The Comprehensive Sonic 3 / & Knuckles Ripping Project

Welcome to the Comprehensive Sonic 3 / & Knuckles Ripping Project, or CS3&K for short! This is a project I've taken up for the purposes of giving the Spriters Resource fully functioning sprite archives for Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. This is no simple endeavour, for sure, but nevertheless this is something I intend to do; if I manage to succeed in completing this, then I will consider looking into ripping the sprites for Sonic 1 and Sonic 2; this is a bridge to be crossed further into the future.

Questions you may be asking:

I call the project this because I intend on getting all the animations and all the sprites for Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Yes, you read that right: all the animations. Makes the project sound gargantuan in scale, doesn't it?

Why all the animations?
Within reason. But because what's the point of making a sprite sheet if the flashing lights in Carnival Night or the heat haze in Sandopolis are left out? I'm not talking about constructing a palette set, since the colors can overlap, but giving the respective animation a n x n (i.e. 16 x 32 pixel) blocks to detail all colours/changes. Further to this, so that Badniks stop having to be constructed by people wanting to use them in full, though parts can be provided in the event there are those that are happy to make use of the parts.

All the sprites? Seriously? What about the stuff already in the sprite archives?

Noted. A few sheets appear to be difficult to make use of, barring what I'm about to delve into with the next question. I'm interesting in creating sheets that allow people to easily make use of them, with all the content that can be gained from within the game. Sure, they could just be cleaned up for better accessibility, but I also want to make sure everything is there and colour accurate.

Unfortunately, absolutely not. But you're new here (July 30, 2017), why this crazy rule?  From looking through the sprites already hosted on TSR, there is a constant inconsistency in the colours between the sprite sheets; some are the original, proper colour that is seen in-game, and others are darker than the colours seen in the game. Let me make one thing clear: I am not here to get involved in unnecessary and time-consuming disputes over the colours on sprite sheets already hosted. I simply want to to provide the TSR with consistently coloured sprite sheets ripped from Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic 3 & Knuckles, as well as any prototype content that has been uncovered or can be ripped. To this end, I am taking on this project alone, and ripping sprites with the aid of colour-altering tools from the game, like Mister Man has done with his carefully crafted Get Blue Spheres sheet.

Are you sure?
There is only one capacity other members could possibly - and hopefully - aid me in as I construct these sheets: clarification. I'll be honest with you - I am concerned about missing sprites, and since a lot of my time away from the computer will be dealing with university classes or other real life shenanigans, I will request aid (on a case by case basis) in locating any such missing sprites. My username may be "The Observer", but I can't see everything. In this event, credit will be provided to those who gave assistance.

What if I have carefully ripped sprites according to the point you made earlier, and wish to contribute to this project?

Alright, so I'll be a little tsundere about this. If you want to help directly, then you may, but I must be strict: if the colours are darker than what I can get from the game, the sprites you provide will be rejected. I will not budge on this - due to the sheer work ahead for this project, I do not want to waste time checking each colour down to the individual pixel to be sure that both match. With that, I ask you: are you still up to the challenge?

Yes, university is incredibly important to me, I'm not going to screw up my future for the sake of a pastime project. That being said, I am currently in summer break as I write this. I started this project as a return to my old pastime of spriting, which I can focus on when I'm not dealing with real life. I am very interested in ripping the sprites in the Sonic 3 games for TSR because it is the first game I properly played and grew up on; it is a personal opinion of mine that these games should deserve a TLC archive on a website dedicated to game resources.

So you intend on ripping everything from the Sonic 3 games... how long do you expect it to take?!

I expect the project to take as long as it needs to. So long as the website goes nowhere, and I do not become caught up in offline circumstances that prevent me from being able to continue the project, I will continue to man this project.

Does this include garbled sprites/graphics?
No. The graphics must be pure and constructed (or simple to reconstruct) as they should appear in game. I'm not opposed to false/alternate palettes (for example, a Knuckles and Knuckles in Sky Sanctuary scenario providing two different palettes of the same character), but I won't go out of my way to palettes changed for characters by means of cheat codes, that would work against the purposes of the project.

Do you have an example for the project that you can provide?
I will provide an attachment of what I believe to be a near-to-absolutely complete Gumball Machine sheet.

You seem kind of rude. Should we really take this seriously?
I apologise if I am appearing rude to you, I am just wanting to get some points across. However, I am treating this project seriously, and hope only that this project receive a likewise seriousness by other members.

I have a question that isn't already answered above. Can I ask it?

Sure. 


Bonus Stages
Gumball Machine (Everything?)

Currently, the only thing ripped that I can share for sure is a near-to-absolutely complete sheet for the Gumball Machine Bonus Stage; it is not the final sheet, I expect to further edit it to change some objects and have a better credits box. You can view this in the attachment. I have added in full versions of the grey and "S" spheres (I cannot locate a proper glow colour without it being false on various websites) as seen in the machine's foreground for a simple "Completion +" idea; this "Completion +" is a very case-by-case idea and will not be present on every sheet.