This is the Sonic 2 HD Technical Demonstration Second Release
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Note: All the current art is in WIP status and it wont reflect the final aspect.



This demo allows up to 2 players playing simultaneously. You need two game 
controller devices. Pressing START button on controller number 2 at the title screen 
triggers the second player ON/OFF.


It also includes demos that are played after the title screen. They show various things 
that the project coordinators want to highlight.


Each time you run one of the four versions, an input log is created to record playback 
from player 1's game controller device. In case a bug appears out of the blue, you can 
send the log to a project coordinator. It can help a lot! Bugs are usually rare but they appear 
at this stage of development.


WARNING:
This Tech Demo Second Release uses a Pixel Shader to distort the background. It requires more 
GPU power than the previous Tech Demo and might therefore run slower on older graphics cards. 
It has been confirmed that the main key to run this game in 60 fps is to have a strong 
3D accelerated graphics card. The actual game itself doesn't require much CPU. For example
the new 16 physical player at the same time demo in this Tech Demo Second Release runs at 
100% speed without any problems on a single core CPU running at 1.8 GHz. It can go lower than
that and still keep the game speed at 100%, but there is no proof yet.




BASIC CONTROLS

Move the keyboard to move Sonic on the floor
A=Jump
S=Jump
D=Jump
Down+Jump=Spindash

The 4 versions are not the same
Please try all four of them - each has a diff. zoom (It's just a Zoom Effect, the game will be seen at the 4X Res). I suggest to try S2HD_TechDemo_SR_4x.exe first. We included the smaller 1x and 2x resolutions because level scrolling is still being developed, and with the second release - also a 3x resolution version - so the idea was to give everyone space to move around by having a smaller Sonic in a bigger level. Also, full screen may not work for some in this work in progress demo. Please report your system specs if this is the case.

TRICKS
Wait the main title screen for more than 10 seconds will put in the demo and credits.



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SONIC 2 HD TECH DEMO CONTENTS

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1. System Requirements

2. The Sonic 2 HD Project

3. The History of Sonic 2 HD

4. Joining us & Contact Information

5. Legal Disclaimer



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1. System Requirements
=====================

We are testing these early engine builds with the highest 
quality settings during development, so as to estabilish 
the required specs to run at the "FULL HD" (1080p) resolution. 
Low resolution compatible specs will be included in the next releases. 
This tech demo could run at almost full speed on slower PCs, 
so please note that these specs are not at all final. Please
report bugs or any other issues in our release thread on the Sonic
Retro forums.

The recommended system requirements are as follows:

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Graphics card:
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- 512 MB graphics RAM.
- The graphics card must be able to render multiple 3d primitives 
with post pixel shader effects (Direct3D 9 and Pixel Shader 2.0 compatible) 
in "FULL HD" (1080p) resolution at a rate of 60 frames per second.

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CPU and RAM:
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- 2.4 GHz
- 2 GB RAM


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Operating System:
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- Microsoft Windows XP SP2 32-bit
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP2 32-bit
- Microsoft Windows Vista Ultra Edition 32-bit
- (DirectX 9.0c or higher)


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Joystick/Gamepad:
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- Something DirectInput compatible with 8 buttons or so.



=====================
2. The Sonic 2 HD Project
=====================

The S2HD project is a Sonic Retro open community endeavour. Its purpose is 
to remaster Sega's classic Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with high definition (HD) 
graphics and music, whilst at the same time precisely preserving the original 
gameplay (that continues to set quality standards to this day).

S2HD will not be limited only to presenting a beautiful graphical and musical 
version of the original. New features that were not present in the original 
will also be made available. Some examples are especially the online multiplayer 
modes and extra levels.



=====================
3. The History of Sonic 2 HD
=====================

The idea of creating a high definition version of Sega's classic Sonic the Hedgehog 2 
first appeared on a website called "Alchemist Defined". An artist calling himself 
Billy had drawn an incredibly impressive piece of artwork, which showed Sonic about 
to fight the last boss of the game in the "Death Egg Zone". The low-resolution sprites 
were richly brought to life in this phenomenal piece of artwork: both the background 
and the characters had been completely remastered. A number of video gaming websites 
quickly discovered the image and were soon showing it off on their homepages. 
The question had been posed; "What would Sonic 2 look like in high definition?"

The "Sonic Retro" community had always taken a keen interest in all things related to 
Sonic's classical era. On December 6th 2007, a member of this community 
called "Athelstone" found Billy's image and excitedly posted it in the General discussion 
forums, while asking the very same question - what would it be like?. The thread was 
soon moved to the "Creative Works" section of the forum.

Three months later, on March 8th 2008, a member of Sonic Retro called "Vangar" 
created a discussion thread asking for a game engine he could use to start work 
on such a project. The thread gained a surprising amount of interest! Many members 
of the community quickly began to post concept images of what the game ought to 
look like. To begin with, fans would merely apply graphical filters to the original 
low-resolution graphics. A member called "Yarharhar" then posted an image of a 
completely remastered Sonic, along with a method describing how he had drawn it! 
It was not long until a member of the community called "Vincent" was so inspired 
by Yarharhar's effort, that he took it upon himself to begin remastering a whole 
set of Sonic's character frames. Sonic 2 HD had begun!

However, the most difficult tasks still lay ahead of the project. How would we 
organize ourselves to achieve this goal? What game engine would be used to make 
it a reality? One possibility was to use a modified Genesis emulator, which would 
display the graphics from the original game ROM in high definition. However, it was 
decided that this would be far too limiting for the project. This is because the 
bugs and slow downs from the original game would be replicated, rather than fixed 
and improved upon. It would also be impossible to expand upon the project if its 
foundation was just an emulator.

Another possibility was to use a custom made engine that had already been created. 
A member of the community called "Taxman" had already created a popular Sonic 
engine called "Retro Sonic". Unluckily, the physics in his engine were not yet 
close enough to the original genesis series for it to be used (despite the fact 
that Taxman's engine boasted an incredibly impressive level development kit for 
designing original Sonic levels). It was likely that Taxman would eventually perfect 
the physics in his engine - but rather than wait for him to accomplish this, the 
community thirsted for the Sonic 2 HD project to move forward.

After a time, a staff team had been formed. Since Vincent had already remastered 
many of Sonic's frames, he became the project leader and the lead artist. 
A member called "SANiK" had even created an online database, which allowed 
contributors to upload all of their artwork, while members "Athelstone" and
"Blue Streak" coordinated some of the community's contributions while giving 
suggestions and guidance to other project staff. Eventually, the administrators 
of Sonic Retro granted us our own community forum for the Sonic 2 HD project - 
but we still didn't have an engine!

Members of the community were starting to cast doubt upon the project - was it 
really going to become a reality or not? Then, out of the blue, a long-running 
member of the community called "LOst" privately informed the project staff that 
he had already been developing his own engine for a number of years and would 
like to be a part of the project. The staff were astounded at the accuracy of 
his physics, since they were based upon Sonic 3 (which fixed many of the bugs 
present in Sonic 2's physics). We finally had an engine! On September 15th 2008 
the first technical demo of Sonic 2 HD was released - Sonic has returned!



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4. Joining us & Contact Information
=======================================

Want to help us? Are you an artist or skilled musician? You're welcome to join us! 
Please register at the Sonic Retro forums at http://forums.sonicretro.org and 
click on the "Community Projects" section. Please read our contribution rules 
and guidelines first before posting an example of your work in the relevant topic. 
If your work is of a high standard, it is likely that you will be invited to join 
our staff. We need:

- Character / Enemies artists: To remaster sprites of characters and enemies 
(the use of vector programs like Illustrator or Flash is preferred).
- Background artists: Drawing either backgrounds to be used as Level Tiles for 
levels or menu screens.
- Concept artists: To throw together mockups of what the project should be aiming 
to artistically achieve.
- Music composers: Either Real instruments or Synthetized music, our engine finally 
accepts .OGG audio files. All remasterings must follow the original Sonic 2 tunes.
- Artists to draw an opening and ending sequence.

If you want to contact S2HD Staff, just send us a private message on the Sonic Retro forums.




=====================
5. Legal Disclaimer
=====================

"Sonic 2 HD" is in no way affiliated with SegaŽ or Sonic TeamŽ. 
The copyrights of "Sonic The Hedgehog" and all associated characters, 
names, terms, art, and music thereof belong to SegaŽ. All registered trademarks 
and copyrights belong to SegaŽ and Sonic TeamŽ. "Sonic 2 HD" is a non-profit 
endeavour created by fans. No financial gain whatsoever is made from project efforts. 
No intent to infringe said copyrights or registered trademarks is made by contributors of
"Sonic 2 HD".