Rained Out

My dad was going to have a bike show today at his shop. We were all disappointed when it started raining this morning. As you can probably guess, nobody in their right mind is going to ride their motorcycles up to my dad's place just to have them sit out in the rain and get wet. So when 9:00 came and nobody was there, we cancled it. It was unfortunate, but these things happen I guess. So we're going to try for next week. Because we spent so much time cleaning around the shop, I basically had nothing to do and decided to go home early at 10:00. That gave me extra time to do some work that I had to do.

Italian ProSonic Outline

Someone going by the name "Sonic the Hedgehog" has translated my ProSonic outline to Italian. It's in PDF format, and you can download it here. You can also still find the English version of the outline in PDF and DOC formats. If you have been following my ProSonic engine closely and haven't read the outline yet, I encourage you to do so.

Also, I have done another webcam video. You can check it out by clicking here. I discuss a little more on ProSonic in it. It's in WMV format, so you'll need Windows Media Player or some other compatible media player to view it.

ProTools Interface

I'm starting what I am dubbing the "ProTools Interface". This is one single interface that is flexible and easy to work with I can use to create all my ProSonic editing tools. This is the reason I have started doing ProTools.

I love Visual Basic, but I don't know enough to get my PZF file editor working like I need it to work. So since I know more about programming in C, the idea is to still have a friendly interface to work with while sticking with cross-platform C programming.

Right now, I have a dialog box working that can be any size. It has the Green Hill Zone checkered designed. I will soon begin putting my old ProSonic text functions in so text can be written to the screen which I think will look really nice in the dialog boxes I created.



Essentially ProTools will be a library that I will be able to attach to any program I write so I have all the functionality I need without having to write everything from scratch. This will allow me to come out with editing tools a lot quicker. This will also make the rewrite of the PZF format a whole lot easier.

Host Troubles

I appologize to everyone who has been trying to grab files linked from this blog. It appears there are some technical difficulties with the host of ComproSoftware.com. A number of people have reported not being able to get the ProSonic outline recently, and the problem I stated is the reason. Compro told me his host is usually quite good at getting problems resolved in a timely manner, so hopefully everything will be back to normal soon.

By the way, I bought Sonic Heroes for my computer a few days ago. I had never played it before, and I have to say it's a great game! I can't understand why so many first-generation Sonic fans don't like it. I wouldn't mind if they put out another game similar to it. The only negative things I have to say is it has it's fair share of bugs. I've came by a number of them in the first day I played it. Bugs aside, it's a game well done in my opinion.

My Mom's Friend

Sunday my grandmother told me my mom was stopping later that day with a friend of hers. I thought "maybe it really is just a friend", but then I thought that sounded too weird. So I started to think perhaps she was seeing someone.

They stopped by and sure enough, her "friend" was a guy. From what I've heard (and saw once), my mom doesn't always have the best choice in people. However I can honestly say that this might be a good choice. I don't know him very well, but the first impression is very good. I often worry about my mom growing old and lonely, so I'm happy to at least see her making some efforts here.

PDF Outline & Music

A ProSonic fan known as Nineko has converted my DOC formatted ProSonic outline to the PDF format. For those who don't have Windows, this format might be best. I still recommend the DOC format for Windows users though. You can grab the PDF version here. Someone has also offered to translate into Italian which will hopefully increase interest even more in ProSonic.

On the note of music, I haven't forgotten about it. I still want to do more song recordings, but I haven't done any for a good while because my MIDI interface stopped working several months ago. I don't know why it would stop working, but I am thinking maybe I should just get another anyway because the one I have connects to a USB port. USB ports don't have any specific clock speed like standard serial ports do. This means SysEx messages don't work with it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm basically saying I can't read and write voice data (instruments) between my keyboard and computer. So the plan is to find a serial MIDI interface, buy a USB-to-serial adapter (since my computer doesn't have any serial ports), and get myself back into action.

I'm thinking of trying some different types of songs, including some I think practically everyone will love. In the mean time, you can still listen to So In Love which I did several months ago.

The ProSonic Outline Is Here

I finally finished the outline. You can get it here. You'll need Microsoft Word or another compatible program. If you don't have it, you can download Microsoft Word Viewer.

The outline provides details into the scope of the project and what my goals are with it. It also explains in detail exactly what ProSonic is and why I believe it will be a worthy alternative to making Sonic the Hedgehog games. I will likely update the outline as development continues, but this is a big chunk of information available to you right now. The outline contains over 4,000 words, so it's easy to see why it took me a while to complete it (especially since I've been busy with other things lately).

If you're into creating Sonic games like most of my blog readers, tell people about this outline! I have even provided a button for it if you choose to use it:



Post it anywhere you see fit. I am going to do some advertising myself around different sites.

What's Happening With Me

Over the past couple days, I've been busy with college work mostly. I have a report due for my Physics class. I have been taking a small amount of my time to work on the outline for ProSonic though, and I can say with confidence that it's getting close to completion.

Over the past couple days I have also been dealing with a bite of some sort. I noticed my leg was very itchy Wednesday or Thursday night. By Friday it was turning red, and Saturday it was blood-red. It was about the size of a baseball, and my leg was killing me. Unfortunately that was the day I also played music with The Legendary Hellhounds. My dad couldn't play with them because he had way too much work to do, so I filled in. It was a 3 hour gig, but it was a lot of fun. These guys are very friendly and enjoyable to play with. I know most of my blog readers are not in the area. If by chance you are I would recommend checking them out.

Oh and the bite mark is disappearing now. It was pink yesterday, and today you almost can't see it (except for the lump where something stuck me initially).

Webcam & ProSonic

I bought a webcam recently and have been playing with it a little bit. While writing the outline I figured maybe since it's taking me so long, I could use my webcam to explain at least one small section of the outline to people.

I made a video with me talking about ways the programming isn't necessary to do sophisticated things with ProSonic. You can access the video by clicking the picture. You must have a media player that supports the WMV format such as Windows Media Player. The video is only 2.7MB in size which I think is reasonable.

I wanted to do a video to try something different for a change. Do you like this method of getting information from me? I'd like to hear your comments on this. At the bottom of this post is a link you can click that will allow you to post a comment. Let me know how you feel about videos. If a lot of people like this, I may do more.

Still Working On The ProSonic Outline

I still exist! I have just been working on the outline for ProSonic in my free time. It is taking a little longer than I thought it would. My goal is to "sell" ProSonic to people. I don't mean I will be taking money for it. I simply mean I want to convince people who haven't yet been convinced that ProSonic is worth the wait. So this outline is important. The idea is to write something that will last a good while. The outline will contain more information that I had originally planned. Think of this as a campaign to "convert" people. I'd like to get ROM hackers, programmers, Game Maker and Multimedia Fusion users interested enough in ProSonic to actually use it to create some exciting new Sonic games. So hopefully the outline will help me accomplish that, and hopefully that explains clearly why I'm working on this outline in the first place.

Also, I'd like to thank everyone who has used the new ProSonic images. Believe it or not, putting one of the images in your signature at forums you visit really does help. I have tracked a whole pile of visits to this blog from those images. I'd like to come up with some more ways to promote ProSonic. Just recently I was thinking of having a sort of "ProSonic army" for a lack of a better name. This would be a message that people could post on their websites or in their signatures saying they support ProSonic and such. It has to be a message that grabs their attention though. I'll think on this some more and if anyone else comes up with some other ideas, please let me know.

Linking ProSonic Fans

After the creation of the ProSonic picture yesterday, I continued my efforts by making two buttons today. You can use these buttons to link Sonic fans to my blog for ProSonic information.

ProSonic logo - white background


ProSonic logo - checkered background


Of course if you still prefer the older buttons, you're welcome to continue using them. The smaller buttons are probably more friendly to sites that contain a lot of different links.

ProSonic 196x82


ProSonic 98x41


ProSonic 88x31

ProSonic Logo

I have been designing a logo for ProSonic, and after playing around with some ideas, I came up with this. I have never been as good ad creating fancy images on a computer like others have, but this is one of my better jobs I think. I'd like to know what others think of the picture I created. I will likely have some variations of the logo (e.g. just have the "PS" by itself without anything else in the picture). I would also like to create some buttons and banners with the logo. I used an older image of Sonic in this picture because I wanted to push the idea that ProSonic was "retro" in that it returns to the roots of Sonic the Hedgehog games. Plus, I always liked the style Sonic was drawn in on the covers of the original games in the United States.