- Author Aquavine
- Creation date
It finally happened. The legendary v1.5 update is officially out now. And with it coming out, I'm also going out... of the development of this addon. :D
At this point I feel like I did everything I could to make this stage as good as it possibly can be, and beyond maybe some small patches, I officially can say that after a almost a whole round year of development... this addon is fully completed... (But if some issues are present, just tell me about it. •3• )
So start with the part that I feared the worst... the changelog...
Before I say anything, just know that the development of this update spanned maybe over a month, I added a LOT of this through out this single month, so sorry If I mix up some stuff. I don't have that good of a memory. :'D
Sprites / objects
1. Added sprites for the plastic bed, plastic chair, table and fabric chair. Which means that any instance of the dreaded placeholder ice shard is gone now. :>
2. Added sprites for both small and large SA1 shrubs, red tulips and red corals.
3. Added sprites for a crashed tails's plane and both smooth and spiky stalagmites.
4. Made the 3 umbrella variants two times bigger and added sprites for... someone that you'll have to find yourself...
Stage layout / decorations
5. Made the checkpoints activate only in a small range so the hit-box won't be infinitely high.
6. I replaced all the placeholder ice shards with the actual objects that were meant to be there.
7. I finally managed to add the roofs for the first board walk section!
8. Added more plant life for the small island under board walk section and added a water shield.
9. Redone the ramp that leads you to the further beach section to be more horizontal instead of vertical. And also made it prettier. :3
10. Added more plant-life to the second beach section.
11. Added a pity shield before the entrance to the U turn cave and added more plant life to this section.
12. Checkpoints now forcefully change the music to fit the act they are in to fix any issues with music not saving between the acts.
13. Added stalagmites throughout the whole orca chase section and hid a water shield.
14. Added more plant-life to the light house section and made the light house roof more round.
15. Not visible, but I optimized the slopey wall section by getting rid of useless FOF's and hopefully made it a bit smoother to run.
16. Added plant life to this section along with adding three springs, corals and a water shield at the bottom of the lake below.
17. Added more plant life to the NEO emerald coast cameo.
18. Also not visible, but I also optimized the two paths before the small jungle lake section, also added corals to the bottom of the lake and made it so the swimmy guys won't be able to attack you while you're outside the section or on a small floating rock.
19. Added more plant-life to the jungle section, and the area after it.
20. Added more decoration and enemies to the wall-run/beach area.
21. This might not be a loop, but it sure is something. :'D Knowing that I never will add an actual loop to this mountain, I decided to still add something either way, I hope it's enough. :P
22. I hid a lighting shield behind the upwards slope after the "loop" section.
23. Added more plant life to the mountain section and the section after it.
24. Hid a sneaky extra-life monitor before the spring path.
25. More plant life for the floating corridor section and for the wavy path one too. I feel like it's getting old, but fortunately I'm almost finished. -.-
26. Hid another sneaky extra-life monitor at the hole-mountian section.
27. Added a backtrack path from the final section.
28. Made the final section of the stage way more lively and fitting for a grand-finale.
29. Added a bonus section containing someones OC, the hint towards it's location is hidden right in this update post.
30. Changed the score emblem requirement to 100'000 score, but I also buffed some extra life monitors to the 10'000 score status, and added some more too.
The to-do-list...
ALL CLEAR!I was writing this update post for quite a while now, but I feel like I have to mention this no matter how tired I may be.
I want to thank every person that helped and supported me throughout the development of this addon and to the others that slowly shaped this addon into what it is now. I'm grateful that after almost a round year of development this addon successfully reached it's final stop.
But I want to thank a specific person that carried me throughout the rougher times.
@El-fire, I feel like you pretty much realize that this is the case, but if I wouldn't reached out to you or if you just brushed me off, then this stage and possibly even my time here would be cut short. I'm really grateful that you were here for me when things got bad, if I were to be alone with all the challanges that appeared after I released this addon, then I would probably just quit making maps all together knowing how fragile I tend to be.
I hope that your E.C will hit 30K downloads one day. Thanks for being my motivation to keep going!
This time I have a bit smaller updated compared to 1.3, but that's maybe because I'm slowly getting close to clearing the whole to-do-list.
-Added Rhinotanks and replaced the suspicious lance-a-bot statues with them. Unless the short detection rate of lance-a-bot statues was needed.
-Added rhinotanks and robo-hoods in places not earlier occupied by them. (I hope I won't regret that. :C)
-Redone the jump-pads so they will look better and will emit sound effects when boinged off them. (Look at the "gong" caption for proof. :D)
-I changed the prefix from "S" to "SL" to count in the lua of rhinotank.
And I maybe forgot some things, but I feel like that's the whole update... :/
(Sonic heard somewhere that when a bear charges at you it's best to act like you're dead. Apparently this tip doesn't really work with cold 64GB-of-ram machines...)
The to-do-list. (the striked-through entry's will be gone in the next updates.)
-Add rhinotanks and put them in place of lance-a-bots.(It will take a bit... due to new enemy formations, not because I'm too lazy to replace few enemies with other ones. >:C)
-Finally get over to making sprites fortables, chairs, and beach chairs. (It's complicated.)
-A secret cameo of someone's character (Started learning how to the draw the character. :D)
-Add sfx to the jump-pads (Coming up!)
-re-add stalagmites. (It's kinda complicated too... :/)
-Add music triggers on checkpoints to fix music changing to act’s 1 by respawning at act’s 2 checkpoint. (Coming soon!)
And I had a small incident while making this update. When I was done with the update, I normally saved the map and then I went to SLADE to save the WAD file itself. So I click on the SLADE icon, and it crashes...
So if someone wonders why the stalagmites aren't in this version even if I tagged them as "Coming up!" then this is the reason. And I'm not really sure If I want to re-add them in the first place, I kinda got used to how this section looked like without them and it honestly doesn't even look that bad nor barren to me. (And I don't want to risk having a performance drop because of 200+ new sectors. :C)
And you probably noticed that the sprites for the scenery also has the "It's complicated" tag, and it's because I'm not sure If I want to make whole sprites for an object that appears only in section in the whole level, and spriting takes pretty long for me because I want these to look as good as possible, but I also want to work on other stuff and not spending my whole after-school-free-time for making a single sprite.If anything, then I'll just get rid of the ice-shards and maybe add some shrubs so it will be a bit more lively.
Dawg just HAD to start fumbling literally right before the finish line...
This time I've done most of the hardest and most time-consuming things. And the funny thing is that these weren't even time consuming. All of that could've been done in a single day!
Anyway, here's what got added and changed:
-I added some more plant life in some spots to make some places less empty.
-Added more shields and hid them throughout the stage.
-Added more enemies in the whole stage so this stage won't be a liminal space anymore! And with that I also made the score emblem a bit easier to get by having more potential score you can earn! And most of the enemies are too slow to even hit you if you're constantly in motion, so the gameplay and stage flow won't change at all.
-I finished the NEO.E.C cameo sign and added a new one that tells you about your run being considered "cheated" when you enter the NEO.E.C location.
-I made sprites for the small tables! (They get used only in the hotel area.)
-I added a skybox that replaces the horizon effect. (Because OPENGL doesn't support horizon effect on water. :C)
-I made the capsule actually open instead of spitting out animals! (I don't have a clue how that even worked.)
-I added slopes next to act's 1 mountain so you can actually climb it! (It only works if you're a speedy character though :C)
-I added some original decorations to this stage so it will have a bit more spice in it.
(I may forget something because development of this update was honestly all over the place... But I guess that I already mentioned all of the most important stuff.)
And a new addition, the to-do-list! (the striked-through entry's will be gone in the next updates.)
-Add rhinotanks and put them in place of lance-a-bots. (It will take a bit... due to new enemy formations, not because I'm too lazy to replace few enemies with other ones. >:C)
-Add better and more dangerous enemy formations.(It will take a bit...)
-Finally get over to making sprites fortables, chairs, and beach chairs. (The ice shards are placeholders for those.)
-New plant life placement.(It will take a bit...)
-New screenshots for the addon page.(It will take a bit...)
-A secret cameo of someone's character (It will take a bit... And I'm not sure when I will start working on this feature)
-Add sfx to the jump-pads (Coming up!)
-Rewrite this addon's description page, because it's kinda poorly written, it's severely outdated and lacks info about new features like the inclusion of custom save data and unlockables.
-re-add stalagmites. (Coming up!)
(We are getting really close to clearing the whole list!)
I rewrote the overview page along with a ton (10 exactly) of new and completely Radical! looking screenshots! Unfortunately I have no new version for ready yet... It just takes a lot of time for me to add small features and that stacks up to me having no time to finish the update in a reasonable time. And school doesn't help too... (Me with 3 tests for this single week and 3 more for the next one...
But I have a really cool thing y'all can expect in the next version and that is...
An actual view of the sea! I managed to add both for OPENGL and SOFTWARE by using skyboxes, and if anyone wonders NEO.E.C already got the same treatment, but due the same reasons I'm unable to release it without it being rushed and unfinished. :C
I finally converted this WAD into a PK3! And along with it I added a LOT of different changes and additions!
-Added a custom title screen:
-Added record attack along with 3 emblems for:
Time - 2:00 (JUST LIKE MISSION "A" IN THE ORIGINAL :D)
Rings - 500
Score - 50000
I tested the time emblem and it's obtainable by the whole vanilla cast. (But it's kinda a strech for Fang, you need TAS levels of precision to pull the path I made up.
-Added the E.C's tracks into the sound test menu.
-"Finished" the NEO.E.C's cameo sign. (It's unfinished in the visual department, so the text is kinda boring at the moment, but the way the sign itself looks is fully intentional, just remember how crudely drawn P.T sprite are. This is the same exact visual choice.)
-If you obtain all 3 emblems you will gain access to pandora's box, which is the norm at this point but you also will unlock a secret stage... and what this stage is? All I will say is that you "play" this stage every time you load this addon in...
I guess that's all, but I can't be sure because I made more than a half of this update in a single day, which is today, and I'm kinda tired now... :|
And a new addition, the to-do-list! (the striked-through entry's will be gone in the next updates.)
-Custom title screen.(Next up!)
-Convert this WAD to PK3 and add unlockables and record mode. (Time, rings, score)(Next up!)
-Add rhinotanks and put them in place of lance-a-bots. (It will take a bit... due to new enemy formations, not because I'm too lazy to replace few enemies with other ones. >:C)
-Add better and more dangerous enemy formations. (It will take a bit...)
-Finally get over to making sprites for tables, chairs, and beach chairs. (The ice shards are placeholders for those.)
-New plant life placement. (It will take a bit...)
-New screenshots for the addon page. (It will take a bit...)
-Make a sign mid-texture for the NEO-E.C easter egg section.(Next up!)
-A secret cameo of someone's character (It will take a bit... And I'm not sure when I will start working on this feature)
-Rewrite this addon's description page, because it's kinda poorly written, it's severely outdated and lacks info about new features like the inclusion of custom save data and unlockables.
-re-add stalagmites.
This is a 0.0.1 update, so there's really no major changes or additions, so you won't miss out on a lot new stuff if you won't bother to update. Most of these are visual patches anyway. (But the next one might be a 0.1 update instead! :D)
I've done more small changes and these include:
-Optimizing the geometry just a tiny bit. (Basically unnoticeable, but there's still a bit less sectors and vertices to render.)
-Changed the color tone of the CEZ shrub sprites so they'll look more vibrant than pale green:
-Added some missing shadows.
-I moved some plants so they won't clip in the walls and got rid of shrubs inside other decorations that were making that ugly z-fighting effect.
-I added the ripple effect to all water in this stage. (Look at the gif.)
-Added those column guys in the mountain U turn section thingy. Along with me starting to experiment with the alternate plant placement.
-Aligned the brown board textures, and made that fading effect in the corner boards. And added a patch of grass to make it more interesting, expect more stuff like this in the future! I don't really care about accuracy that much anymore, I just want this stage to look better and less boring.
-I changed the boring ramp thingy that replaced the double loop, so it will fade in better with the earlier path.
And a new addition, the to-do-list! (the striked-through entry's will be gone in the next updates.)
-Custom title screen. (Next up!)
-Convert this WAD to PK3 and add unlockables and record mode. (Time, rings, score) (Next up!)
-Add rhinotanks and put them in place of lance-a-bots. (It will take a bit... due to new enemy formations, not because I'm too lazy to replace few enemies with other ones. >:C)
-Add better and more dangerous enemy formations. (It will take a bit...)
-Finally get over to making sprites for tables, chairs, and beach chairs. (The ice shards are placeholders for those.)
-Add ripple effect to all water for the pretty factor, and make this stage prettier overall.
-New plant life placement. (It will take a bit...)
-New screenshots for the addon page. (It will take a bit...)
-Make a sign mid-texture for the NEO-E.C easter egg section. (Next up!)
So I won't lie, this whole update was a small "spring-cleaning" that went out of control. And I made a bit more changes than I expected to:
-I trimmed down the "act 1" music which made this WAD almost a 1mb lighter than the original.
-I rearranged some problematic vertices which would create those weird corrupted lines along the water's surface.
-I finally added shadows where they should normally be.
-Changed the thok barriers shape for a bit better performance. (This still doesn't mean that you finally can comfortably play on software rendering unfortunately.)
-I finished the secret ending area at start of "act 2" (Try to find it >:D) and completely changed it's visual theme.
-Added actual vines instead of flipped seaweed! (And added some more vines in some other places.)
-Changed the grass mid-texture for more fitting shade of green.
-I finally made the hotel a bit higher to make it more accurate to original. (Look for the new screenshot of the beach hotel in the main page.)
-Changed the in-game thumbnail image for a more smoother version.
-I changed the angy-spiky guys for lance-a-bots.
-I aligned the board textures in the orca section.
-I got rid of the spiky rocks in the orca section. (For now)
What I would add If I still had motivation to do more stuff on this stage regularly: (So I wont forgor everything when the motivation does come back.)
-Custom title screen.
-Convert this WAD to PK3 and add unlockables and record mode. (Time, rings, score)
-Add rhinotanks and put them in place of lance-a-bots.
-Add better and more dangerous enemy formations.
-Finally get over to making sprites for tables, chairs, and beach chairs. (The ice shards are placeholders for those.)
-Add ripple effect to all water for the pretty factor, and make this stage prettier overall.
-New plant life placement
-New screenshots for the addon page
An extremly small quality of life update that replaces the first stage in SRB2 campaign with E.C without straight up replacing the MAP01 (GFZ1) slot. So you can still play GFZ1 if you want even after adding the stage. And you don't need to use the "MAPXX" command or level select to enter the stage.
(For the people that haven't unlocked level select menu yet.)
After looking again at this stage after I gained much more experience in zone builder, I think I will pull off a "Sonic 06 and Sega" relationship with this addon. It exists but I'm not quite proud of it. Mainly due to intense lag spikes in both opengl and software rendering. And please don't even try to play this stage in software, it's straight up painful to look at.
