155 replies to this topic

[ZylonBane]

I've tried ordered dither a few times. The results are uniform all right... uniformly horrible. :wink: I've updated the image above to include an ordered-dither example.

Thomas, that's weird about you getting gray pixels in your split images. Are you sure your custom palette only has 8 values in it? Are they pure (255,0,0) values?

[doron]

Hi guys

ZylonBan, not at all. People are tired of the same old, they want new! Give them samantha fox and they'll go "oh goody! I didn't know the atari can do that!" give them my picture and they'll go "what the fu#ck is this?! this is great! I wonder who that girl is!".

Think of when you saw Combat, you didn't think "oh the atari can do combat" you went "what the hell is this?!". you know?

I say put only personal picture. Do a slide show of our ex girlfriends! You could label the cartridge "March of the Exes"...

dor-x

[ZylonBane]

Let's see if I can explain this...

I look at picture of strange girl, and don't care (except maybe to wonder what's in the part that got cropped off).

I look at picture of strange girl, reduced to 8 flickery colors in horribly low resolution, and care even less.

This technique is so all-around low-rez that it relies heavily on the viewer to mentally "fill in the blanks" in what they're seeing. And this is most effective if the image is one they immediately recognize.

That's (mostly) what this is all about-- the thrill of recognition. Any image munged into this format is NOT going to be appreciated for its subject matter or composition, but for the fact that it's been rendered on the quaint little Atari 2600. It's like they say about Russian dancing bears... it's not the dancing that's remarkable, it's that they dance at all!

Say, that reminds me...
Who can be the first to identify all the pictures in the montage I posted?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

ZylonBane said:

I've tried ordered dither a few times. The results are uniform all right... uniformly horrible.  :wink:  I've updated the image above to include an ordered-dither example.

Agreed, looks horrible.

Quote

Thomas, that's weird about you getting gray pixels in your split images. Are you sure your custom palette only has 8 values in it? Are they pure (255,0,0) values?

Yes, there are exactly eight (different) colors.

No, I'm trying not to use saturated colors because I can't display them on the 2600 anyway.

The values just needed a little fine tuning to give 100% perfect results for each channel. (s. attachment)

Attached Files

•  8_192.zip   175bytes   39 downloads

[Andrew Davie]

I'm delighted to be able to unveil on Atari Age, for the very first time seen anywhere (drum roll).... full screen bitmaps. Mind you, you have to stand away from the TV a bit to get the effect.... but here goes....

Enjoy!

Attached Files

•  baboon.zip   14.37K   79 downloads
•  clown.zip   13.22K   88 downloads
•  nude1.zip   13.63K   88 downloads
•  nude2.zip   13.42K   117 downloads

[doron]

Oh man, ZylonBane, I suppose youre right, at the current state of the art , but when you do manage to pull a decent picture, not something barely recognised, I would like you, personally, to digitise that picture. What do you say?

dor-x

PS adavie, what do we need to do with the .pro file?

[Andrew Davie]

doron said:

Oh man, ZylonBane, I suppose youre right, at the current state of the art , but when you do manage to pull a decent picture, not something barely recognised, I would like you, personally, to digitise that picture. What do you say?

dor-x

PS adavie, what do we need to do with the .pro file?

Attached is a full-screen (and rotated) image of your lady-friend. The .pro file is for the stella emulator, and it lets it recognise how to run the binary (girl.bin) correctly. You don't need it for Z26, but you do need the -g11 switch.

Cheers
A

Attached Files

•  girl.zip   13.38K   90 downloads

[doron]

Dude, right now, you couldn't be more apreciated. If you were here I would buy you a beer.

thanks man
dor-x

PS I know the .pro file's for stella, but where to put it?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

adavie said:

I'm delighted to be able to unveil on Atari Age, for the very first time seen anywhere (drum roll).... full screen bitmaps.  Mind you, you have to stand away from the TV a bit to get the effect.... but here goes....

Nice! I hope you had some aspirin at hand while testing on an emulator.

How about using the interlace mode now?

BTW: People are asking for animation already. I think by using a lot of ROM and extra RAM plus some kind of difference encoding something might be possible. (But can you do it with just 4K? )

[ZylonBane]

Thomas Jentzsch said:

No, I'm trying not to use saturated colors because I can't display them on the 2600 anyway.

Ah, that's your problem. You're using such a desaturated palette that the primaries are bleeding into each other at split time. You should go with a pure saturated palette. Consider that all the color values are really doing is to flag which pixels go in which color separations.

By using a desaturated palette and cleaning up the gray pixels in the split images afterward, you're achieving exactly the same effect as using a saturated palette in the first place.

doron... you're an odd one for sure.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

ZylonBane said:

Ah, that's your problem. You're using such a desaturated palette that the primaries are bleeding into each other at split time.

Clay, with the corrected palette I posted above that doesn't happen anymore. I just made sure that the minimal levels for each color channel are all the same (32) for each palette entry.

Quote

Consider that all the color values are really doing is to flag which pixels go in which color separations.

Yes, but as I tried to explain above, different palettes cause different dithering (due to different error sums). IMO the dithering algorithm should work best if it uses the same (as possible) palette (just a bit darker) as the 2600 who has to display the result.

BTW: I forgot to mention my very first step above:
Make the image brighter (to compensate the brightness loss when flickering) and reduce the contrast a bit. Some gamma correction does the job.

[Godzilla]

adavie: thats amazing. full screen 2600 bitmaps! (add that to your fmv baby, pauls new sound rountines, and the recently discovered hi-res mode... the renaissance of the 2600 is at hand!)

[ZylonBane]

Godzilla-- the 2600 has had full-screen bitmaps since Combat, an animated sprite does not constitute "FMV", and what is this "hi-res mode"?

Thomas-- Interesting... I've gotten better results when I increase the contrast. Otherwise images tend to just run together into a blob of color. What I do in PSP is go to Levels and set the Input levels to around 30, 1.00, 225. Gets rid of distracting dither in the solid dark and bright areas of the image.

This is fun!

[Godzilla]

oh come on zylon, filling the screen with one color and dropping on a few blocks is not what i call a full-screen bitmap. if that is to you, fine, be happy.

There is another thread referencing the hi-res technique, seek and you shall find.

And whatever technique adavie used is irrelevant, its still some video of a computer graphic from a tv show moving (motion,) on the screen.

what is with yo petty self anyway?

[ZylonBane]

Godzilla, step carefully away from the technical terminology, and leave it to the people who actually know what it means.

[Paul Slocum]

ZylonBane said:

the 2600 has had full-screen bitmaps since Combat

Combat's actually a half-screen bitmap with mirror-mode on.

The hi-rez mode he's talking about is probably the interlace demo:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.p...light=interlace

-Paul

[Godzilla]

ZylonBane said:

Godzilla, step carefully away from the technical terminology, and leave it to the people who actually know what it means.

/me sighs.

Uhm for me to do that in relation to one 'mr. bane' said Mr. Bane would have to actually fulfill said requirements of 'knowing what it means' as others (who do know,) in this thread have already demonstrated the contrary of your professed knowledge.

So how about you just take some deep breaths and try to learn to enjoy life without telling others what to do based on your rather unhappy perspectives. I do not share them.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I don't like the mood of some of the latest post to this thread. Would you mind to continue by using private mail?

Please!

[Godzilla]

I agree, I wish Mr. Bane would stop living up to his nick and keep it in his pants. But I'm not just going to sit here and tolerate the drizzle.

[ZylonBane]

Thomas Jentzsch said:

I don't like the mood of some of the latest post to this thread.

Sorry about that. I too was enjoying the tone of the thread up 'til now. It's not that I have a problem with Godzilla personally, I just have an ingrained habit of correcting when someone posts something that's factually wrong. I can't help that Godzilla does this a lot.

That he refuses to admit when he's wrong does get on my nerves though.

[Godzilla]

Oh, this is all so childish. Ah, me. Ok, when in rome... there is nothing 'factually wrong' in what I said. The only thing wrong in this equation is YOU, ZB. What is so terrible about the wonderful 2600 renaissance at hand? And, really, what is your issue? I express something from a place of pure joy and you feel the need to drizzle your hairy mangina all over the place. really. Meditate or something, or maybe play some more really fast 2600 games or violent modern games to vent your obvious frustrations that well up from I don't know where.

[Andrew Davie]

The petty nitpicking about terminology, the needless bickering, and the lack of encouragement is disappointing. I take from this episode little satisfaction in the achievement of large colour *bitmaps* on the '2600 - something I've been working on for a while, now (witness my 'PUSH' 4-colour playfield from 1998 or so), and my postings to the [stella] list over the last month or so, including the Dancing Baby demo.

I shared with the community with my sense of wonder and excitement as something new and magic was being developed. I get little impression that anyone else even understands what has been achieved, yet alone appreciates it.

I'm going to take my ball, now, and go home.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

adavie said:

I get little impression that anyone else even understands what has been achieved, yet alone appreciates it.

I do!

[Godzilla]

Did I not mention your achievement as part of 'the wonderful 2600 renaissance' ?? (see my posts,) only to meet the negativity of the 'Bane' If you feel your achievements are somehow lessened, take it up with ol bane boy.

I think it's awesome. Incredible work, adavie.

[ZylonBane]

Wow, how did Godzilla's sloppy use of established terminology turn into disillusionment with the fan community?? I'm not seeing any connection between the two issues.

adavie, I think you're expecting too much too soon from the fans. This technique is just getting started-- most people haven't even heard of it yet. Wait until we've ironed out all the issues with conversion and rendering and such, put out a proper demo or two, then judge the community.

Maybe someone should drop a line about this on rgva?