746 replies to this topic

[José Pereira]

Have you all forgot that we have a PoP with the 'Man running' on A8 and it is 'Masked by the Walls' and he can also 'Mask the Enemy ':
 p_o_p.xex   28.53K   37 downloads
Thanks to Miker to release it some time ago.

[José Pereira]

emkay, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 12:17 AM, said:

After it has been converted, the GFX could be adjusted to gr. 15 and some PM overlay could be added.

My suggestion is to use the overlay just for the bright white of the Prince's cloth and the weapons, while the background still should use colours at a lower level.

Emkay thiese are some of tricky ones to get into A8 (were, as almost all can now be turned into A8 if going into my idea):

Get these colours on the widest ones with PMs overlays but don't forget:
'You still need PMs. for the Enemy (and it's Wepon, or you would have it's sword in a different colour as the Prince's one? Or the Enemy the same colour as the Walls Gfxs.?)


Emkay, if a coder comes, if it is in Bitmap Mode and if we go for PMs. overlays then I have it all, I have the solution.
Is it any problem in asking for the C64 Gfxs. that are in Bitmap Mode and would directly be ported into A8 (and also all the game Map)
Or is it because it's from C64 guys, STE86 did the sprites...?
Or you and anyone here are thinking in doing all the frames from scratch and better than the STE's ones?


Indeed the C64 Author, had some talks at the old PoP into A8 talk here and he has been here on the last Hours reading this ..

Edited by José Pereira, Tue Oct 11, 2011 1:25 AM.

[Marius1976]

Whatever choice it will be: please do NOT chose for some brain-killing Interlacing mode.

It's ok in fast moving games like Space Harrier, but it is not suitable for Prince of Persia. I saw that little thingy miker wrote... looks cool, but all that flickering is terrible.

I'd prefer less colors and a lower resolution, and a smooth running game.

[emkay]

José Pereira, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 12:30 AM, said:

Emkay there's no way to use the White as PMs because you then wouldn't have the Skin colour in the Walls.

1st kick the C64 thinking off your head.


2nd. Look at the Apple version. It uses two colours for the Walls (+black).


We could turn to the PC way and make the walls more irregular.

Then we could use PM underlay everywhere the protagonist is not walking..... right.... with the white colour.

The whole protagonist could be created by software. Overlay could be added just to that point, when the game will not slow down.

[José Pereira]

emkay, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 6:14 AM, said:

José Pereira, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 12:30 AM, said:

Emkay there's no way to use the White as PMs because you then wouldn't have the Skin colour in the Walls.

1st kick the C64 thinking off your head.


2nd. Look at the Apple version. It uses two colours for the Walls (+black).


We could turn to the PC way and make the walls more irregular.

Then we could use PM underlay everywhere the protagonist is not walking..... right.... with the white colour.

The whole protagonist could be created by software. Overlay could be added just to that point, when the game will not slow down.

????
Why I am still saying the same...

There's no coder to an already and more simple way with all the Gfxs./Tiles for free.
All the sprite frames for free.

It's just a soft sprite routine with PMs.
Now imagine who will ever build all that sprites frames, re-design all the Gfxs.
That just because you think it's not in a way.



I may not be always right (but now I think I am) but your idea...
Two colours only on the Walls... White as PM...
We could turn to the PC way and make the walls more irregular.

Then we could use PM underlay everywhere the protagonist is not walking..... right.... with the white colour.???
Two colours only on the Walls... White as PM...
We could turn to the PC way and make the walls more irregular.
????


The point his:
You need soft sprites with PMs on it.
If you must have this, why not get a clear and good looking screen like this:

And why get into an Apple2 stuff, that will never be like it (Apple2 was using a Higher Resolution Mode 560x384 (x2 the higher A8 resolution) into a stupid conversion of Walls into 2colours that would look something like this:



Lots of work, not necessary, stupid waste of time and 'SH...' looking game.
For this I am out.
Anyone that likes it do it!

[mrsid]

The Apple2 version is running at 280x192.

[José Pereira]

mrsid, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 7:00 AM, said:

The Apple2 version is running at 280x192.

But the screen on MobyGames are using 560x384 or they 'Zoomed' it?
I don't even know if Apple2 has an Higher Resolution like CPC or BBC...

[mrsid]

Some of the screenshots are doubled in size, others are not:

Edited by mrsid, Tue Oct 11, 2011 7:08 AM.

[Bryan]

Wich one of these two Prince of Persia you prefer?

Isn't that the topic of a Spindoctors song?

[José Pereira]

José Pereira, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 6:58 AM, said:

emkay, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 6:14 AM, said:

José Pereira, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 12:30 AM, said:

Emkay there's no way to use the White as PMs because you then wouldn't have the Skin colour in the Walls.

1st kick the C64 thinking off your head.


2nd. Look at the Apple version. It uses two colours for the Walls (+black).


We could turn to the PC way and make the walls more irregular.

Then we could use PM underlay everywhere the protagonist is not walking..... right.... with the white colour.

The whole protagonist could be created by software. Overlay could be added just to that point, when the game will not slow down.

????
Why I am still saying the same...

There's no coder to an already and more simple way with all the Gfxs./Tiles for free.
All the sprite frames for free.

It's just a soft sprite routine with PMs.
Now imagine who will ever build all that sprites frames, re-design all the Gfxs.
That just because you think it's not in a way.



I may not be always right (but now I think I am) but your idea...
Two colours only on the Walls... White as PM...
We could turn to the PC way and make the walls more irregular.

Then we could use PM underlay everywhere the protagonist is not walking..... right.... with the white colour.???
Two colours only on the Walls... White as PM...
We could turn to the PC way and make the walls more irregular.
????


The point his:
You need soft sprites with PMs on it.
If you must have this, why not get a clear and good looking screen like this:

And why get into an Apple2 stuff, that will never be like it (Apple2 was using a Higher Resolution Mode 560x384 (x2 the higher A8 resolution) into a stupid conversion of Walls into 2colours that would look something like this:



Lots of work, not necessary, stupid waste of time and 'SH...' looking game.
For this I am out.
Anyone that likes it do it!

See pictures carefully and think wich one would look better:
-> An A8 colours with A8 Pallete OR a almost all 4colour version like the Apple2:
http://www.atariage....a-another-poll/
(Zoom the Images... the Dither is good, but on small sized Windows )

Edited by José Pereira, Tue Oct 11, 2011 7:50 AM.

[jmetal88]

Bryan, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 7:22 AM, said:

Wich one of these two Prince of Persia you prefer?

Isn't that the topic of a Spindoctors song?

One, two princes kneel before you,
That's what I said now.
Princes, princes who adore you,
Just go ahead now.
This one has diamonds in his pockets,
That's some bread now.
This one says he wants to buy you rockets,
Ain't in his head now.

[sack-c0s]

I still don't get how this can't do at least 25FPS though. Admittedly the moving objects are quite tall, but there's only ever a couple on screen at a time so even with masking overheads I'm convinced that an Atari or commodore plus/4 could do this at 25FPS

Look at how smooth a (128K)) ZX spectrum can do it:



and that's normally a pain in the arse to get a decent, fluid framerate out of.

Edited by sack-c0s, Tue Oct 11, 2011 9:02 AM.

[Heaven/TQA]

simply use the Apple 2 version... like in the 80s... and spice them up with PMs... XXL is the key here...

why Apple2 because the core engine is the right one... the original platform... how does the new c64 port stay against the original version in terms of gameplay and feeling?

[Heaven/TQA]

well... why do I have to think of Karateka when watching the intro and the princess turning around? (and yes.... I know who coded Karateka...)

[Heaven/TQA]

http://jordanmechner...ersia-released/

[Rybags]

I'd say the original would have needed to shift data on the fly, and probably do mirroring as well.

Didn't he use some sort of compression too?

The obvious media for this game would be a 1 MB cart. It might well even run in 40K of RAM, the big memory hog is all the animation frames. With the large cart, there's the decent chance for all frames with the shifts and mirroring.

[sack-c0s]

Heaven/TQA, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 9:13 AM, said:

well... why do I have to think of Karateka when watching the intro and the princess turning around?

Could be worse - if the team behind 'dead or alive' did it....

[Heaven/TQA]

@Rybags... on the site there is a development PDF with information on structures, data layout memory usage etc... the apple 2 version needs 128 kb definitly... so maybe one reason why they used a cart on c64, too...

the speccy version does not look authentic, does it?

[sack-c0s]

the speccy version looks as good as it can under the circumstances I think.

Would you need to actually keep every sprite preshifted though? It might be possible to arrange the walk cycle so each frame of the step is shifted, so you lose a bit of memory on account of the sprite being wider in memory, but you end up with only one copy of each animation frame so you don't lose as much as you would otherwise lose.

It would possibly limit where you could smoothly stop though, so you'd need a close look at the apple II original to see how that does it - there's a chance level elements might be aligned to get around these issues anyway (looking at the video of the editing process I suspect so)

Edited by sack-c0s, Tue Oct 11, 2011 10:33 AM.

[Heaven/TQA]

but Speccy should be fast enough to copy the damned 1 sprite per frame into VRAM... on a static screen...

[oky2000]

*waits for emkay to claim he can do A8 graphics as nice as Super Nintendo 256 colour graphics*

[Heaven/TQA]

oky... come on...

[emkay]

Heaven/TQA, on Tue Oct 11, 2011 11:52 PM, said:

oky... come on...

Just not replying to this nonsense is the best, anyone can do.

[mrsid]

Guys, I'd recommend less talk and more code. Figuring out the graphics mode is the least of your problems...

[emkay]

mrsid, on Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:31 AM, said:

Guys, I'd recommend less talk and more code. Figuring out the graphics mode is the least of your problems...

Actually, it's the 1st step you have to think of, when doing graphical stuff for the A8.

You can chose from a linear framebuffer, using approx. 30% of CPU ...
You can chose from a linear framebuffer , ussing approx. 15% of CPU and 100% faster screenhandling
You can chose from a non linear charmode, giving an extra colour, but the software objects get more complicated.
and so on.

So you have to look at the count and size of the moving objects, and chose the best fitting mode.