Detailed Screens - Sprites, Missiles and Playfields?

[Cjohnweaver]

I've been reading a huge amount of the posts in the Batari forum, trying to asses whether it would be up to an artistic project I have in mind. I believe it is but I need bit of clarification regarding the approach.

 

The idea is that I would like to produce a cartridge that displays various images of Emirati weaving patterns, such of those in the links below.

 

http://treschicarabia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/image_31.jpg

 

http://dubai.travel-culture.com/images/emirati-weaving.jpg

 

The cartridge would sacrifice all gameplay to utilize the various, sprites, missiles etc to generate the patterns.

 

My question is really two fold:

 

1) Can I generate the patterns using a procedure/formula (such as 10 PRINT CHR$ (205.5 + RND (1)); : GOTO 10 ) moving the sprites and missiles around the screen between each drawscreen command

 

2) Or must I create a different playfield for each pattern and load it when required or perhaps do as in this post Drawing playfields from data statements

 

As an aside I've been playing around with the titlescreen kernel and I wondered if it is possible to utilize more than one in a game?

 

Thanks for any advice.

 

 

 

 

[+Gemintronic]

You can't use objects that way unless you plan on going full assembly with a custom kernel. The best compromise might be to use a kernel with pfcolors and SuperChip RAM to bump up the playfield resolution.

 

Basically, draw your pattern using playfield pixels.

[Cjohnweaver]

Thanks for the speedy reply. Assembly is a bit beyond me! I'm also doing a version in Max/MSP but I thought I'd like to try to do it authentically.

 

So I could perhaps define a multi-coloured background (using the backround kernel option) and then define a single colour playfield on top. I'd create the patterns by switching the playfield VARs on and off?

[+Gemintronic]

pfcolors allows you to define a single color per row.

 

Besides accessing the playfield vars directly there are various drawing commands here:

http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#pfpixel

[Cjohnweaver]

So just to confirm. Quoting from the randomterrain site

 

"Have a multicolored background instead of a multicolored playfield using pfcolors data. Normally, pfcolors changes the color of the playfield pixels by row, but background forces the data into the background, so you can have rows of different colors in the background and the usual single color playfield pixels on top of it all."

 

I could get two colours per line - the various background colours in combination with the static playfield colour.

[+Gemintronic]

So just to confirm. Quoting from the randomterrain site

 

"Have a multicolored background instead of a multicolored playfield using pfcolors data. Normally, pfcolors changes the color of the playfield pixels by row, but background forces the data into the background, so you can have rows of different colors in the background and the usual single color playfield pixels on top of it all."

 

I could get two colours per line - the various background colours in combination with the static playfield colour.

 

I think so. The important thing to remember is that either the background is a single color or the playfield pixels are.