The Taxman

well, considering the vertices are transformed to 2D screen space via the projection matrix before a triangle is rendered, I don't think having a large scale skybox would make any difference. The 2D screen space point will end up being the same. Where it might make a difference though is with z buffering. Play the pc version of SA: DX and notice the horrible inaccuracy with zbuffering the skydome and water surface in Emerald Coast. Since the skydome is huge, the large floating point values end up losing accuracy. You could change the range of the zbuffer to accommodate this, but then you'd lose accuracy with polygons that are close together. Increasing the bitdepth of the zbuffer gives you more accuracy but not all cards support higher depths. The dreamcast version doesn't have this problem because it uses a completely different depth checking method to z-buffering. Usually though, skyboxes aren't even rendered with the z-buffer enabled, since it's the first thing to be drawn.

Well, the Hidden Palace BG still needs the other layer implemented so that's why it doesn't look as exciting yet. The stalactite crystals do scroll at different vertical speeds too so it looks nifty.

Yep, after digging up the Pre XG merge build again... I finally sorted out a Mac version. Go here to get it It's pretty much identical to the SAGE 2007 build, so there's no point in bug finding (unless it's a critical OSX crash or something) since the Retro-Sonic XG build is now months ahead of that one. Speaking of which, I may as well spruik a W.I.P few screens while I'm at it! So yeah... Enjoy! EDIT: Seems I forgot to upload the updated html file with the link added. Whoops! Fixed now Direct link for the lazy: http://rsonic.randomsonicnet.org/RSonicOSXBeta.zip

I haven't got UT2004 to try this out, but from watching some videos on youtube it looks quite awesome so far! I love the classic shields and objects, and the sky sanctuary level

You don't need to use Arc Tan to create a homing effect unless you want the actual angle of movement (e.g. you want to set the rotation of a missile). If sonic is just in a ball and you want him to move in the direction of the enemy you can also do the same thing by normalizing a 2D vector: First, find the distance for x and y between Sonic and the Object: DeltaX=ObjectX-SonicX DeltaY=ObjectY-SonicY Next, work out the length of the trajectory TrajectoryLength=SquareRoot((DeltaX*DeltaX)+(DeltaY*DeltaY)) Look Familiar? Why it's good old Pythagoras's theorem in action baby Now divide both DeltaX and DeltaY by the Trajectory Length to Normalize the vector: DeltaX=(DeltaX/TrajectoryLength) DeltaY=(DeltaY/TrajectoryLength) Now with this normalized Vector, you can use it to move sonic in the direction you want, at the speed you want using a scalar value: Sonic's XSpeed=DeltaX*HomingSpeed Sonic's YSpeed=DeltaY*HomingSpeed Done! Now, this is assuming you can use floating point numbers... if you can't just multiply DeltaX and DeltaY by a large number like 100 or 1000 at the start and then do this at the end: Sonic's XSpeed=(DeltaX*HomingSpeed)/largenumber Sonic's YSpeed=(DeltaY*HomingSpeed)/largenumber hope that helps!

Actually, Desert Dash's graphics would have been inspired from my Dust Hill. I ported the graphics to Mega Drive tiles for Esrael when he asked to use them in Sonic 2 Delta

Hey man, chill out... I've never said anything against your project (infact, I gave Damizean the source code to my RSDK upon request to help him) so I don't think it's fair to bag out my programming skills. You'll have the editor up and running in a few months sure, but will you have a graphical engine, gameplay, object scripting and the likes done too? Maybe if you're using pre-existing libs... but that doesn't give you the right to claim what i've worked on has been inefficient. EDIT: Also I'm the lead programmer of Retro-Sonic XG, adapting XG's assets is my department so there's no worries there. When I offered the merge, we discussed any issues with migration, it's all in motion now. I don't think Euan meant that question as an attack at Nexus, it's just all this hot air that's been going around post SAGE lately... it's a legitimate question, for both our projects. I can say in our case progress has accelerated, and hopefully yours will also kick MMF2 into the dirt. It's great to see the engine Dami has been planning for ages put to good use, hopefully the final stage of evolution for the Sonic Worlds Engine

Yep, gamepad support and custom keys have been planned for aggeeesss. I just keep getting distracted from doing it. It's funny, because it'll only take me a day to do it. EDIT: I should also mention I didn't actually get a gamepad until about a month ago too, that's a fairly big factor too XD I'll make sure it's there next time

The easiest way is to attack when the boss has just moved both of it's arms to the ceiling pole. If you're pro, you can use a spindash

haha you know, the more I think about it the more seriously I think it'd be a good idea... Retro's scripting can recreate all the stuff he has in Final Fall. The requirements of the game would drop dramatically with no slow down, the special stage would actually be 3D (well, mode 7 at least). All the zone's graphics are there, they just need to be put in an editor (which the RSDK is almost done). Maybe i've just gone mad over working too many late nights, but Euan, Nitemate: I'm putting the offer on the table.

*sigh* comparisons, blah blah... why don't we just make Retro-Sonic XG? hell I'd be willing

Ok played it! I guessed the doomsday zone hehe The graphics and presentation are absolutely top notch, love the menus and title cards. The game really has a feel of continuing on from S3k, awesome. The boss was pretty simple, but the looming Death Egg distracted me hah. Anyway, my only gripe so far is in the special stage. I don't know how you're doing the movement of the objects, but it doesn't look like convincing 3D perspective. Are you using Z values? If not, you should consider using a simple 3D projection equation: ScreenX=(XPos*ScreenWidth)/ZPos ScreenY=(YPos*ScreenHeight)/ZPos (you may want to use values a bit lower or greater for ScreenWidth and Height if you want to adjust the perspective shape) this should work even without floating point numbers

Yeah, I need to add a quick scripting thing for that, so it will be there don't worry

Actually I think the game may not have worked for spike because he may have been missing a DirectX 7 component (since microsoft changed the architecture from 8 onwards), Installing DirectX 10 could have fixed the problem if it had legacy files included or something. But yeah, I can definately say I don't use any fruity extra components, just standard stuff. Ok on to the bug stuff (which I already know about ) -That partner spawning only happens for characters other than tails, and those combinations are hidden for a reason you know they're there for fun only so live with it -The collision detection isn't perfect... infact I need to rewrite it altogether to improve it, the method is a fast one, but not the most accurate so I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and redo it at some point -Those collision issues with Emerald hill are because I need to put in all the plane switcher objects that it has (i must have forgot some) -The Egg Garden Boss isn't cheap, you just don't know its pattern... if you're not facing him, he will always step towards you. You have to be facing him for the fist attack, when this repeats twice the the aerial attack occurs. That thing with the bonus levels in the zone menu is actually a bug though lol, I'll have to fix that Anyway, the point is these things always get addressed eventually so don't worry

Perhaps Sonic and Tails can stop with the camp activities and... play some Retro-Sonic

There is, but it's a semi secret... you just have to keep scrolling beyond what's shown on the menu and then the menu scrolls down to reveal the others. I have them hidden for that very reason. In other news, this is the last moment I'm working on Retro-Sonic before the (not so) SAGE release comes out. It's coming out Sunday no matter what. I really wanted to finish a fresh Act 2 design of Egg Garden before releasing it so that's why it's taken an extra day.

Just letting everyone know (as if it wasn't obvious by now ) that the demo has been pushed back due to other commitments (and my eyes going square big time). So take the date set for the Mac OS release as the new release date now. Sorry!

Yeah, this game ran a little slow for me too but I love it! The enemies and stages are wacky and original. "Ama Zone" nice pun

Hey everyone, my (rather hastily produced) booth is up for those who want to look at it. Like most games at SAGE, the old Wednesday release seems the go. More info and a video at the booth. http://rsonic.randomsonicnet.org/index.html Cheers, -Taxman EDIT: Ok, I've had enough... here's a release. I don't really have enough energy to say what's there and what's not. There'll probably be a few bugs somewhere, Egg Garden isn't 100% complete (there's still another enemy and gimmick or two I want in there, Act 2 is still kinda strange in a way) but you can finish the levels at least. -Play Emerald Hill by going to the custom levels menu. -You can enable the debug mode/menu by pressing up,up,down,down,left,right,left,right at the Taxman Presents screen -Music is only temporary really -D is the key for jump (think A,S,D for A,B,C like in an emulator for example) -Mac OSX Version coming soon Anyway, Enjoy! (Comments?)

I had to EDIT: the right build this time! lolz Looking good though Mr Worm!

I've got a MacBook pro, and Boot Camp works fine for me. Just make sure you have a two button mouse plugged in, because the whole "hold a key down and click" trick is a bit dodgy. Parallels Desktop is cool when you need to dive into Windows quickly without shutting down OSX and supports more OS's than just XP SP2. However, it doesn't have proper accelerated graphics support so if you want to play games Boot Camp is the only way to go, since it's running as a true PC. But yeah overall, if you want to run mac and pc stuff together, or just want a mac computer for the price/features/look they're more than up to the job as running as a PC, unlike the PowerPC days with crippling emulation speeds

Ahh... but i haven't explained what you actually do in them yet ;-) and no you don't look for ufo's like sonic cd

Umm... well the ground is very much like "mode 7", it's a tiling layer that has rotation and scaling used along with 3D perspective (Egg Garden uses a variation of this for the 3D clouds too). The objects are sprites that use realtime scaling. I don't know what your definition of true 3D is, but i do use 3D calculations to place the objects and stuff correctly so it's at least as 3D as SRB2. If you're talking about using a 3D API like opengl/direct 3d then no... it was all programmed in software by me

Some more W.I.P Retro-Sonic screens, this time the special stage and one of the bonus stages.

It's about time I whipped out some screenies... here's the Egg Garden Boss (you have to see it in motion to fully appreciate it really)