Sprite limits?

[Retro Lord]

If I wanted to do a huge sprite like this one. How would I go about making it not get cut in half down the middle on screen?

 player1:
 %000000000000000000000000
 %011111000000000000000000
 %011111000000000001111100
 %001111000000000111111000
 %001111000000000111110000
 %001111000000000110000000
 %000100110000000001111000
 %000001111000000111111000
 %000011111000000111111000
 %000111111000000011111100
 %000111111100000011111100
 %000011111100000001111100
 %000011111100000001111110
 %000001111100000000111110
 %000001111110000001111110
 %000000111111100001111110
 %000000111111100011111110
 %000000111111100011111100
 %000000011111100111111100
 %000000011111100111111100
 %000000011111101111111100
 %000000011110101111111000
 %000000011110100111111000
 %000000001110100011111000
 %000000000110000001110000
 %000000000000101100010000
 %000000001110101111001000
 %000000011110101111011000
 %000000001110101111110000
 %000000000110000111110000
 %000011001001010001000000
 %001011100010101110000000
 %001010010101011111000000
 %001011101110111111100000
 %001100011010111000000000
 %000111010010110111110000
 %000001010000101111110000
 %000011010010010111110000
 %000011010111011011011000
 %000001010110101000111000
 %000011010101100001110000
 %000011001011001100111100
 %000001100000011101111100
 %000000001110101101111100
 %000000000011001110111000
 %000000011111010111000100
 %000000010110111011111000
 %000000100101111000000000
 %000001110001110000000000
 %000001111111100000000000
 %000000111111100000000000
 %000000011111000000000000
 %000000000000000000000000
 %000000000000000000000000
 %000000000000000000000000
 %000000000000000000000000
end

[+Random Terrain]

You might want to read more about sprites:

 

randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#objects

 

"The standard kernel can display two player sprites, which are 8 pixels wide and any height (up to 255)."

[Retro Lord]

Ahh, cheers. Well, I compressed the life out of Ken and well, he fits but he dosn't look like much, haha!

 

[Retro Lord]

Hm, best Ryu/Ken I can do.

 

[SeaGtGruff]

Your original sprite was 24 bits (pixels) wide, so you'd need to use 3 sprites side by side, 8 bits each. To do that you'd need to use both player0 and player1, either as p0-p1-p0 (2 copies of player0, close together, with 1 copy of player1 between them) or as p1-p0-p1 (vice versa). You'd also need to use assembly instead of batari Basic, or else create a custom kernel for batari Basic. On the other hand, if this is supposed to be part of a static screen (no other objects and no movement), you could use the titlescreen kernel to do it.

 

As an alternative, one thing you might try-- just to see how it looks-- is to use 1 double-wide player, and alternate the sprite's image between 2 frames with the horizontal position changing by 1 pixel position, to try to emulate the appearance of a 17-pixel-wide sprite. In places where the pixels overlap between frames, the player color will be solid; but in other places the player pixels will flicker with the background, so it should give you an apparent 17-pixel resolution but with some flicker.

 

Or you could just position 1 copy of player0 beside 1 copy of player1 to get a 16-pixel sprite.

[Retro Lord]

Yeah, I don't really wanna do sprite flickering. I'm just going to see if I can get anything that looks somewhat like the original deal with the limits of 1 sprite.

 

[Retro Lord]

A question still related to graphics, but not sprites, how do you make the playfield pixels smaller so you can get a really pretty playfield?

[SeaGtGruff]

You can't make them smaller horizontally, only vertically. In batari Basic I think it's pfres or something like that-- it's been a while.

[+Random Terrain]

A question still related to graphics, but not sprites, how do you make the playfield pixels smaller so you can get a really pretty playfield?

FAQ:

 

randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html#faq_playfield_pixels

[Papa]

Love that first sprite! Can I have it?

 

Also.. You could double up the drawscreens and use player0 for two sprites, one being the front and the other being the back with little or no flicker. Once you start putting sprites side by side is when you'll get into trouble. With the standard kernel you may be able to keep the flicker down to a minimum, but getting more sprites and colors from DPC+ would also begin the flicker fest once they were across from each other.

 

 

Ryu.bin

[Papa]

..And here he is with his face and hair colored! And toes!

 

RyuII.bin

[Papa]

..And here he is in DPC+ with a higher resolution background, three sprites building the character, toes, and some minor touch-ups to blend the color a little better...

 

RyuDPC.bin

 

SHOOOOORYUUUUKEN!!!

 

[Retro Lord]

Take what you want, sprites are free =)

 

That's really cool, but I bet I would get a headache if I played a game like this for a few hours, haha =) But that has to be the best darn graphics I've ever seen on the 2600!

[Papa]

YES! Here is my final update. This adds red guards to the hands and overlaps the edges to bring on a slightly more uniform flicker. Certain changes have been made to make the colors line up better.

 

RyuDPCII.bin

 

HADOOKEN!!

Edited July 6, 2015 by Papa

[Retro Lord]

Maybe I should use sprite flickering...It'll be a ton of sprites though haha since the idle animation is 2 sprites, that's 4 sprites, walking is 3 sprites, that's 6, punch, crouch, crouch kick, jump, jumpkick, defeat, win pose, and damage, that's a total of 14 sprites per character XD

[Papa]

It would be ridiculous, yes! But impossible? Nahhhh.

 

Here is the normal separation, btw..

 

RyuDPCIII.bin

 

 

On my Gemini it really didn't look that bad. I find that computer screens barf all over DPC+ games. On a regular TV Run Out looks really good, although when I emulate it there is always more flicker.

[Retro Lord]

Cool, very cool. Well now I have use for my old fighting engine I never found use for.

[Retro Lord]

Karate Ryu? "Takes cover behind a couch"

 

[Retro Lord]

Yet another style:

[Retro Lord]

I think this style kind of works for the characters. I mean they kind of look like Ryu & Ken

[Papa]

Okay..one more update...

 

This is Ryu with less color and only 2 sprites being used...

 

RyuDPCIV.bin

[Retro Lord]

That is still really kickass!

 

Looks way better then my current Ryu >_>

 

Demo : Street Brawler.bin

 

Features: Walking, punching, jumpkick and sweepkick

Controls: Left and right to move. Up to jumpkick, down to sweepkick and button to punch. Only Ryu, no opponent.

[Papa]

Okay..Now it's what I would consider 'usable'! On real hardware there is nary a flicker, but a shimmer. He has been redrawn quite a bit, but I like it.

 

 

RyuAtari.bin

 

 

 

 

 

Good start, BTW! He can moonwalk!

 

 

[Retro Lord]

You sir, are a master spriter. If I had the money I would hire you right now to do the sprite work for me =)

[Papa]

Oh, I'm doin' it! Money or no. I will make a SF2 game. I just need to draw the other characters and figure out how to get it all jammed into an Atari sized game. I may use the Sega Genesis controller for 2 buttons and cut back on the number of attacks drastically for it all to work. This may be the next thing I do as the ball has gotten rolling on it and I hate to stop that ball once it's rolling.

 

Thanks, btw! I love 8-bit art and 8-bit music!!