Topic: Sonic The Hedgehog (Genesis)

[TerraEsperZ]

Here's a little diversion from my Sonic CD maps. I fully intend to map this game too given enough time, but for the time being, I've only mapped the Special Zones. There are two backgrounds which succeed one another, the first with green birds and clouds, and the second with blue fishes and bubbles. I initially wanted to alternate the backgrounds from one map to another, but the green of the birds makes it too difficult to make out the stages so I used the fishes only.



Enjoy!



Special Zone 1 - Blue Emerald:





Special Zone 2 - Yellow Emerald:





Special Zone 3 - Purple Emerald:





Special Zone 4 - Green Emerald:





Special Zone 5 - Red Emerald:





Special Zone 6 - Grey Emerald:





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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)

[RT 55J]

Impressive, but that background is hideously distracting.

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Dot? Dot. Dot!

[TerraEsperZ]

I know, but I included it anyway for authenticity.  In any case, distracting backgrounds have convinced me of doing all my Sonic maps both with the real background and with a 'plain' one using its predominant colour. I'll see about posting them tomorrow.



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)

[marioman]

Nice.  I really like those special stages.  Unfortunately, after this game Sega got stuck on variants of running-through-tube special stages and has never returned.  (Except in Sonic CD where they came up with some awesome special stages.)

[DarkWolf]

I didn't really think the Sonic 3 special stages were similar to the ones in Sonic 2.  Sonic 3d Blast and Sonic R, (from that I remember) did have similar special stages to Sonic 2, but those games were made by Traveler's Tales.



Anyway as much as I like to use backgrounds myself, it is somewhat distracting.  And it's a shame because the fish and bird are two of my favorite backgrounds from a game.  Did you try the plain squares that appear for a second between the transition of the fish and bird?  That might be a good compromise.

[TerraEsperZ]

I tried it, but the square pattern made it too confusing what with all the blocks. Anyway, like I said, many of the backgrounds for the Genesis Sonic games make the map itself difficult to read. I'm more and more convinced to make two versions for each maps, one with a background and one without. I don't know which one JonLeung will want on VGMaps, but I'll make both available one way or another.



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)

[marioman]

Sonic 3d Blast and Sonic R, (from that I remember) did have similar special stages to Sonic 2

Sonic R didn't have special stages.  Them emeralds were accessible in the courses.

n any case, distracting backgrounds have convinced me of doing all my Sonic maps both with the real background and with a 'plain' one using its predominant colour.

I can  possibly see that one the special stages, but why do that for the normal stages?  The backgrounds for the normal stages are awesome.

[TerraEsperZ]

I'm still not sure of what I'll do. I will do all the maps with a full background, but I'm a guy who  prefers consistency. It must sounds weird, but I just can't see myself doing only a few selected maps with a plain colour in the back. It's all or nothing.



Incidentally, my compulsion for authenticity means that the back layer takes me as much time if not more than the stage itself thanks to some having many parts scrolling at different speeds and some being larger than others (and sometimes being so large that I can't capture it all despite going through the entire stage).



Unless someone manages to capture the full backgrounds using SonEd 1 for Sonic 1, CD, 3 and Knuckles (it works fine for 2 but crashes for all the others) I'll always feel like my backgrounds are not authentic or complete. Maybe I'll just give up and limit the incomplete sections to something like 512 or 1024 pixels despite there being more; I doubt anyone would notice anyway.



Anyway, I might put off the back layer for a while to concentrate on mapping the actual stages for a while. This way, I'd actually feel like I'm making real progress.



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)

[TerraEsperZ]

*First post updated with Green Hill Zone Act 1 (updated) and Act 2 (new)*



Sorry for constantly changing my mind, I guess the lack of sleep has made me a bit unstable today. In any case, I've changed my opening post a third time to reflect my new decision: all maps will include the original background, and the Special Zones will also get plain ones for visibility.



I'm also happy to report that I've finally found a pattern in Green Hill Zone's background. After 3840 pixels horizontally, I had noticed in the past that it started repeating itself for 512 pixels but would start a new pattern right after, angering me greatly. Well I just realized a few minutes ago that the new pattern isn't really one; it just starts repeating the same block over and over again as if it was out of idea!



Okay, yeah, I know it's not interesting stuff for most of you, but to me it's important because I redid the background for Green Hill Zones Act 1 (and 2, new map) and am now totally happy with them since there's no "fudging" involved



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)

[marioman]

Just out of curiosity, what's with the item box on the bridge at the beginning of Act 2?

[TerraEsperZ]

Apparently, a little something left from Debug mode. Oups.



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)

[DarkWolf]

I thought there was something in Sonic R that resembled the Sonic 2 special stage.  It's been so long since I've played that game and I can't remember.  I just did a google image search, I guess it was getting it confused with one of the later levels.



Backgrounds can be a pain sometimes.  But I'd rather you "fudge" than not include one.  I had to get really creative on Decapattack to fill in voids.  The guys who did Decapattack just did the math and only made the background as large as it needed to be to scroll fully from one side of the level to the other.  So getting it to repeat was tricky.

[TerraEsperZ]

*First post updated with Green Hill Zone Act 1 (updated), Act 2 (updated) and Act 3 (new)*



In addition to the last Green Hill Zone map, I updated the first two Acts a tiny bit; since the waterfalls in the foreground and in the background use the same colour cycling, I made sure I was using the same frame for both, which wasn't the case before since I had captured both separately.



As always, if you spot a problem or error, feel free to tell me



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)

[TerraEsperZ]

*First post updated with Marble Zone Act 1*



This one was surprisingly easy to map, including the background, but it's also much smaller than the other two acts.



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



Current projects: Sonic CD (Sega CD), Mega Man V (GB), Mega Man Zero (GBA), Battletoads (NES)

[Rew]

Looking good, Terra! And I have to say, I'm glad it looks like you've decided to go with maps that have the backgrounds in them. =0)



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"So this is what it's like..."

- Spark Mandrill