767 replies to this topic

[Random Terrain]

roland p, on Wed Jan 13, 2010 3:13 PM, said:

Just bought a new laptop (I've used a small 9" eee pc for the last year since the laptop before that one got disintegrated) so I've no excuse not to develop it further...

Good news. The Ballblazer project continues.

[roland p]

I'm currently updating the sprite engine (and the 3d calculations) and I tried to improve the rotofoils resolution through animation. I'm not sure if I like the effect. I would like to know what you think of it and if I should continue with it. I only implemented the quad-size version right now.

Attached Thumbnails

• 

Attached Files

•  ballblazer.bin   32K   83 downloads

[Random Terrain]

When I get near the rotofoil, the screen flickers and the rotofoil hops all over and seems to be in more than one place at the same time. But I guess everything in life is like that:

[roland p]

Random Terrain, on Sun Feb 7, 2010 2:59 PM, said:

When I get near the rotofoil, the screen flickers and the rotofoil hops all over and seems to be in more than one place at the same time. But I guess everything in life is like that:

Yeah, that glitch is caused by the observer, please don't do that

[roland p]

Well, I guess the effect is allright and I'll continue with the todo list in the following order:

- remove bugs in rotofoil display
- add collision between rotofoils
- create a ball
- always face ball (auto-rotate)
- display rotated opponent rotofoil correctly
- create goals
- catch ball
- face goals when ball is catched

[Cybergoth]

Good to see that this marvelous project is still in the works

[raindog]

I only just got the chance to try it. I think the rotofoil animation is better than all right; it's really amazing. Way beyond what I would have done. Can't wait to see the final product and more intermediate steps.

[roland p]

This week I made the sprites a bit better. They can now dissapear again on the left and right edge of the screen. The full screen width is now used too. moving too far away would not cause too many problems, but the rotofoil doesn't dissapear in the horizon yet. Now I have to optimise this code since it takes too many cycles to be used in the game.

Attached Thumbnails

• 

Attached Files

•  ballblazer.bin   32K   100 downloads

[roland p]

raindog, on Tue Feb 9, 2010 10:24 AM, said:

I only just got the chance to try it. I think the rotofoil animation is better than all right; it's really amazing. Way beyond what I would have done. Can't wait to see the final product and more intermediate steps.

Thanks, I hope I can make it to a final product. The amount of free cycles the atari 2600 has, makes it very hard.

[MrFish]

Looks good. Well... you've already amazed a lot of people with the work you've done so far. If you can finish it off you'll probably be promoted to Demigod status.

Excuse my ignorance, I'm not too familiar with 2600 hardware. But, why does the ship's shape change when I'm moving side-to-side? The original doesn't do this. I'm guessing it's because of a hardware limitation...?

[roland p]

MrFish, on Mon Feb 15, 2010 12:48 AM, said:

Excuse my ignorance, I'm not too familiar with 2600 hardware. But, why does the ship's shape change when I'm moving side-to-side? The original doesn't do this. I'm guessing it's because of a hardware limitation...?

It was a little expirement of mine. The movement should cause your brain to see a higher resolution. Just like when the checkerboard is moving left/right. The checkerboard looks hi-res in movement, while the actual resolution is very low.
I did not hear any complains about it so the feature is still there.

[raindog]

roland p, on Mon Feb 15, 2010 1:31 AM, said:

MrFish, on Mon Feb 15, 2010 12:48 AM, said:

Excuse my ignorance, I'm not too familiar with 2600 hardware. But, why does the ship's shape change when I'm moving side-to-side? The original doesn't do this. I'm guessing it's because of a hardware limitation...?

It was a little expirement of mine. The movement should cause your brain to see a higher resolution. Just like when the checkerboard is moving left/right. The checkerboard looks hi-res in movement, while the actual resolution is very low.
I did not hear any complains about it so the feature is still there.

It really does help the subjective resolution, and normally during play you wouldn't be spending a lot of time staring at a slowly-moving opponent (or probably see the quad version of the sprite for more than a second or two at a time).

[mos6507]

raindog, on Mon Feb 15, 2010 9:23 AM, said:

It really does help the subjective resolution, and normally during play you wouldn't be spending a lot of time staring at a slowly-moving opponent (or probably see the quad version of the sprite for more than a second or two at a time).

In motion it acts kind of like antialiasing. But it really does have to be in motion. When it's not in motion, and the ship is smaller, it kind of warps the sprite in a way that might be better served by a static optimized sprite. Maybe it would be worth putting a range limit on this effect. When the sprites drop down to single width maybe?

[roland p]

mos6507, on Mon Feb 15, 2010 9:40 AM, said:

raindog, on Mon Feb 15, 2010 9:23 AM, said:

It really does help the subjective resolution, and normally during play you wouldn't be spending a lot of time staring at a slowly-moving opponent (or probably see the quad version of the sprite for more than a second or two at a time).

In motion it acts kind of like antialiasing. But it really does have to be in motion. When it's not in motion, and the ship is smaller, it kind of warps the sprite in a way that might be better served by a static optimized sprite. Maybe it would be worth putting a range limit on this effect. When the sprites drop down to single width maybe?

I could switch from quad width to double width when the size is small enough. One of the previous versions did this allready. When it turns out there is enough cycles/memory, I'll put this feature back in.

[Pacfan97]

The project looks great BUDDY!!!!!!!

[Godzilla]

i agree, just keeps getting better. What's next, 2600 fractalus? :-)

[GroovyBee]

Godzilla, on Fri Apr 23, 2010 4:05 PM, said:

i agree, just keeps getting better. What's next, 2600 fractalus? :-)

You never know...

http://www.atariage....ost__p__1992413

[ZylonBane]

Godzilla, on Fri Apr 23, 2010 4:05 PM, said:

i agree, just keeps getting better. What's next, 2600 fractalus? :-)

Please. Why waste time pining for 2600 Fractalus when you can play 2600 Cybermorph instead?

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[Stephen]

ZylonBane, on Fri Apr 23, 2010 8:22 PM, said:

Godzilla, on Fri Apr 23, 2010 4:05 PM, said:

i agree, just keeps getting better. What's next, 2600 fractalus? :-)

Please. Why waste time pining for 2600 Fractalus when you can play 2600 Cybermorph instead?

Where did you learn to fly?

Sorry for the bump - just wondering if there is any new progress on this?

[Albert]

Stephen, on Tue Aug 31, 2010 8:26 PM, said:

Where did you learn to fly?

LOL

Quote

Sorry for the bump - just wondering if there is any new progress on this?

I'm also curious.

..Al

[roland p]

I've not worked on it too much, but I am thinking of it...

In order to be able to continue, I'm thinking of reducing the sprites into squares, the simplest form. That way, it will take as few cycles as possible, hopefully few enough, otherwise I'll have to drop the framerate of the sprites or something.

[Cybergoth]

roland p, on Wed Sep 1, 2010 12:08 AM, said:

In order to be able to continue, I'm thinking of reducing the sprites into squares, the simplest form. That way, it will take as few cycles as possible, hopefully few enough, otherwise I'll have to drop the framerate of the sprites or something.

Hm... what's the problem with the sprites right now?

[Cybergoth]

If the problem is too complex to describe or you actually don't know what the problem precisely is, you can try posting the code that is taking too long to execute.

[roland p]

Tonight I'll dive into the code.

There are just a lot of small things going on to name a few:

- horizontal (X) position of the sprite. Now that's a multiplication routine that uses squares.
- truncating the 16bit X2d coordinate to 8 bit (-128...+127)
- when X of sprite < 0, then it has to be displayed at the right side for wrap around. for grp0 and grp1
- determining the mask of the sprite. There are 4 masks, GRP0 and GRP1 can be masked on both sides, enabling them to dissappear on the left and right side of the screen.
- determining the sprites view (left,right front, back)

The good thing is, the sprite only has to be calculated for one screen.


It's been already 2 years since this thread has started...

[Cybergoth]

roland p, on Thu Sep 2, 2010 7:06 AM, said:

- horizontal (X) position of the sprite. Now that's a multiplication routine that uses squares.

Maybe try them one after another. It seems that the x position is only depending on the vertical and the horizontal distance of the two players?