New Suff!!!
OK, so I've been workin' on this for about a year now & things have really come along. I wanna thank everybody for their help & advice and let y'all see a little something of where everything's at now.
Unfortunately I can't make a download available because I'm working on some secrets that I haven't completely concealed yet and a battery of mechanics I've yet to perfect.
But here's the good news...
Cosmetics;
The zones now feature a host of
new textures, taking full advantage of CB(PNG) capabilities. The zones all have their own
fog color, bringing a whole new dimension to the game play.
I've also started playing with
skybox. Another CB feature I decided to employ. I've read about them & I understand there's some debate on just how small the landscape features need to be to look right. Let me put it this way... The standard running tiles of the game are 128X 128. The tiles you'll see in my skyboxes are 4x 4.
GGZI
Fog color
Track layout;
I've tried for a long time to keep the tracks
as-is but test after test showed me that not only was the game suffering a huge amount of lag but the some of the runways could be longer. Luckily a single solution solved both problems. Picking & choosing which runways to stretch has separated large parts of the maps from each other,
increasing running space &
greatly reducing lag!!!
GGZII
I've also inverted allot of the obstacles along the courses. So where a stair case (for example) ran down & could be jumped over, now ascends creating
more up hill challenge.
RRZI
Up-hill!
Longer running spaces!
RRZII
Huge landscapes made possible by reducing lag!!!
SSZ has done allot of growing up!!!
Featuring my second skybox
New textures no longer make SSZ look like a pizza parlor.
The bulls-eye wall paper design has been replaced with a far more satisfying star pattern & I've used the floor tiles on walls making SSZ look like it's
built out of candy!!!
Where I have had to lower the Z position of everything to only 50% to accommodate the lower jump of the SRB2 heroes all over the game, SSZ is a special exception due to the place being littered with springs which are now essential to making it out of the zone. SSZ is the only one in the game where the dimensions keep true to the original game in all 3 dimensions
The retracting floor spikes are fully working & totally perfect!!!
If you land on the surface you have a split-second to get up before your slapped in the face with these killers.
The spikes stay up as long as you're on the ground & slide back down when you're not!!! This was finally achieved with a set of FOFs & my own spike design. With no un-nessesary drawing of each spike hole, each spike in the traps moves along with each other with no risk of making them shoot out further or sinking lower than they should. They move perfectly & I saved the game a great deal of lag. I even used the Minus popping sound when they rise from the floor!
This has allowed me the CPU to open the places up more. Now SSZ not only looks like taffy candy but the running spaces also resemble carnival floats. I appreciate this greatly since I'm from New Orleans :D
SSZII
Candy coated carnival floats
Other zones in the works;
DDZI
Slippery & dangerous, It;s going to be tough staying on the track but
don"t worry the water is frozen over...
Do worry, the ice breaks & quickly refreezes leaving our hero in a pool of space countdown & special damage that keeps you from trying to get out! Oddly enough your better off moving through this zone with as few rings as possible since the water cant throw you back if your not carrying any.
VVZ
Working with the Thok Barrier I attempted to make the zone look like its in a volcanic Vally... duh! However this proved to be a colossal drag on the game. So to in giving VVZ its valley, my first skybox was born.
VVZIII
Boss Fight with skybox
I'm also using the "broken" heatwave weather effect in VVZ. Aside from the occasional bright flicker of light (that goes beyond 255 light level) that occurs when you collect a ring & it's light particle passes between the player & the screen, it works just fine.
VVZI
Light particle caught between the player & screen.
I wonder if we can use this to create lighting effects with light level that go above 255.
Gene Gadget & Panic Puppet are still in their infancy. Hardly worth a screen shot.
It's been a good year for
S3DRBCBPNG &
I wanna thank everybody again for all the help. I don't think I could have pulled it off without y'all.
I've also decided to start writing the Wiki on slopes :D
Enjoy the teasers & I'll get a download up... eventually:P
I've noticed that a few people visiting this thread have had some issues. everything from driver problems to not understanding
CB, PNG or open GL. I want to take this opportunity to let anyone & everyone know that there is
plenty of room in this thread for working through these details. Since this is really the first full game CB mod it would be helpful for visitors who are interested to also be able to read up on common problems & their solutions instead of weeding through the help forums finding tiny answers one at a time.
It's not clutter, it's helpful!!!