32 replies to this topic

[Heaven/TQA]

Can someone (Oky f.e.) explain what NUFLI is?

http://www.revision-...events/seminars

[Mclaneinc]

Heaven/TQA, on Wed Apr 27, 2011 2:19 AM, said:

Can someone (Oky f.e.) explain what NUFLI is?

http://www.revision-...events/seminars

Dunno but there's many a face there I would not let near kids

[Rybags]

320 pixel bitmap with FLI technique to generate badlines (attribute re-read) with sprite underlays which allow more colour.

So, an 8x2 pixel block can have 3 colours. I think the third (sprite) colour is shared across multiple characters and can be changed on the alternate scanline (middle one of the 8x2).

http://noname.c64.or...3&topicid=68273 - some info there.

[carmel_andrews]

Does that mean there's 'new flies' on the c64

Edited by carmel_andrews, Wed Apr 27, 2011 8:24 AM.

[Xuel]

Crest debuted NUFLI in their Crest Slide Story 90% demo.

They also released a NUFLI Editor. Here are versions 1.11 and 1.22.

[oky2000]

Heaven/TQA, on Wed Apr 27, 2011 2:19 AM, said:

Can someone (Oky f.e.) explain what NUFLI is?

http://www.revision-...events/seminars

Me?

I searched nufli/ifli/mci C64 images on Tuesday (scanline source stuff from other A8 thread) and then also stumbled on the updated stuff from Algorithm.

http://noname.c64.or...769&firstpost=2

Edited by oky2000, Wed Apr 27, 2011 3:39 PM.

[tebe]

sprites overlay = multiplexed sprite (double size)

[flashjazzcat]

Extremely impressive indeed... but what's this gotta do with the A8?

Top two topics on this forum have C64 in the title... hmmm...

Edited by flashjazzcat, Thu Apr 28, 2011 1:48 PM.

[popmilo]

tebe, on Thu Apr 28, 2011 1:03 PM, said:

sprites overlay = multiplexed sprite (double size)

There are 6 hires sprites in a row and they are double expanded, so each covers area of 24 a8s color-pixels which is 6 characters.
That is 36 chars.
Left 3 chars are called "Flibug" area... Thats the part of screen in FLI that has limits in colors that make it hardly usefull.
That is why they put 2 sprites in there (one hires over one multicolor).
The leftover character "40 column" is simple hires+fli=AFLI

Think of it like this: Colorfull hires graphic(8x2 areas in 2 out of 16 colors) + multicolored underlay with limited number of changes for that multicolor sprite underlay per raster line (max 5 out of 6 color changes for 24x1 areas).

And these sprites are vertically multiplexed of course to cover whole height of screen.

Actually - forget about trying to understand it... It's so complex it only makes sense with converter !

Edited by popmilo, Sat Apr 30, 2011 2:39 PM.

[popmilo]

flashjazzcat, on Thu Apr 28, 2011 1:23 PM, said:

Extremely impressive indeed... but what's this gotta do with the A8?

Maybe similar technic could be applied to A8 also ?
PM layer under hires or multicolor bitmap with lots of DLI color changes ?

flashjazzcat, on Thu Apr 28, 2011 1:23 PM, said:

Top two topics on this forum have C64 in the title... hmmm...

Ha! We got in

Na... Just look at it as inspiration for more impressive Atari stuff to come...

[emkay]

popmilo, on Sat Apr 30, 2011 2:38 PM, said:

flashjazzcat, on Thu Apr 28, 2011 1:23 PM, said:

Extremely impressive indeed... but what's this gotta do with the A8?

Maybe similar technic could be applied to A8 also ?
PM layer under hires or multicolor bitmap with lots of DLI color changes ?

flashjazzcat, on Thu Apr 28, 2011 1:23 PM, said:

Top two topics on this forum have C64 in the title... hmmm...

Ha! We got in

Na... Just look at it as inspiration for more impressive Atari stuff to come...

The question is, WHAT will any A8 coder adopt from it?

Particular hires is a domain of the C64.

Actually, I can see people try to run behind those features, dropping the development on the A8's domain features.


SID:
 Leaving_on_a_Jetplane.zip   9.43K   30 downloads

I put this one in, to make the topic a bit more round.

We >can< reach music like this, but >never< we have a sprite based hires game or demo as on the C64. Except someone finds the hidden register that activates clean PAL support

In lower resolutions, the A8 can find it's strength (sneaking towards Space Harrier or Project M).... and powerfull Jump&Run in gr.7 will always reach the playability ... and quality ...of the Arcades from the early 80s.

Edited by emkay, Sat Apr 30, 2011 2:54 PM.

[flashjazzcat]

I tend to agree, to be honest. The two platforms are sufficiently different (graphics hardware wise) that to try and emulate effects/techniques such as these on the A8 will never yield comparable results. This is another example of trying to best or equal the achievments on another platform rather than coding things unique to our own machine. Someone has raised a similar concern with regard to games, although I have nothing but complete admiration for the conversion in question and the programming achievement is unquestionably impressive.

And just in case this is misunderstood as sour grapes, I'll point out that I'm not a great advocate of C64/A8 one-upmanship, and when I watch demonstrations of NUFLI C64 graphics and hi-res videos, I am rather envious, since the A8 will never be capable of hi-res colour changes like those. The C64's frustrating fixed palette and muted colours are actually advantageous in these colour blending custom modes, and no amount of raster interrupts and sprite underlays are going to achieve the same effect on the A8, IMO.

As some of us accept the idiosyncracies of the A8 graphics system and choose to push the machine in other directions while capitalizing on its strengths (such as the faster CPU), it's intriguing that several topics appear about C64 achievements which would be difficult or impossible to achieve on the A8, and which may end up charting a failed attempt to equal some facility of that machine on the Atari.

It's clear, then, that it will soon be time to start placing random posts about the A8 GUI on the C64 forums.

Edited by flashjazzcat, Sat Apr 30, 2011 3:35 PM.

[bob1200xl]

"Never"?

You mean, without hardware, not Never, right?

Bob

flashjazzcat, on Sat Apr 30, 2011 3:33 PM, said:

I tend to agree, to be honest. The two platforms are sufficiently different (graphics hardware wise) that to try and emulate effects/techniques such as these on the A8 will never yield comparable results. This is another example of trying to best or equal the achievments on another platform rather than coding things unique to our own machine. Someone has raised a similar concern with regard to games, although I have nothing but complete admiration for the conversion in question and the programming achievement is unquestionably impressive.

And just in case this is misunderstood as sour grapes, I'll point out that I'm not a great advocate of C64/A8 one-upmanship, and when I watch demonstrations of NUFLI C64 graphics and hi-res videos, I am rather envious, since the A8 will never be capable of hi-res colour changes like those. The C64's frustrating fixed palette and muted colours are actually advantageous in these colour blending custom modes, and no amount of raster interrupts and sprite underlays are going to achieve the same effect on the A8, IMO.

As some of us accept the idiosyncracies of the A8 graphics system and choose to push the machine in other directions while capitalizing on its strengths (such as the faster CPU), it's intriguing that several topics appear about C64 achievements which would be difficult or impossible to achieve on the A8, and which may end up charting a failed attempt to equal some facility of that machine on the Atari.

It's clear, then, that it will soon be time to start placing random posts about the A8 GUI on the C64 forums.

[popmilo]

If "hires is domain of the C64" then I guess, nobody should be making gui for A8 in hires ?

I have a PAL A8 with video signal that is already quite nice
and I'm installig supervid mod for svideo output soon on my 800xl.

Hires is there on A8 to be used, as FlashJazzcat has clearly shown.

NUFLI is nice for static screens - but beyond that - 1MHz is simply slow for anything else to be done with it.

A8 has its strengths, and one of them is CPU - so why not use that cpu to move stuff around in hires ?

I did get some inspiration from it - using sprites to put more color on screen.
Here is example of what I did with simple PM underlay and some "borrowed" hires graphics:



This looks pretty nice to me, even with artifacting.
ps. Ignore "tearing" - no double buffering implemented.

This won't stop me from trying things out in Gr 7 for example
It's just that tactical rpg would look ugly with multicolor graphics in 2x2 tiles.

[popmilo]

Heaven/TQA, on Wed Apr 27, 2011 2:19 AM, said:

Can someone (Oky f.e.) explain what NUFLI is?

http://www.revision-...events/seminars

I guess we should wait for answer from Heaven, who knows besides him - why did he even ask that question

[Rybags]

Using double overlayed ORed PMGs ?

The "problem" with PMGs in Gr. 0 is that they override both PF colours.

But not all is lost - Luma 0 is close to black for many colours.

Another option is interleaved Mode F and hires, but it can be tricky to get things looking nice there.

[emkay]

popmilo, on Sun May 1, 2011 2:23 AM, said:

If "hires is domain of the C64" then I guess, nobody should be making gui for A8 in hires ?

I have a PAL A8 with video signal that is already quite nice
and I'm installig supervid mod for svideo output soon on my 800xl.

Hires is there on A8 to be used, as FlashJazzcat has clearly shown.

NUFLI is nice for static screens - but beyond that - 1MHz is simply slow for anything else to be done with it.

A8 has its strengths, and one of them is CPU - so why not use that cpu to move stuff around in hires ?

I did get some inspiration from it - using sprites to put more color on screen.
Here is example of what I did with simple PM underlay and some "borrowed" hires graphics:



This looks pretty nice to me, even with artifacting.
ps. Ignore "tearing" - no double buffering implemented.

Yes, but this is the upper limit.

You cannot add coloured moving obects, nor let them move in hires with colours.

Quote

This won't stop me from trying things out in Gr 7 for example
It's just that tactical rpg would look ugly with multicolor graphics in 2x2 tiles.

2x2 looks only bad if fullscreen and overlay isn't used.

[flashjazzcat]

I struggle to see where I implied that hi-res shouldn't be used on the A8. You call a graphics statement and it's there to be used. The gist of my argument is that we cannot achive what in our case are half clock colour changes, so anything we attempt along the lines of NUFLI is going to be limited. Emkay said "Particular hires is a domain of the C64", which I take to mean that hi-res with horizontal hue changes of 320px granularity are particular to the C64, and this is indeed the case.

Of course we can do what we like with VBXE or "other hardware", but that's probably outside the remit of the discussion. By that token we can crap all over the C64 by displaying 256 colour pictures in hi-res with no restrictions on palette or colour use.

The PM underlay example looks really nice, BTW.

Edited by flashjazzcat, Sun May 1, 2011 2:39 AM.

[emkay]

flashjazzcat, on Sun May 1, 2011 2:37 AM, said:

I struggle to see where I implied that hi-res shouldn't be used on the A8. You call a graphics statement and it's there to be used. The gist of my argument is that we cannot achive what in our case are half clock colour changes, so anything we attempt along the lines of NUFLI is going to be limited. Emkay said "Particular hires is a domain of the C64", which I take to mean that hi-res with horizontal hue changes of 320px granularity are particular to the C64.

The PM underlay example looks really nice, BTW.

The real advantage of the VICII is the 320 pixel resolution in movement. We only can move in 320 pixel resolution with plain graphics. PM only move in the "160" pixel aka colour clocks resolution. On the C64 you can even move "160 res." colour pixel sprites in the 320 pixel resolution. There is no way to do something simlar on the A8.

[popmilo]

flashjazzcat, on Sun May 1, 2011 2:37 AM, said:

I struggle to see where I implied that hi-res shouldn't be used on the A8...

You didn't

Quite the opposite. Your gui is excellent example for proper usage of A8s hires.

@"hi-res with horizontal hue changes of 320px granularity are particular to the C64": Agreed. That is a hardware thing and there is no way around it.

Still, imho - a lot can be done using adequate color combinations.

[popmilo]

Rybags, on Sun May 1, 2011 2:28 AM, said:

Using double overlayed ORed PMGs ?

Yes. quad sized PMs in two layers. 3 colors.

Rybags, on Sun May 1, 2011 2:28 AM, said:

The "problem" with PMGs in Gr. 0 is that they override both PF colours.

But not all is lost - Luma 0 is close to black for many colours.

Yeah, that was a nasty surprise

But there are really good color combinations, I've been experimenting with it for a while and it can look quite OK.

Rybags, on Sun May 1, 2011 2:28 AM, said:

Another option is interleaved Mode F and hires, but it can be tricky to get things looking nice there.

Been thinking about that before.
Is color bleeding occuring then ?
Any example of that ?

[emkay]

popmilo, on Sun May 1, 2011 6:47 AM, said:

Rybags, on Sun May 1, 2011 2:28 AM, said:

Another option is interleaved Mode F and hires, but it can be tricky to get things looking nice there.

Been thinking about that before.
Is color bleeding occuring then ?
Any example of that ?

Check the "Spieler" lines





Or the "hires coloured" POINTS-Arrows

Edited by emkay, Sun May 1, 2011 6:57 AM.

[popmilo]

emkay, on Sun May 1, 2011 2:34 AM, said:

...Yes, but this is the upper limit.

Limit's exist until someone overcomes them

Kidding aside - We really should strive for those limits - no matter how low and useless they seem.

emkay, on Sun May 1, 2011 2:34 AM, said:

You cannot add coloured moving obects, nor let them move in hires with colours.

You are right about movement limitations of color pixels ...

For my example - movement in char resolution is not a problem. It's a feature

But Manic miner on A8 is good example of 1 pixel movement possibility (moving bitmap graphics over colored pixel under them):

emkay, on Sun May 1, 2011 2:34 AM, said:

2x2 looks only bad if fullscreen and overlay isn't used.

I like idea of overscan 2x2 mode - for arcade jump&run game - not for game with lots of details like this.

It just can not fit on screen. Vertical resolution is a problem - max of up to 120 double-sized lines. That would give me only 7 tiles.

Will think about it more thou

[popmilo]

Rybags, on Sun May 1, 2011 2:28 AM, said:

Another option is interleaved Mode F and hires, but it can be tricky to get things looking nice there.

Isn't Mode F - hires ?
Intereaved Mode F and Hires =

emkay, on Sun May 1, 2011 6:56 AM, said:

...

Or the "hires coloured" POINTS-Arrows

Thanks for qucik response

How does it work ? Are those just color changes every line or are there different modes ?

[Rybags]

I meant Mode E. So that makes E/F.

Depending on colour settings you can get PAL colour mix artifacts... not to mention the normal hires artifacts esp. NTSC.