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NEO Emerald coast (Original stage, based on E.C concepts)
- Thread starter Aquavine
- Start date
Aquavine
Member
And I’m one step closer to making it a truly great stage. And i’m not even done yet, I plan on making a second act, and a bossfight area. And if everything goes according to plan, a open hub-like bonus act.
Aquavine
Member
I had some stuff done last weekend and I didn't had the time to post it. For now I'm focused on making this stage look more alive and less like a liminal space.
I really like this small hangout spot I made, now it's more clear why there's a area that doesn't lead anywhere.
I added these small fences to tell the tourist (aka the player) that you shouldn't go beyond this point, because it's the end of the tour pathway and there's only raw unexplored jungle left. (If you ignore the man-made traps and a whole area with a bridge)
And I made the thok barriers higher so there's no wierd "fading water" effect at the edges of the stage, It will make the stage look more closed but atleast it won't look wierd.
I really like this small hangout spot I made, now it's more clear why there's a area that doesn't lead anywhere.
I added these small fences to tell the tourist (aka the player) that you shouldn't go beyond this point, because it's the end of the tour pathway and there's only raw unexplored jungle left. (If you ignore the man-made traps and a whole area with a bridge)
And I made the thok barriers higher so there's no wierd "fading water" effect at the edges of the stage, It will make the stage look more closed but atleast it won't look wierd.
Aquavine
Member
I'm past the jungle area and I started the second sea area. I added decorations and a no-spin route in the ramp in section in the jungle, added more detail and I finally changed the SRB2 music to a custom one! I decided to use Dubious depths (R2) present as I planned in the post earlier.
And I made a video showcasing all the changes, and you can hear that the music is different, does this track fits this stage?
I'm sure I will use this zone's music (Including all time-zones) for this project because it pretty much fits with the vibe I want to go with.
Unless I find a more fitting track, but at this moment I will go with this one.
And I made a video showcasing all the changes, and you can hear that the music is different, does this track fits this stage?
I'm sure I will use this zone's music (Including all time-zones) for this project because it pretty much fits with the vibe I want to go with.
Unless I find a more fitting track, but at this moment I will go with this one.
lol guy
IDK how to change the word 'member' still :)
What a great music pick.
Aquavine
Member
I wanted the section after the jump-pads to have more flow, because when jumping out of a spin-state you retain that heavy steering and you have to lose all your speed or you will fall into the water, so I added a booster that will quickly reorient you while not having to stop your flow, and I redesigned this section to be a small road because the booster would look out of place on a curvy turn, and it looks more man-made.
It plays much better now without having to stop due to stiff steering.
And I changed the vibe of this island for more visual variety. Yes I love to look at enviroments full of plants.
And I added the ripple effect for all water sources in this stage, but I hope this effect won't mess with the performence because I never actually used it before. (Also imagine that you hear a water ambience because I added it too in this specific location.)
And I added such details as:
-Vines hanging from some places for a more alive feel,
-Made the sand paths have more rounded starts/ends,
-And of course more plants.
It plays much better now without having to stop due to stiff steering.
And I changed the vibe of this island for more visual variety. Yes I love to look at enviroments full of plants.
And I added the ripple effect for all water sources in this stage, but I hope this effect won't mess with the performence because I never actually used it before. (Also imagine that you hear a water ambience because I added it too in this specific location.)
And I added such details as:
-Vines hanging from some places for a more alive feel,
-Made the sand paths have more rounded starts/ends,
-And of course more plants.
lol guy
IDK how to change the word 'member' still :)
Suggestion, maybe, put it into OLDC 2024?
Post automatically merged:
Cool that you added ripple effects and made it more polished.
Aquavine
Member
I had a random "what if" thought about it but first of all I don't really know a lot about OLDC's and second, I don't even know when It takes place and when the deadline is due. But I could submit the first act and then finish the rest at my own pace, it could even be a some kind of promo material for this addon. And I always thought about OLDC as a moment when the best level designers put thier extremly high quality maps at a level of the vanilla SRB2 campaign, so it always kinda drew me away from joining it, and I'm kinda nervous about reciving way too much criticism so there's that too, but maybe it will change someday.
El-fire
i am a toaster
you can read the OLDC info stuff in the OLDC section to learn more, the deadline right now is may 1st and technically the submissions take place all year round at least from what i can gather. you also have two chances every year to be in an OLDC since they are held twice a year so you got time!
Aquavine
Member
I feel that I won't be able to finish it on time, and I don't want to rush it because it would half-baked or it would lack some things I want to add.
And I don't want to crunch either because:
1.It's pretty unhealthy for me (watch the release of the "full" act 1 for example)
2.Since the school year is ending I want to lock in until final grades are set.
3.I have final exams between 14-16 may, so yea... I wanna lock in on this too.
And it would be kinda odd to wait to another OLDC round only to add this stage, and then release the full pack right after.
But it could be kinda fun to participate though.
Aquavine
Member
Now you can swim in completely not abandoned and perfectly safe to swim pool! (ignore the fact that kelp started growing inside the pool, and the mechanical piranhas). Honestly I want to add a bit more Vaporwave-like imagery in this stage, mainly on the tropical side of this aesthetic,
it's really specific vibe that you just need to see to understand.
Made a major overhaul to the lake section, and made it less depressing (no more completely dead dry lake without any life)
I need to start using jpg's man, this image originally had 3 megabytes of size :/
==========
I downloaded Vibrant Vanilla Palette by Cobaltn't, and I really like how this stage looks with this palette and I'm wondering if I should use it in this stage. I made small comparasion with and without the palatte.
With VibrantPal:
Without VibrantPal:
What do you think? Should I use it?
==========
And I made a small wallpaper of this stage that you can use on your PC, because I had the WINXP wallpaper for far too long...
it's really specific vibe that you just need to see to understand.
Made a major overhaul to the lake section, and made it less depressing (no more completely dead dry lake without any life)
I need to start using jpg's man, this image originally had 3 megabytes of size :/
==========
I downloaded Vibrant Vanilla Palette by Cobaltn't, and I really like how this stage looks with this palette and I'm wondering if I should use it in this stage. I made small comparasion with and without the palatte.
With VibrantPal:
Without VibrantPal:
What do you think? Should I use it?
==========
And I made a small wallpaper of this stage that you can use on your PC, because I had the WINXP wallpaper for far too long...
Aquavine
Member
I was kinda busy this week with tests but I'm finally done with all the hard ones. This time it's a bit smaller update.
====================
I was thinking how to make this mechanic more clear for players to understand, so at first I wanted to make this slope a normal ramp instead but It looked too odd and not aesthetically pleasing, so I made a sign with a small tutorial for this trick so players won't think this section is not working as it should. (I even added the detail of the nail shattering the rock around it :>)
I got side-tracked and I made this big flower pot.
This palm is a placeholder for a custom object I want to make, but it will propably be kinda hard to make sprites for it.
2 years ago I made a concept for special a plant for sonic cd, it's a big flower that's a mix of a sunflower and a dandelion, mainly because the main mechanic of this plant is that sonic would ran past it at high speeds which would result in the small seeds detaching from the head of the plant, and when the seeds finally land on the ground they instantly grow into a flower the same way the seeds from badniks do.
I made a whole page of concepts for how it looks back then, but sadly I lost it somewhere in my room, but there's still some digital concepts left but it's still extremly unfinished. (I'm sure if I'm going to actually add it, but I hopefully will.)
This is propably past me trying to make a accurate sprite for it, the numbers are versions of the sprite (I guess, it was 2 years ago :/)
How the flower would look in all time zones, the small star flower is the past version, the one in the middle is present, the one next to it is the BF variant and the one at the top is the GF variant. (and a dead one... I don't remember why It's there nor what it meant in game)
The small blue and yellow thingies around the head are the seeds with these small fluffy parachutes...
====================
UPDATE: I just remembered that I made an effort to redesign it, and this is how it looks:
Now you can see the resemblance between a dandelion, I literally based it of the pictures of real life ones.
I don't have a clue how to make the seeds look good in pixel art, so that's my main worry with it.
====================
I was thinking how to make this mechanic more clear for players to understand, so at first I wanted to make this slope a normal ramp instead but It looked too odd and not aesthetically pleasing, so I made a sign with a small tutorial for this trick so players won't think this section is not working as it should. (I even added the detail of the nail shattering the rock around it :>)
I got side-tracked and I made this big flower pot.
This palm is a placeholder for a custom object I want to make, but it will propably be kinda hard to make sprites for it.
2 years ago I made a concept for special a plant for sonic cd, it's a big flower that's a mix of a sunflower and a dandelion, mainly because the main mechanic of this plant is that sonic would ran past it at high speeds which would result in the small seeds detaching from the head of the plant, and when the seeds finally land on the ground they instantly grow into a flower the same way the seeds from badniks do.
I made a whole page of concepts for how it looks back then, but sadly I lost it somewhere in my room, but there's still some digital concepts left but it's still extremly unfinished. (I'm sure if I'm going to actually add it, but I hopefully will.)
This is propably past me trying to make a accurate sprite for it, the numbers are versions of the sprite (I guess, it was 2 years ago :/)
How the flower would look in all time zones, the small star flower is the past version, the one in the middle is present, the one next to it is the BF variant and the one at the top is the GF variant. (and a dead one... I don't remember why It's there nor what it meant in game)
The small blue and yellow thingies around the head are the seeds with these small fluffy parachutes...
====================
UPDATE: I just remembered that I made an effort to redesign it, and this is how it looks:
Now you can see the resemblance between a dandelion, I literally based it of the pictures of real life ones.
I don't have a clue how to make the seeds look good in pixel art, so that's my main worry with it.
Aquavine
Member
I decided to make a sprite for this flower I was talking about earlier, and it looks like this at the moment:
And I have a small problem, I don't have clue how to make these small fuzzy parachutes that dandelion seeds have, but I made a small mock up of how it could look like:
I'm not a fan of how it looks, it doesn't have this fuzzy texture I want, but I made this without any effort so it maybe could look good if I do it right. (This is absolutely not a cry for help *wink wink*)
====================
This is how the sprite looks in-game (It's an early version tho)
I finally added thok barriers and water to this section, after a long time of adding depth and detail I'm starting to get really close to finishing this stage after almost 2 months (Yipee!)
I love jpg's, I finally don't have to worry that only one screenshot is like 4-3 mb's of size. You can't even notice the compression due to pixel art nature of this game.
And I have a small problem, I don't have clue how to make these small fuzzy parachutes that dandelion seeds have, but I made a small mock up of how it could look like:
I'm not a fan of how it looks, it doesn't have this fuzzy texture I want, but I made this without any effort so it maybe could look good if I do it right. (This is absolutely not a cry for help *wink wink*)
====================
This is how the sprite looks in-game (It's an early version tho)
I finally added thok barriers and water to this section, after a long time of adding depth and detail I'm starting to get really close to finishing this stage after almost 2 months (Yipee!)
I love jpg's, I finally don't have to worry that only one screenshot is like 4-3 mb's of size. You can't even notice the compression due to pixel art nature of this game.
The Unknown Watcher
Enjoy life, And be kind, Others shall follow suit.
Lookin' good!
Aquavine
Member
I have good news, I finished refreshing this whole stage, but it's not fully done yet I scrapped the ending section because I was unsatisfied with it
and I still have to design what the final ending section is going to be like.
Anyway, as always I added more plants ^.^
Made the sea town have a vibe of a place where people could actually live and hangout, I wanted to add street lights but I think that these would look kinda out of place especially because the stage takes place at sunset and it's still sunny (and I'm too lazy to sprite them)
What's a man made place without signs am I right? Also look out for the booster, it has warning stripes which means it's propably not the best idea to touch it...
Made this place a small hangout area to just do some stuff in. And yes I fully sprited the sunflower the only thing that I'm still not sure of, is how to make the fluff around it's head but I came up with something that could maybe work...
====================
This is how the sprite looks outside the stage.
It's my first time making sprites in SRB2 style, and honestly for the first time it's looks pretty cool I'm especialy happy how the anti aliasing turned out. The sprite on the right is the version that will be used in the final version, I still don't know how to make the parachute fluff not look odd in pixel art but it's the best I can think of right now.
All sprites I made for this stage are reusable and I don't require any credit, so go ahead and use these Pizza tower-lookin ahh sprites in your stage (or don't it's up to you, actually all the sign sprites would look extremly out of context :/)
and I still have to design what the final ending section is going to be like.
Anyway, as always I added more plants ^.^
Made the sea town have a vibe of a place where people could actually live and hangout, I wanted to add street lights but I think that these would look kinda out of place especially because the stage takes place at sunset and it's still sunny (and I'm too lazy to sprite them)
What's a man made place without signs am I right? Also look out for the booster, it has warning stripes which means it's propably not the best idea to touch it...
Made this place a small hangout area to just do some stuff in. And yes I fully sprited the sunflower the only thing that I'm still not sure of, is how to make the fluff around it's head but I came up with something that could maybe work...
====================
This is how the sprite looks outside the stage.
It's my first time making sprites in SRB2 style, and honestly for the first time it's looks pretty cool I'm especialy happy how the anti aliasing turned out. The sprite on the right is the version that will be used in the final version, I still don't know how to make the parachute fluff not look odd in pixel art but it's the best I can think of right now.
All sprites I made for this stage are reusable and I don't require any credit, so go ahead and use these Pizza tower-lookin ahh sprites in your stage (or don't it's up to you, actually all the sign sprites would look extremly out of context :/)
Aquavine
Member
I remade the final section and it's a bit smaller than the first one but I'm sure no one wants this stage to be any longer than it already is...
It's a small parking lot with a way out of the town on the right, it's actually the official entrance to the town for people that traveled here, thus why the parking lot is here.
But you need to go further in the mountains, instead of leaving and probably going into some more industrialized city.
And finally... the stage is fully playable from start to end. I finished the layout but I still need to add some other things like level select picture and other stuff of this nature.
Here is the footage of the section being played:
====================
But I still have a wierd problem, In earlier posts I was talking about another act for this addon and I have some ideas and concepts for it, but I'm not sure if future me won't give up and do a poor excuse of an act, It could happen seeing how much effort I put in this singular map, but I don't want for all these pretty cool ideas to just never be used, so at this point act 2 is in a wierd creative limbo. And I probably should do a small road map of things I want to do and add to this addon.
====================
Other fun-facts and small info's:
-If I actually do more maps for this addon, I will wrap up it in a PK3 instead of a WAD for convenience's sake.
-When playtesting this stage I thought about adding a time emblem for it, you would get it at under 3:00 minutes, so I went to see if it's even possible and I gotta tell you, this singular emblem is going to be extremly valuable looking at the stuff you have to pull of to earn it.
I played it with Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Fang, and M.Sonic and at this moment the sub 3 is possible with S.T.K.MS. Amy can do it but due to the lack of spindash it's pretty hard and to be honest I didn't even got close with Fang so it might be impossible (Unless someone does it for me) but I will still try.
-I changed some elemental shields for the flame ones because it's straight up impossible to get a sub 3 with Amy/Fang without it, that's why I'm wondering if I should round up the time to 3:30 or 3:15, because at the moment it's not the easiest emblem to "earn" (it's not added btw, I still have to learn how to do it.).
-I forgor to change the big flower sprite to the one with the seed-fluff :<
-This stage is around 3:30-4:00 if you just run without spinning nor doing anything to gain speed.
-Even If this stage is pretty straight forward, it doesn't mean there's no secrets in it, so remember that.
====================
That's all unless I forgot about something. Enjoy the build!
And as always if you find some odd things in the stage that probably shouldn’t be there report it to me!
It's a small parking lot with a way out of the town on the right, it's actually the official entrance to the town for people that traveled here, thus why the parking lot is here.
But you need to go further in the mountains, instead of leaving and probably going into some more industrialized city.
And finally... the stage is fully playable from start to end. I finished the layout but I still need to add some other things like level select picture and other stuff of this nature.
Here is the footage of the section being played:
====================
But I still have a wierd problem, In earlier posts I was talking about another act for this addon and I have some ideas and concepts for it, but I'm not sure if future me won't give up and do a poor excuse of an act, It could happen seeing how much effort I put in this singular map, but I don't want for all these pretty cool ideas to just never be used, so at this point act 2 is in a wierd creative limbo. And I probably should do a small road map of things I want to do and add to this addon.
====================
Other fun-facts and small info's:
-If I actually do more maps for this addon, I will wrap up it in a PK3 instead of a WAD for convenience's sake.
-When playtesting this stage I thought about adding a time emblem for it, you would get it at under 3:00 minutes, so I went to see if it's even possible and I gotta tell you, this singular emblem is going to be extremly valuable looking at the stuff you have to pull of to earn it.
I played it with Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Fang, and M.Sonic and at this moment the sub 3 is possible with S.T.K.MS. Amy can do it but due to the lack of spindash it's pretty hard and to be honest I didn't even got close with Fang so it might be impossible (Unless someone does it for me) but I will still try.
-I changed some elemental shields for the flame ones because it's straight up impossible to get a sub 3 with Amy/Fang without it, that's why I'm wondering if I should round up the time to 3:30 or 3:15, because at the moment it's not the easiest emblem to "earn" (it's not added btw, I still have to learn how to do it.).
-I forgor to change the big flower sprite to the one with the seed-fluff :<
-This stage is around 3:30-4:00 if you just run without spinning nor doing anything to gain speed.
-Even If this stage is pretty straight forward, it doesn't mean there's no secrets in it, so remember that.
====================
That's all unless I forgot about something. Enjoy the build!
And as always if you find some odd things in the stage that probably shouldn’t be there report it to me!
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