameCity" in Nottingham. All the tunes were done on the piano, although a few had a backing track to liven things up. For those who don't know, Richard Jacques composed the soundtracks for Sonic R, Sonic 3D, MSR and Headhunter as well as countless other games. The concert started with a Sonic medley, and then moved to tracks from Shenmue, Ecco and Sonic 3D (Diamond Dust [saturn]). We were then treated to a special guest, as T.J. Davis came on stage and performed slightly modified versions of "Can You Feel The Sunshine" from Sonic R and "I Can Still Believe" from MSR. I'll admit to really liking the Sonic R soundtrack, so hearing some of it live was quite a treat. The vocals were excellent, and hearing those tunes brought back a lot of memories. The last two tracks of the concert were "Dreams Dreams" from NiGHTS and then a medley of the Euro Remixes of "Magical Sound Shower" and "Passing Breeze" from Outrun 2. His performance on the Outrun tracks was extremely impressive, and he included a lot of really fast piano solos. Good stuff. After the concert, we managed to grab hold of T.J. and get personalised autographs before she left. They announced that Mr Jacques would be in a coffee shop later for a Q & A session later, so we thought we'd go along and perhaps get the chance to ask a question or two. We got to the shop and saw him sat at a table with a few other folks. It turned out it wasn't a formal session, and that people were welcome to chat to him as and when they pleased. Most of the people asked one or two questions, and we waited for a while before we snagged his autograph. The next twenty minutes or so were spent chatting about all kinds of things, including game music, Sonic t-shirts, and how his surname is pronounced (it's "Jakes"). He was a genuinely nice guy, and it was a pleasure to talk to him. To be honest we probably could have spent much longer talking, but it seemed fair to let others have a chat. Perhaps I'll get chance to speak to him again next year. So there you go. I met Richard Jacques and TJ Davis and got their autographs. Probably nothing special for the majority of people, but it gave me a nice warm glow inside (and made me ramble a lot - sorry!).

Perhaps the option to let regular users tag other posts too (as DW touched on). That way you could see what areas a post falls into, and it could be updated as the conversation goes on.

The happiest of birthdays to you, fellow Octoberan. The 10th of October is a joyous day! It's also World Mental Health Day.

Thanks everyone! So far 24 is shaping up to be an excellent age, although I'd only just got used to being 23. That raises an interesting question: At what point do I become too old to visit this place?

As soon as Halogen was cease & desisted, I knew a Halo RTS was going to be announced relatively soon. It's a shame it's just a rendered trailer, but it could turn out to be rather tasty. As for the other Halo game, I'm not so sure that Peter Jackson dipping his hand into the game making pie with the Halo universe is such a good idea. Still, time will tell.

I thought Loonatics sounded bad, but this takes the biscuit. Perhaps they just want to make the original look better, so they can release some merchandise. Or perhaps they're just crazy.

Lots of websites use Wikis, but they're not suitable for everything. I think it would be quite a burden on moderators given some of the people that frequent this site. There's nothing stopping anyone writing articles for the site and posting them in the R&D forum. I'm not sure if the "advanced discussion" puts people off, but there are plenty of people here who have a lot of advanced knowledge they could share. It's just a case of extracting it from their brains...

There are lots of different C++ tools out there, but I think most people will point you to either devcpp or Visual Studio 2005 Express. I use VS2005, and it does the trick. It's a bit of a memory hog, and you have to jump through a few hoops to get it working the way you want, but it's pleasant to work with once you get settled.

You'd never catch me switching letters and numbers.

You can get lots of replies easily too. Simply sign up for lots of accounts and then reply to your own topics.

I love space, but over the years I seem to have developed a fear of planets and stars. I like looking at photos, but any moving images that show you getting closer to a planet or star really freak me out. I blame Elite.

If I ever get a Raccoon, I shall call it Rocky in your honour. Can't say fairer than that.

I used XML because it was the quickest and easiest way to get something working, not because it's trendy. The parsing overhead isn't a major problem as far as I'm concerned, and I wasn't bothered about encapsulation. It's not the greatest solution by any means, but it does the job. Perhaps in future I'll switch to a completely binary solution, but for now it's just extra work that I don't need. I'd be more than happy to write a .SIF parser for Blitz once you get an example file online to play with.

My current system is quite similar to that, but is based on XML because I found it to be more flexible, and also easy to write by hand. It also makes it easier to add new things to the spec without breaking all existing data. Images are stored seperately, and all animations and objects have names in a namespace style format, such as "Game.Objects.ObjectName.Resource" so it's easier to read and maintain. Animations specify what image they use, as well as how many times it should loop (if at all) and what the default speed is. Each frame of the animation states what image frame it uses, what direction (left/right) and angle (0 to 359) it uses as well as how long it will be displayed (in milliseconds). The main reasons for including the angle were speed/prettyness (not all images rotate nicely programatically) and because it sounded like a good idea at the time. I've not run into any major problems yet, so it still seems like a good idea. The SIF format looks quite robust, and I can't see any problems with it, although they might come to light once it's been used by a few projects.

Given the nature of some of SFGHQ's members (or rather ex-members), a WIKI would be asking for trouble. They work for some audiences, but I don't think it would work for here. I still think the main site would greatly benefit from an overhaul, but it's a massive job and I'm not sure if it's really plausible. A shame really, because there's a lot of talent here.