[Open Assets] Redrawn Skies and BGs

[Twins'R'Okay]

This is my first WAD and it replaces the skies and bgs with my own artwork.

Why did I do this? Well, I think most of the current skies and bgs for SRB2 are absolute trash, so I thought I redraw them just for fun and practice, yadda yadda yadda, let's get on with the details.

I used aseprite for the main pixel art and GrafX2 for adjustments.

The main list of skies that are replaced are here

Spoiler

SKY01
SKY04
SKY05
SKY06
SKY07
SKY08
SKY10
SKY11
SKY13
SKY17
SKY22
SKY29
SKY35
SKY127

Known Issues:

Spoiler

Discoloration in SKY17. (How the heck does a dark blue convert to a tealish color?!)

Changelog:

Spoiler

Hotfix v1.0.1:
Fixed ERZ's cutoff issue

Changelog v1.1:
Added Azure Temple's Sky
Added Spring Hill's Sky
Palette swapped Spring Hill's Sky for Athenos Zone
Fixed and Adjusted Castle Eggman's Sky (SKY10)
Attempted to Fix and Adjust Blue Mountain's Sky (SKY17)
Adjusted Pallete on SKY11
Extended Arid Canyon's Sky (SKY13)

Now includes an Xmas palette swap for the Xmas restoration wad that comes with SRB2 the past.

 

[Sryder]

Hey, these are some nice sky textures, I especially like the THZ1 one, welcome to releases!

Regarding the cutoff on sky22, I believe it happens because the texture is not a power of 2 in width. I guess SRB2 doesn't like anything else. A 1024 pixel wide texture will wrap around once exactly for a sky texture.

 

[Twins'R'Okay]

UPDATE v1.0.1: I took Sryder13's suggestion and increased the width of ERZ's background to 1024 pixels. Now there should be no cutoff.

First post should be updated

 

[Meneum]

Nice to see you released this here.
I have the version from your server (aka test version?) but I'm gonna download it from here anyways lol

 

[Twins'R'Okay]

Yeah, that was a test version, from when the wad was incomplete

 

[Goldenhog]

There are some really amateur-ish skies in here (I'm sorry but your SKY1 makes the vanilla GFZ sky look amazing) but what's good is very good. SKY4 was already mentioned but I also really liked its daytime variation and SKY13.

A couple things though: The trees on the mountains in SKY10 and SKY17 look really awkward, I think it'd be better if they weren't there. And what's with the asteroid in SKY22? Is that supposed to be the Black Rock? Because I'm pretty sure Egg Rock is on it.

Not too shabby overall. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the skies of other levels, if you ever decide to redraw them.

 

[Twins'R'Okay]

Thanks for the feedback!

As for SKY1, I'm terrible at drawing clouds, I dunno how to get them right :P.

As for SKY10, and SKY17, It was an attempt to draw a pine forest on the sides of a mountain, not knowing how to do it on such a low quality canvas. (It looked a lot better on the original sketch)

As for SKY22, The extra rock was just there to fill space since vanilla ERZ's sky is just 70% empty space.

But yes, some of the backgrounds needs some improvement (I think the worst offender was SKY7 eugh...) But, for now, I'm working on and off on Aerial Garden's BG, as well as BGs of the bonus stages and SRB1's stages, so we'll see how that turns out.

 

[Twins'R'Okay]

UPDATE 5/20/2018: There is now an alternate version of this wad that recolors the skies to be more snowlike and whatnot. It's highly recommened to use this with the Xmas restoration wad that comes with SRB2 the past.

 

[Simon_T]

My favorite skies are Arid Canyon's and SKY17
BTW, which level is that level in the SKY17 preview screenshot?

 

[Twins'R'Okay]

SKY17 belonged to the unused Blue Mountain Zone.

 

[Twins'R'Okay]

Rip AGZ's old BG

So, I tried to make Aerial Garden's BG be a sort of "World Map" for SRB2 and the Mystic Realm. But it never really went anywhere, so it got scrapped.

In the meantime, have Azure Temple's sky, which I managed to finish just Yesterday.

 

[Twins'R'Okay]

Redrawn Skies has been updated to v1.1

Changes:

Spoiler

Hotfix v1.0.1:
Fixed ERZ's cutoff issue

Changelog v1.1:
Added Azure Temple's Sky
Added Spring Hill's Sky
Palette swapped Spring Hill's Sky for Athenos Zone
Fixed and Adjusted Castle Eggman's Sky (SKY10)
Attempted to Fix and Adjust Blue Mountain's Sky (SKY17)
Adjusted Pallete on SKY11
Extended Arid Canyon's Sky (SKY13)

Original post has been updated