Post your screenshots thread

[Mr. Potatobadger]

You do realize this game follows the story of sonic xtreme, right? (minus tiara, of course)

EDIT: And 90% of the game is on a planet other than Mobius/earth

[AstroPiranha]

However, you wan't.

Knuckles does acid and steals Tails' plane

lolwhat

(I know you're probably joking and all, but why does this sound remotely doable?)

[Mr. Potatobadger]

Sorry for my excessive screenshot posting, this is the last few for a while I promise.

Anyways... Metal sonic.

Jump Dash!!

[InfinityAlex]

Are you using Modern sprites now? If you want Classic Metal sprites, I have a sheet.

[Mr. Potatobadger]

I'm not using modern sprites. In my opinion, the modern mod.gen metal sonic sprites fit in just fine with the classic sprites. I'm pretty sure tails and knuckles sprites are modern, but they look classic to me.

[Mr. Potatobadger]

Sorry again for double posting, and I know I said I would post anymore pictures for a while. But this is a gif. I guess I will consider it a teaser for the game.

[InfinityAlex]

Two words: Mecha Sonic.

[Highwire4]

oooo~ proper hype going on here.

Just a tip in the future though, something like this would be greatly improved visually if the next part of the appendage was slightly visible when the end of it became visible so that it didn't just look like rayman was walkin in.

(basically when the fist shows itself, a very silouhetted forearm would show up with it)

[Apricity]

Agree with Highwire4 massively ^

Otherwise I'm looking forward to some game play from your game Mr. Potatobadger!

Although I do agree that the metal sonic sprites look a little out of place.

[Mr. Potatobadger]

Thanks for the tips you guys, I was thinking that, but I thought it wouldn't really matter. I'm gonna do what you guys said and also make his forehead visible slightly

Edit: Holy crap you guys I did what you said and it looks really freakin cool. I'll leave it as a surprise for the demo.

[Shinbaloonba]

Interesting idea for the Mecha Sonic.

About Metal looking out of place,here are my old Metal sprites.

Small outdated sheet,but feel free to expand on them if you wish.

Btw,the Mighty sprites you're using are just as out of place as the Metal ones,imo.

Also,please credit ME when using my work,not the ModGen team.

[Mr. Potatobadger]

I honestly don't understand why the metal sonic sprites I'm using seem out of place. (I totally understand the mighty sprites though)

If someone can give me a good enough reason to use Shinbs, I will.

[AstroPiranha]

I honestly don't understand why the metal sonic sprites I'm using seem out of place. (I totally understand the mighty sprites though)

If someone can give me a good enough reason to use Shinbs, I will.

I want to say Metal looks out of place due to Metal's shading contrasting with the rest of the environment (at least, that's what it looks like in the first pic).

That just may be me, though.

[Mr. Potatobadger]

The other metal sonic and sonic have similar shading and color.

[Highwire4]

I think Astro's talking about how the shading of metal in the first screenshot contrasts too much with the shading of the level tiles, which is something I agree with. They're similar, but not similar enough.

[Mr. Potatobadger]

Then how would the other metal sonic make a difference?

[AstroPiranha]

Then how would the other metal sonic make a difference?

To be honest, they may not make a difference. The level tiles are the problem here. They look…oddly flat, and Metal looks like a 3D object with depth. As a result, they clash. Change the way the tiles are shaded and you should start seeing a difference.

[Myriad]

Yeah, if I'm honest, the foreground tiles are flat and untextured.

Take a look at something - for a random example, Emerald Hill Zone. Look at the way the tiles have been textured and shaded:

And then look at the way the ones you have are:

It does look rather more flat. And then look at the shading on your Metal Sonic sprites and it becomes apparent that they're more detailed.

There we are, I think. Then again, I may just be speaking bollocks.

[Betaman]

Yeah, if I'm honest, the foreground tiles are flat and untextured.

Take a look at something - for a random example, Emerald Hill Zone. Look at the way the tiles have been textured and shaded:

[qimg]http://images.wikia.com/sonic/images/9/9e/S2-ehz-appearanceimg2.png[/qimg]

And then look at the way the ones you have are:

[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/C8rtO5q.png[/qimg][qimg]http://i.imgur.com/2wXUN1Q.png[/qimg]

It does look rather more flat. And then look at the shading on your Metal Sonic sprites and it becomes apparent that they're more detailed.

There we are, I think. Then again, I may just be speaking bollocks.

No, I agree with you on this one, Myriad. The tiles look like something that's been given an outline, but hasn't been shaded in all the way. Due to this lack of shading, it looks like they're just drawn onto a cardboard stage prop. The grass is good, but the rest of it needs an overhaul.

[Myriad]

And another gripe I have to note:

There's no shading around the circumference of the loop, which makes it look flat. If nothing else, try to make it seem less like a paper cutout.

Here's the kind of thing I mean.

But that's a much smaller complaint. Your best bet is to work overall on the shading.

[Jassbec]

I think the foreground needs more "shininess"

[Betaman]

Actually now that I'm looking at it a bit closer, I have a complaint about the loop as well, though it's different from Myriad's.

The outside edges of it do something that very few Sonic loopy loos do, which is that they curve while continuing their normal geometric pattern. Take a look at this picture I snatched from the level design topic, which can be viewed on this site AND Sonic Retro:

You'll notice that most of them contain pillars of some fashion on the outer sides, and most also have a defined top. (Even some of the ones that contain curved edges have a defined top!) This however is not the problem. It has some serious Sonic CD Syndrome going on with it. I think it would really pay to resize the edges horizontally as well as apply the gradient effect on the edges.

[Apricity]

I think another main problem, aside from texture/shading is the colours and contrast. They're too dull and similar, there's needs to be more contrast/colours and perhaps a brighter colour scheme. Bright and over the top colour schemes (as long as aesthetically pleasing) lend themselves to the early Sonic style. This isn't necessary though as long as you use a wider range of colours and more contrast.

Another thing is contrast from background to foreground, it may sounds silly because the landscape is going to be the same all over but differentiating the background strongly enough makes the foreground tiles pop out in their own way. It needn't be big either, old genesis games accomplished it and they ran off the same palette.

Notice how that even though the background uses exactly the same greens and browns as the foreground it is still easily recognised as different because of the contrast achieved by the large expanse of water in the middle. Something you could try is to make the water bigger.

Another technique I like to use is to slightly tint the background a colour like blue and then reduce the saturation slightly, this ups contrast but keeps it remaining nice to look at. The foreground should pop out a bit better. Excuse the shoddy examples:

&

One last thing to break up tiles is to add other thing such as impurities to the rocks and to vary the colour and depth of the rocks. The most basic example is how in Hydrocity zone there are fairly basic brick tiles made interesting by alternating the colours and depths of the bricks to add more contrast and to make it less flat. This is probably an awful example but take these WIP graphics (bear in mind they're actually background not foreground tiles now):

While they've got relatively dull colours (they're under water) they work because of the contrast (albeit subtle) from red to blue and the way that there are both dark purple shades and lighter grey shades. I was harping on about impurities and although these impurities are very repetitious, they make the tiles interesting, the shells and starfish add to the tiles rather than subtract. The shading on the rocks adds depth as well. They still need a lot of work.

You should probably take my advice with a pinch of salt cause a lot of it is down to my style and my personal preference (I'm a stickler for more muted colours) but I just wanted to add my own spin on the advice that's been said already (I agree with everyone else's advice btw!) to see if it could help you Mr. Potatobadger. I hope this helps you.

[TheJeli]

This looks really pretty! Metal Sonic's shading looks a bit weird. I know it's supposed to be metal, but it needs a bit of tweaking.

[Mr. Potatobadger]

@everyone

Lol hi. my internet was down for a day. I'm not in charge of the tiles, (I have no idea how to) so I hope Zigzax is reading this. We discussed quite a while ago that he's going to improve the tiles, and that the loop is temporary. About the mountains... They once did have a shading effect that gave distance, but I messed it up and never got to fixing it.

Also

I'm colorblind. Really colorblind, and they have no meaning to me, so I'm really glad I have a artist.

@Jeli

What?