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would that work? Mortal Kombat on the Lynx


Tempest2k

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Let's do the math: the NES's sprites sheets is made of 50 liu kang's sprites. All of them are (more or less) 30*60 pixels. So if one single sprite requires 1800 bytes, a full set requires 1800*50 = +-90 KB. And we need a second character and a background. And some RAM left for the code.

 

With a maximum of 48 KB available...

 

On the other hand, the GameGear version has huge sprites but even less RAM... So I'm missing something I guess!

The Lynx supports two sprite data types: literal (which consumes about the memory you specified divided by 2, because there are only 16 colors/pens, so two pixels fit in 1 byte.) and packed (which is efficient for horizontal sprite lines that have similar consecutive colors)

Should ypu strive for 8 or 4 colors, the memory needed goes down by a factor 2 to 4 approximately.

Packed format can have quite an impact on size. I have no actual numbers for these sheets, but 10 - 50 percent does not seem weird. You can test this with the sprpck.exe tool.

Edited by LX.NET
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Hey thanks LX.NET, I didn't notice sprpck had a compression option (this is activated by default BTW, so no difference for my little project but it's good to know about it).

 

Those precision are great! If we reduce sprites to 8 colors (4 should be possible, Street Fighter Alpha on GBC has only 3 - still a good game - but forget about digit-style then), we can reduced the size by 4 in unpacked mode, and even less in packed mode (it's still 25kb for 50 frames). Has packed mode any impact on performance?

 

edit : playing with sprpck options, I could reduce a 30*60 sprites - 8 colors - to 621 bytes. This is 31KB for 50 frames. Better but still not enough...

Edited by LordKraken
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All you do is use segmenting, i've done this in Alien and it works well. Ie. split tile sheet into say 3 or 4 bits on load from rom as required. Logistically it will be a nightmare and effect speed a little, but its not impossible.

Edited by GadgetUK
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Hi guys.

 

Would that work if you crack the Game Gear version of Mortal Kombat, In some way.

 

So you can play it on the Lynx? It would be interesting.

 

The Game Gear system uses tiling system and Lynx uses objects(everything's sprites with no scanline limitation except it'll take longer to draw if there's many objects.[i may be wrong]). Game Gear(Gameboy version too I believe) version of MK and MK2 use 1 opponent as tile, and the other sprites due to it sprite limitation, which is why the game is choppy. Game Gear use Z80, and Lynx uses 6502 CPU so they use different instruction set. These system are vastly different. So Lynx version of MK would have to be built from the ground up, and then port the graphics into the game. It would be very interesting see it done.

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Matashen > Well, my programming skills are far from good old ASM/C stuffs and honestly, I dont think I'm good enough to literally "port" MK2. The guy behind Zaku is the man for that (or you... KWT looks pretty amazing)! But, the technical problems (RAM and squeezed graphics) are interesting and I've already done some code for the Lynx, so... we'll see.

 

Do you really think we can have real-time loading directly from ROM? (for instance, you press down-forward-punch and subzero's iceball animation is then streamed from ROM seamless?)

 

Kiwi > I guess the idea is to rip all sprites from game gear and to code everything else from scratch. Sprites are great on this version (not the music ahah).

Edited by LordKraken
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What you forgot to mention is that those other systems support WAAAAAAAAAAAY more colour than the Lynx. Which makes up for the difference in appearance - more colour will give you more contrast, e.g. more shades of colours to choose from. You have more options to make them stand out from the background - that´s what the Lynx is lacking, where you start missing detail sooner with less colours available. That´s a simple truth.

 

Yes, the GG, GBC and NGPC all could display more colors at once; but I don't think that really makes a big difference when it comes to choosing the sprite size. In my mind, the smaller the sprites the less colors are needed for them. Let's say I pick 10 colors for all the sprites, and 6 for each background (the background can also use the sprite colors as well of course), imo it should work.

 

 

 

Well the GG port is pretty decent, isn't it?

MKII was a killer on the 8bit sega handheld, but OK I was 10 :)

 

No, it's not very good imo.^^

 

Kiwi > I guess the idea is to rip all sprites from game gear and to code everything else from scratch. Sprites are great on this version (not the music ahah).

 

Did you look at my sprite comparison of different MK version sprites in releation to the Lynx screen?

 

u7foqmk1pl9k.png

 

If we take the GG-sprites, it will be absolutely impossible to jump in the game. They are over 80 pixels high, only 20 vertical lines would be left; some of them have to go to the bottom, then let's say 15 pixels over the characters.

 

I thought people wanted a game, not a sprite demo.

 

Seriously, guys, no harsh feelings, but I think I'm out of this. I know I probably sound like an insulted diva, but I am just unmotivated to work on a version that I am convinced is so flawed from the concept that it will be a terrible game. I like good graphics, but game design has to take priority, Capcom and SNK showed us the way for low res fighting... and that's not the case here. I feel all the possibilities for tactical gameplay are sacrificed for nice visuals and the result will be a bad, bad game. :(

 

I'll just do what I believe is best for matashen's and my fighting game; it's not in development yet, but I enlisted the help of a fighting game nut for the basic gameplay mechanics/balancing, and I'm working on a design document. :)

Edited by 108 Stars
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Ach komm du bist kein Diva ;)

 

You're right about GG sprite size. 80 pixels is far too big. But 50/60 could be fine? Mortal Kombat ain't no aerial fighting game.

 

What I find very important with a MK clone is to keep the digit-aspect. If we go in the "small-cartoonish" direction, we would lost the Mk feeling and even worse, we would compete with you karate game. And that's not a good idea IMO coz it looks so great already!

Edited by LordKraken
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lol, I don't mean to make it cartoonish; other devs did that to get at least some more detail into their characters, making them more recognizable.

The MK I would like would still have the digitized sprites, just downscaled to a size of about 55 pixels.

 

Like on this example; took me 5 minutes and I colored it a bit, a rushjob. If you take more time it will look cleaner and better of course, but even in 5 minutes I think the result is a sprite that retains the digi look at 55 pixels.

 

On the right is the Mega Drive sprite.

 

post-21561-0-17004500-1366383512.png

 

Now imagine this moving through the standing animation... not many colors, easy to make the animation smooth. Also more space for animation in memory...

 

Of course I admit, it is not as good as the Game Gear sprite; but there have to be sacrifices made going from 32 colors to 16. Even if the sprite remained 80 pixels high, we would lose a lot because of the reduced number of colors.

Edited by 108 Stars
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Johnny Cage from MK II lynxified. 7 colors plus background.

 

johnnycage.bmp

 

I am thinking maybe expanding the character palette to 12 for all characters, and only 4 unique for the backgrounds; plus the character colors can be used as well of course. The characters are more important anyway.

 

One issue I have is that I don't find a GameBoy spritesheet for MK II; that would be the perfect starting pont, but alas, nobody ever seemed to do that.^^

Edited by 108 Stars
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They are quite cool actually, and 55 pixel height is still a good size. I prefer raiden and its black outline thus. Better visibility.

 

Do you think its ok to have one palette for the whole game (all characters and backgrounds)? Or at least one palette only per arena/background. Coz 12 colors only for all characters is... well... limited to say the least :)

Edited by LordKraken
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Hehe, the black outline is why I'd want a rip of the Gameby-MK-II-sprites... they already have them, and when resizing the outlines would stay. SNES as base: no outlines, so I have to add them manually.

 

About the palette, my thought is this:

I take 12 colors, they include everything needed for the fighters. Those colors must always be in the palette, as we all combinations of fighters are possible.

That leaves 4 "variable"colors"; sprites don't use them, so we can have them different for every background.

 

So basically we have a special palette for every background, but the first 12 colors that the characters need must always be there, only colors 13-16 are different.

 

I have to see, maybe 10 or 11 colors for all fighters will be enough though.

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dont forget one color that you can use in the background, but needed for sprites as transparence color.

it always must be color0 in the SCB, for easy to code its should always be color0 in the main palette.

 

I will test some streaming things in KWT - i think i can reuse the code in the next project.

 

Regards

Matthias.

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108 stars > Well gameboy color's MK4 used 3 colors only per character (2 unique + black) but that's rather flat ^^

 

matashen > let us know if it's fast enough. At least it could be usable for fatalities :)

 

Yeah, in the end you can reduce as much as you want, but it eventually gets really ugly. When we want to keep the digitized look of MK, then we must have enough colors for that. :)

 

We need black and white.

We need red; his is Mortal Kombat, and characters like Liu Kang and Johnny Cage have red in the clothes.

Skin color; I decided to take 3 of those, normal and two darker shades. The darkest skin color, a brown doubles as dark red. :)

Sub Zero and Raiden come to mind as two characters that need blue for example; also, a color should have a light and a darker blue for shading. So at least 2 tones of blue.

Yellow; Scorpion is an important character. We either need one shade of yellow, plus one darker shade or alternatively, maybe we can use one skin color for shading.

Grey: At least one grey is needed as shading for white.

 

Plus the transparent color that's twelve.

 

Now, as matashen noted (and I did not think of that) we can use the transparent color for the backgrounds. That's a nice extra. :)

 

Now we COULD probably do what the old MK-II-joke article suggested; change the chracter colors with the backgrounds. Like, if we need more tones of blue than the 4 we can choose beside the character palette, and the blue tones from the characters are too light or somehing, we could change the sprite-blue for one background; so that color will look different on both characters and background graphics in this specific stage.

 

I hope you understand what I mean...

 

I am not sure it's worth it though, we can always choose to do that later on when the characters are done and backgrounds being drawn.

 

EDIT: Just looked at MK 4 for Gameboy Color... wow, that looks poor. The devs must have fallen on their head to release it like that...

 

z9jp5mn98dgr.png 982nogbemyf5.png

Edited by 108 Stars
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Don't forget you can get away with more than 16 colors per screen. The 16 color limit is only per scanline, you could probably make Lynx display more than 150 unique color at once. Change color to have different sky (with extra puffy clouds) and different floor while the background would be about the same as characters' color palette.

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Don't forget you can get away with more than 16 colors per screen. The 16 color limit is only per scanline, you could probably make Lynx display more than 150 unique color at once. Change color to have different sky (with extra puffy clouds) and different floor while the background would be about the same as characters' color palette.

Yeah,but it is only good with still screens usually as it slows things to a crawl.Unless,you use some code cheats.I believe,you are referring to "display list interupts" or "hardware list iterupts" that the Atari computers used years ago in the 80s or 90s. :)

 

We also received the Lynx "Hi-Color Mode" from a guy in Europe who's name escapes me now a few years ago that was used on Lynx Reloaded and stuff.

Edited by chris_lynx1989
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This MK4 is awful, especially if you compare it to Street Fighter Alpha on the same machine!

 

Back to the Lynx > for the palette, an improvement could be made by linking each character with his arena. For instance, if you fight against Scorpion, you always play in scorpion's arena. Thus combining the colors of Scorpion's clothes and the free slots, you could have 8 to 9 colors for the background alone. Is that realistic?

 

Anyway, I could try to create a tiny demo with mockup sprites as a proof of concept. Weather here in Europe is terrible at the moment, so there is nothing better to do. What do you think 108 stars?

 

ps : outlined Johnny Cage is :thumbsup:

Edited by LordKraken
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Back to the Lynx > for the palette, an improvement could be made by linking each character with his arena. For instance, if you fight against Scorpion, you always play in scorpion's arena. Thus combining the colors of Scorpion's clothes and the free slots, you could have 8 to 9 colors for the background alone. Is that realistic?

 

hmh, well the problem is there's two fighters. when you play as Johnny Cage, you will meet Scorpion in his stage; when you play as Scorpion, you meet Johnny Cage in his stage; same fighters, different backgrounds. Many combinations are possible.

 

Or maybe I misunderstand you...

 

But the backgrounds can use all 16 colors anyway, there is no difference on Lynx between sprite palette and background palette; all 16 colors can be used in the background, they just won't be all useful everywhere (I imagine yellow will not be used much for them, but we need it for Scorpion, and he can fight in every arena).

 

What we can do is slightly change some of the set colors for each background; like we have the three tones for skin color, and the background has to have earthen colors; so we could adjust the palette for that levels so that all sprites appear with slightly different skin color, so the skin colors can also be used well for the background. It's hard to explain.

 

Anyway, I could try to create a tiny demo with mockup sprites as a proof of concept. Weather here in Europe is terrible at the moment, so there is nothing better to do. What do you think 108 stars?

 

If you do that, make it so that you can easily add some animation and a backround. I will try to animate Johnny Cage standing, but I can't promise when I finish it, maybe quick, but maybe only tomorrow.

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Okay, here's the standing animation for Johnny, and a Raiden without animation but with good colors for Lynx.

 

Now, I am not sure how well (or bad) Johnny animates, I have not tried it because I hate building GIFs to try it out.

 

Sadly, I was unable to use the SNES sprites downscaled much, too many pixels were lost to really read a good animation in them; so I animated by hand. Maybe it sux, but it's a start.^^

 

johnnyanim.bmp

 

The animation is probably not best playedd in a simple loop, but forward and then back.

 

1-2-3-4-3-2-1

Edited by 108 Stars
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