3D 360 Engine - Early Tests

[ClassicSonicRules]

Awesome! This is really looking good. One thing that I had trouble with was the loops. I kept flying off of the sides.

It will be exciting to see the final version of this game.

There is one thing that amazes me about some of the more polished fangames - the fangame developer is by himself doing what Sega spends millions of dollars to do. Not only that, but the fangame is better than Sega's million-dollar budget excuses for games. Does this not cause Sega to see a problem with themselves?

[BlazeHedgehog]

I'd say it has a really long way to go before we can claim it's "better" than what Sega is doing. There's still the question of level design, overall polish...

All we have right now is a poorly animated Sonic with one animation. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, otherwise we end up like that ExShad guy over at the Sonic Stadium going "OMFG! I AM SO AWESOME AND THIS IS GOING TO BE THE BEST FANGAME EVER HOLY SHIT AND I BARELY HAVE ANYTHING TO SHOW FOR IT".

[ClassicSonicRules]

Shoot, that wasn't what I meant. *Fixed*

I am just saying that developments teams of 5 or less are out-performing Sega. Look at what we saw at SAGE this year. It is sad but true.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Shoot, that wasn't what I meant. *Fixed*

I am just saying that developments teams of 5 or less are out-performing Sega. Look at what we saw at SAGE this year. It is sad but true.

How many of those games came out? Of those that came out, how many were actually better than an official product produced by a team?

I'm willing to bet that number is zero.

Edit: To clarify and make me look like less of an ass - professional development teams have one major advantage over us: Manpower.

As I said in the ExShad/Sonic Revolution Topic, there's no shortage of Cool Ideas, but seeing the work through to the end is where most everybody falls short. The most promising fangames in this community are the ones that have been in development for 3, 4 or 5 years. On a 2D, side-scrolling Sonic game, that is an inexcusable length of development time. Sonic & the Secret Rings was done in 9 months. For one of us to do something of that calibur would take years.

And that's where the stopping point happens: We're hobbyists. We don't get paid to make these games, so we get bored and move on to something else. Our concepts may be better than Sonicteam's, but our execution is not. For us, we have all the time in the world to work on this stuff until it's perfect, but for a company developing a game for a retail sector they have deadlines that must be met, come hell or high water. Sonic on the Xbox 360 was the result of a deadline - one that was far too short for the scope of the project.

This is the wrong topic to rant about this in, though, so just realize - we aren't better than Sonicteam or Sega and probably never will be. But that's okay, as long as we enjoy the ride.

[Guest Shadix]

I guess my only issue is that once Sonic picks up momentum it becomes too difficult to control his direction (Steering is definitely a pain in the ass). There is definitely some physics tweaks that need to be done but I can't help but say I'm amazed that someone is finally doing putting it all together.

[DimensionWarped]

Edit: To clarify and make me look like less of an ass - professional development teams have one major advantage over us: Manpower.

Thats hardly the only one. They also have higher motivation (since you know... if they don't work, they don't eat), stronger organization, and one other really important thing... capital (which can be used to increase any of those other assets or buy tools).

[Slingerland]

Not only that, but the fangame is better than Sega's million-dollar budget excuses for games. Does this not cause Sega to see a problem with themselves?

Dude, I don't know if you realize this, but people who say that here are written off as idiots. Don't say that...ever. Props to BlazeHedgehog.

Oh, and great job, Mark! Can't wait to see where this project goes. Going in and out of a loop is a little frustrating, but I bet you're working on that already. :3

[CrypticSailor]

.. wot Blaze said. This is pretty damn cool, though.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Thats hardly the only one. They also have higher motivation (since you know... if they don't work, they don't eat), stronger organization, and one other really important thing... capital (which can be used to increase any of those other assets or buy tools).

It all boils down to manpower, though. Capital is used to buy manpower, primarily. In a game like, say, Halo 3, most of the "tools" are already there (or are custom built), it's just the manpower to design and generate the content (code, textures, models, levels), which is paid by-the-hour.

[DimensionWarped]

manpower alone won't get you anywhere either though. Not without motivation and organization anyway.

[BlazeHedgehog]

manpower alone won't get you anywhere either though. Not without motivation and organization anyway.

But that still equals manpower of some type. Who needs to be motivated? The people who are working for you. Who needs organization? The people who are working for you. Those are things that are accessories to manpower. Even us fangamers are full of motivation and some of us are even organized; but we lack the manpower to make a top-tier, high quality, professional Sonic game in 18 months.

[ssbfalcon]

I think I like it... Other than the way that Sonic moves ike he's on ice, everything seems to work nicely...

Great Work!

[Mark the Echidna]

Sega develops all the engine themselves, down to the creating of display lists to all the maths involved... (with the exception of physics, video codecs and the like) We have easy-to-use tools as Blitz3D, Multimedia Fusion and Game Maker, and we reuse graphic assets. Also, people are - theoretically - less strict when judging the quality of fan material.

I think one major difference between us and Sega is that we're passionate about what we're doing. The old games gave the impression everyone inside the company was doing his best, taking the hardware and creativity to the limit. This simply doesn't happen anymore, and Sega seems to be tied with TERRIBLE design mistakes. It seems they simply have no fucking idea on what to do.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Sega develops all the engine themselves, down to the creating of display lists to all the maths involved... (with the exception of physics, video codecs and the like) We have easy-to-use tools as Blitz3D, Multimedia Fusion and Game Maker, and we reuse graphic assets. Also, people are - theoretically - less strict when judging the quality of fan material.

I think one major difference between us and Sega is that we're passionate about what we're doing. The old games gave the impression everyone inside the company was doing his best, taking the hardware and creativity to the limit. This simply doesn't happen anymore, and Sega seems to be tied with TERRIBLE design mistakes. It seems they simply have no fucking idea on what to do.

Definitely. In recent months I have come to the conclusion that the quickest and easiest solution to fix the Sonic franchise is to dump all of Sonicteam and start fresh with a totally new team who respects the franchise and has new ideas in what direction to take Sonic.

[Godmaster]

Sega develops all the engine themselves, down to the creating of display lists to all the maths involved... (with the exception of physics, video codecs and the like) We have easy-to-use tools as Blitz3D, Multimedia Fusion and Game Maker, and we reuse graphic assets. Also, people are - theoretically - less strict when judging the quality of fan material.

I think one major difference between us and Sega is that we're passionate about what we're doing. The old games gave the impression everyone inside the company was doing his best, taking the hardware and creativity to the limit. This simply doesn't happen anymore, and Sega seems to be tied with TERRIBLE design mistakes. It seems they simply have no fucking idea on what to do.

The nowadays' SEGA just think about marketing, so that uses Sonic in whatever way to earn money...

And, I can't understand the true reason for most of 3d fangames have been canned in all these years =(

[Spike]

Remember back in the day, when SEGA would have those big discussions and plan MASSIVE projects, and have years of sleepless nights working to get it finished? That's passion and motivation. Now they just have the "Oh well, just get SOMETHING done so we can have something to show on the due date" attitude. I still, however, like the Sonic games, but never as much as when I played the groundbreaking Sonic 2 for the very first time.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Most console Sonic games (excluding Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic & the Secret Rings) take, on average, two years from concept to completion, according to a few Sonicteam members.

Don't take deadlines lightly. This is a different industry than it was back in 1993. This isn't a dozen people in a basement cranking out a product that can be beaten in under an hour. You can't just say, "They should've delayed it if it wasn't ready" because more often than not that's not for the developers to decide. There's a LOT of business politics involved with stock prices and profit forecasts that make it so when a game has a deadline it has to meet it, no questions asked.

This is not something that effects just Sega, this is something that effects the entire gaming industry as a whole. Ask any game developer in the industry today and they will tell you that they'd love to sit on a game forever and tweak and polish it until it was absolutely, totally perfect - but they can't do that, because this is a business to them. Money has to be made sooner or later and for most publishers they'd rather have it be sooner than later.

[Jsonic]

That was cool! I have nothing to say that someone else hasn't already said. I do have some quick questions though. Is that Dami's classic sonic model you used? If so, did you animate it using the rigged model I made a few months back? I'm just wandering because it looks familliar and it would be so cool to see something I helped make used in an awsome project like this. Grate work keep it up.

[Mark the Echidna]

That was cool! I have nothing to say that someone else hasn't already said. I do have some quick questions though. Is that Dami's classic sonic model you used? If so, did you animate it using the rigged model I made a few months back? I'm just wandering because it looks familliar and it would be so cool to see something I helped make used in an awsome project like this. Grate work keep it up.

Yeah. It is Damizean's 3D model, but it's not using your rigging right now... The reason is that I use 3ds max 6, and I couldn't get it to load...

If I can get it to load, or if I get a newer 3ds max version, I'll use it for sure, 'cause from the animations I've seen made with it, your rigging is pretty good.

Did you use the standard bone system, or character studio?

[Jsonic]

I just used the biped system with the skin modifyer. I used 3Ds max 9 to make it.

[The ParadoxX]

Nice engine Mark, it very near from what I imagine as the 3D version of the classic 2D engine... My only complain is about the camera, you should get rid of the mouse, but otherwise it's great.

Nice job!

[Zenor]

I just used the biped system with the skin modifyer. I used 3Ds max 9 to make it.

I tried to load your rigged model with my max 8, but it didn't work.

[ClassicSonicRules]

Just to clarify, when I said that I thought that some of the Sonic fangames were better than Sega's, I was referring to Sega's more recent games. I think that I stepped on a few toes there, sorry about that.

I think one major difference between us and Sega is that we're passionate about what we're doing. The old games gave the impression everyone inside the company was doing his best, taking the hardware and creativity to the limit. This simply doesn't happen anymore...

Exactly. Sonic development today is just to bring in more money for Sega. Not that money wasn't a factor back in the 1990s, but at least back then they actually earned the money by giving us games that we are still talking about (favorably) 15 years later.

Definitely. In recent months I have come to the conclusion that the quickest and easiest solution to fix the Sonic franchise is to dump all of Sonicteam and start fresh with a totally new team who respects the franchise and has new ideas in what direction to take Sonic.

I have been saying that ever since Sonic Adventure 2. (Sorry to all of you SA2 fans out there. I foresaw the decline of Sonic when SA2 came out.) Really, SonicTeam does need to be overhauled. Otherwise I think that Sonic will be stuck where he is for a long, long time.

This is not something that effects just Sega, this is something that effects the entire gaming industry as a whole. Ask any game developer in the industry today and they will tell you that they'd love to sit on a game forever and tweak and polish it until it was absolutely, totally perfect - but they can't do that, because this is a business to them. Money has to be made sooner or later and for most publishers they'd rather have it be sooner than later.

The game industry has really been corrupted by business-centered developers. I miss the days where games were made to be fun, not to amass sales. (Or fanboys. ) In many (not all) cases, I would doubt that developers would even want to work on a game longer than they have to. As you said, it is a business nowadays and time is money.

[Slingerland]

Boo...get off the stage.

We've heard this from new guys like you for years now, 'k?

[Kain]

The games of today are on a scale such that business-oriented development is the only way to make games (there are different ways to run a business, mind you). And I think the widely-romanticized era of a small group of programmers making a game for fun in his spare time and then it becoming an amazing profitable commercial hit is just that: romanticized. If you want to make a game for fun today, you can. And you probably have 1000 times more of a chance to make and find a fanbase for your game than they did 15 years ago.

Edit: Sorry for editing my post like 5 times in the first 3 minutes. I've been doing that too much. Too easy to take advantage of the lack of time stamps fer me tis. ^^;