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LS_Dracon

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Blog Entries posted by LS_Dracon

  1. LS_Dracon
    Reading the topic about possible atari jaguar mascot, I have one idea and drawed my own mascot.
     
    Edit :
     
    Changed the previous character to be a lynx mascott and added the new Jaguar.
     
    Jaguar and his little brother, the Lynx
  2. LS_Dracon
    I was reading about Odyssey 2 programming and created a demo, it dysplays AtariAge
    on the screen. I think it's not bad for only 2 hours studing the O2 hardware.
     
    I have no plans for this console for now, but I liked some of the 8048 assembly instructions (O2 processor).
    It's very similar to Chip8 language that I give a try last year. The hardware also.
     
    Odyssey 2 support 4 sprites on the screen, they are limited to 8x8 pixels. You can draw them as 2x wide. Don't know yet if is possible to re-use like in atari 2600, I hope so.
     
    Also, it support 12 freely moveable objects, but limited to 8x8 pixel images (characters) you find in the BIOS. It's why many of O2 games uses the same sprites. They haven't collision detection, if I understand correctly and can't to overlap each other.
    They are used to dysplay text. That's means, 12 letters per row (or screen don't know)
     
    There's no background support, just a grid 8x9 that you can enable / disable each line in the square as desired. It's pretty much limited to draw walls like in Berzerk.
     
    There's 4 quad-sized objects wich I don't know what they are. I think it's gigantic sprites, so with them I can draw a sort of background. I need to test this to know how it works.
     
    All objects are limited to 1 color from a pallete of 8. You have a darker pallete for the background grid only. Don't know if is possible to change the color by line like in the Atari 2600. Hell the A2600 is my unique reference of game programming in assembly
     
    Odyssey 2 is surprisely fun to code
     
    Here's the rom but there's not only the image you see atached.
  3. LS_Dracon
    Here is Bee-Ball mockup for the Odyssey^2.
     
    No, I'll not code it.
     
    Don't know if this screen is doable, is possible to change the graphics "on the fly" using line interrupts but don't know how flexible it is.
     
    Odyssey2 support 4 single colored sprites limited by 8x8 pixels each, I'm overlaping 2 for each bee. The raquets are made by bios character, as well the ball and the bee's eye and wing. (I can use up to 12 bios characters at same line).
     
    The net is not possible by this way, I have vertical lines but not in middle of the screen, perhaps I can to draw it using others bios character the problem are these characters can't to overlap others characters. If ball collide on the net I will have problems (screen glitches I think). Probably is required a good software collision code to prevent this.
     
    Bee judge and the leaves (double sized) at top are using the 4 sprites in proper place on the screen. The background color is the darkest green I have, It's doesn't contrast much with the sprites, another problem.
     
    The graphics can be improved, just need to know more about this machine.
     
    I think Odyssey 2 could be a better machine with a full bitmap background like Fairchild Channel F. The Bios characters will be useles as I could draw them directly in the video memory.
    Other problem is the bios character uses the first KB of the rom, but the bios stay on the console, so the cart itself have only 3 kb of data, why not to keep the first kb to the bios but in the cartridge, at least I could personalise the fonts or use the extra characters to draw my own sprites.
     
    Much of these design mistakes was solved in odyssey^3 but that was late.
  4. LS_Dracon
    A recent sprite I did.
    Her name is Blaze Fielding from Streets of Rage (sega genesis).
     
    I did backups every significant steps for you know the process of creation.
     
    Well, that is for today
  5. LS_Dracon
    Hi people.Tetris was never my favorite stile of game but bombliss variation rules and I enjoyed it alot as a kid.If you never played bombliss, all pieces contain 1 bomb wich explodes if the row is filled.You need 2 or more bombs to explode the row, if the row haven't bombs, nothing happen but it count as "combo". With more lines filed the explosion is bigger. If the explosion touch another bombs, they explodes too. If you put 4 little bombs together, they turns into a big bomb.Well watch the video if you never played it :
    How this game could be done in the 2600?I think the best solution was pf interlaced lines, one line shows the blue blocks, another the bombs only.I need 2 pf data becouse the game uses 10 squares per row.The explosion fx uses GRPX over sized (quad size). The unique gap is the big bomb, they can't to be displayed, besides this, the big bomb can be coded and the effect is the same.The puzzle mode is a must have in this game.Check out the animated gif I made, this is how the bombliss could looks in the 2600, the game is plenty doable.Another project to my endless to do list
  6. LS_Dracon
    I enjoyed Bubsy for SNES back in the day.
    It is a fun game with some good music (at least on first stage).
     
    Bubsy Snes OST :
     
    The gameplay is not great, but had good mechanics like the glider. And this was fast,
    a Sonic like game engine on Snes, without blast processing.
    I had a friend who where crazy about this game. It certainly is not on my worst game list.
    I remember be intrigued about wtf bobcat is, short tail wild cats do not exist in my country.
    We have ocelots.
     
    Bubsy is the ET the Extra-terrestrial equivalent for 16 bit machines.
    It IS a bad game overall, but not an abomination as internet depicts.
     
    The main problem is the bad game physics and unforgiving collision IMHO.
    But the graphics and character/game design was really good.
     
    On the opposite spectrum is Puggsy, a Sega Genesis platformer game with great physics but poor
    character and game design. You can't have the best of both worlds.
     
    Buggsy would be a real winner!
     
    Anyway, Bubsy 2 was a disappointment. I not liked that game at all, unfunny and with bad music.
    There's a reason, it was not made by the original programmer/creator.
    I had never played the Jaguar version but looks bad nonetheless.
     
    Here's some Bubsy NES style sprites I did years ago, for your time.


  7. LS_Dracon
    Here is another colection of bad cosplay I found.
    My objective here is not to show only the worst costumes, but also the funny ones.
     

    Solid Snake inside a box.
     

    Paper... I mean, Iron man
     

    Tetris! XD
     

    Mario Kart gang
     

    Samus Aran
     

    Gundam - From japanese giant robot anime (I gess)
     

    Star Wars characters. R2D2 deserve more respect.
     

    Storm troopers
  8. LS_Dracon
    Another variation of technique I call hyper sprite.
     
    Also the making of sprite set and what I needed to do for convert it to Atari 2600 graphics.
     

     
    Believe, this was the easier part, making the kernel was the difficult thing, thanks to HMOVE hardware bug.
     
    I'm listening right now Tenpole Tudor, very cool early 80's punk band from UK. Together with Toy Dolls, Damned and Sex Pistols my favorite punk bands from that era.
     
    Below, the Atari 2600 rom if you want.
  9. LS_Dracon
    Here some of my latest sprites, primal rage characters
    in "pocket" style, and Tyris Flare from golden axe, based in
    that sketch posted by me days ago.
     
    People call it as "Pixel Art". I never liked this label.
    Art made using a bunch of squares is called Mosaic.
    The diference in computer/video games that mosaic is digital, so for me it's Digital Mosaic art.
  10. LS_Dracon
    I never cared to play Elevator Action (proto) on 2600.
    Too much unfinished (and ugly) to be minimally fun.
    For years I had an idea how to implement this game on 2600, but I never had intention to port it by myself.
    I actually did the concept proof kernel for another project and it worked, so finally now I decide to give a shoot at Elevator Action.

    Well, the game is too much complex, and now I'm very surprised how far the prototype is. They managed to make a moving elevator with both players in "high res". Definitely a good programming work there.
    My kernel looks better, but I'm cheating, not drawing the sprites saves a lot of processing time for the color changes. The doors are multi colored just to proof I can set blue and red doors at will. On proto there's a sprite making the red door, which flickers, my kernel shoud be flicker free.

    Problem, even using 2 scanlines, I think I can't draw the sprites and missiles. I would need a 3 scanlines kernel for that (even more cheating).
    I did 2 spites in high res on my previous attempt, but I was changing the background color, not the playfield color like here.
    I need the playfield color change to be able to shoot at the lamp and makes it fall using ball, but then, I can't draw this object either.

    Everything can be done with DPC+ but it is out of my scope.

    As you can see, I didn't find a good solution for the escalator, I can paint it as grey or other color, but all the few cycles saved for the sprites will be gone.
    And the doors can't be red at escalator floors.

    Multiple elevators are possible, the problem is to code all this stuff.

    I don't have plans to code the game, I don't know if I ever will add the sprites, anyway, here's the rom for you test.
    Move the elevator pressing up or down.


  11. LS_Dracon
    Quick image edits I did for fun, because it's easier than code the games.
     
    MK for the Neo-Geo AES
    Killer Instinct for the Genesis
    King of Fighters 94 for the Snes
  12. LS_Dracon
    We never expected what we'll find on Youtube.
     
    This guy play fun themes on piano, such popeye or woody woodpecker theme.
    Also there good videos of him playing classics ragtimes.
    But in others videos he waste talent playing the Nokia cellphone and microsoft windows opening theme, or a silly song on churchil organ.
    I like his version of super mario bros on harpichord.
     
    His name is Vinheteiro, here the link for simpsons theme, and you can watch the others related videos if you like it.
     

  13. LS_Dracon
    I don't put the title as Sonic 3 Game Gear to not let people think I'm working on it.
     
    Just found these old sprites on my computer, years ago I was thinking about how good Sonic 3 could be in Game Gear / Master System.
     
    I wish I could code this game, but man, too difficult to do it alone.
     
    Sonic 3 is my favorite sonic game so far, everything is perfect, the artwork, music, level design. Too bad it's an "unfinished game", as you need to plug into S&K to have the real deal.
     
    The first sprite at top-left is the original sonic for GG. The others 2 are my version with sonic 3 looking. The original S3 sprite from genesis is at top right.
     
    All the others are done by myself, trying to match the quality from the original source.
     

  14. LS_Dracon
    Has been long time I don't do a pixel art.

    Many people said my drawings are cute, even if it is not supposed to.
    So I decided to create a drawing/pixel art series of ugliest monsters in cute form.
    Problem my weak eyes aren't help me with this, so I'll stop on this first entry.

    Here's Gaping Dragon from Dark Souls in his puppy form. I can see a plush of this thing making success on internetz.

    Sorry the few colors and small size, I can't stand too long drawing or my eyes hurts.





    For those ho don't know who is, here his actual visual:



  15. LS_Dracon
    Recently I've decided to start another project (there aren't many to take care, only my biggest Odyssey2 project ever, and save 2 Atari 2600 games in development hell, other side projects involving sprite drawing and many more games I want to start to code...)
    Anyway I already talked about
    in my older blogs. It's a fan game that re-creates the canceled Sonic Xtreme originally planned for Sega Saturn (and PCs) in 1996.
    The game was very interesting in many ways, mostly because the perspective know as fish eye lens, which makes the game revolutionary for the time. 
    I did a Sonic model in 3ds max (yes, I used to 3d modeling ages ago) trying to match the original sonic model, in order to make new animations for the AXSX project.
    It seems I'm making some progress, here's the result.

    The first image is a my model (a old version, I have a better model now), the middle image is original model, for reference. And the last is the comparison between the original sprite and the new one.
    If you think make the model is difficult, it was not, makes the color, lighting and camera angle almost close to original took me days!
    Well, it's what I'm doing for now, all my others retro projects is on hold.
  16. LS_Dracon
    It's my first blog entry ever, sorry possible mistakes...
     
    I'll post some 2d gaming related stuff made by me, such draws, sprites and others.
     
    For start, a sketch of Tyris Flare, from Golden Axe, classic game by Sega at end of 80's.
    This game is awesome, developed by "Shinobi team" who did great games using Sega 16 hardware.
  17. LS_Dracon
    Here's my to do list just the sake of curiosity.
     
    1 - Spidergame (ArachnaMania)
     
    This is my recent project and unique that I already start to work on codes.
    I want to return to code it this year but, well, real life stuff is a problem.
    Not the time really, but I'm a bit tired lately. Homebrew project require a huge effort, I need to work almost every day at least 2 hours to have a good progress.
    I, and assume most of us (2600 programmers) aren't here for money.
    Back in the early 80's every simple game sold reasonable well, was possible to living programming games. It's not the case here, I think to make living programming homebrew games they must sold 800 or more carts.
    You dispend lot of time on it, and a good game will not be finished less than a year.
    Working on a game an entire year to sold 60 copies just pay the used carts for the production, shipping cost, manual assembly and things like that.
    The satisfaction feeling of job done is what motivates me.
    But it don't feed. That's why I job and get tired
     
    2 - Racing game
     
    My idea was create a racing game with defined tracks, fixed number of racers and a good looking road. I'm thinking how the best way to draw the roads and have 2 or 3 test to do. An world tour circuit featuring most know cities.
    Also I have idea to create tunnels with 3d effects when it's comming.
    Basically I whant to create a game Top Gear 2 like.
    Recent game Turbo is something I have on mind, but with not blocky looking road.
     
    3 - Tetris Bombliss
     
    You can see more about this project in other blog entry.
    My objective is not only to recriated the game, but manly the puzzle mode.
    I'm not big fan of tetris but bombliss is very fun.
     
    4 - Space Shooter
     
    I had a good idea for a space shooter, I preffer to not talk about but is something different than just shoot on aliens that come from above.
    This project is one of my priorities.
     
    5 - RPG game
     
    The problem of creating rpg games for the 2600 is not the limitations of the hardware, but it seems 2600 RPGs are cursed is some way.
    Most of great projects are abandoned or discontinued (Homestar runner come to my mind, and others projects that I don't remember the name).
    Creating a good rpg is something that require a huge effort.
    I have lot of ideas for this project, most of these ideas are for the battle system wich will similar to the Final Fantasy, that is, when the battle comes, the screen changes to battle arena with new sprites for the main player and enemies.
    I can't programming such game based on my assembly skills today, because even with 32kb I need to create most optimized code as possible.
    The question is not if the code works, but if it works and is optimized.
     
     
    Discontinued projects :
     
    1 - Lemming
     
    Already posted about it on my blog. It's a fun concept, I can code it, but I think my original projects worth more. It's not dead, but in very low priority.
     
    2 - Donkey Kong
     
    One of first thing I posted in this forum was a good looking donkey kong sprite demo.
    Many people asked (and still asking) about this project, I have no interest to code it, because Nintendo sucks when somebody use
    their characters. I don't have interest to beg about nintendo authorization, or create DK game and name it after Krazy Kong just to not be sued.
    The real problem is lack of respect from big software against a "fan".
     
    Also I have an unfinished pong clone that I code for fun, have no interest to
    release on a cart. Maybe as easter egg in one of my projects as this pong is only 2kb.
    Current prototype name is Super Pong and is posted somewhere in homebrew forum.
     
    These are most notorious projects I have. Times from times I have new ideas but
    it doesn't pass the "idea" stage.
     
    Also I'm working on 2600 Prince of Persia as sprite designer. This project
    rules and I'm happy to be part of it.
     
    There anothers projects I'm working as graphic designer, some of them not in this community.
    For example I'm retuned to work on 3ds max, nothing really interesting to show.
  18. LS_Dracon
    KK is one of my favorite Atari 2600 game.
    Until now, I think this is the best, grafically, game done for the VCS.
     
    Then I bought one cart months ago, and discover that I coud finish (score at 999999).
    I play about 2 hours, and here's the snap.
    I already read that Activision games, if the score beat 999999 turns into exclamation mark (!!!!!!)
    But no KK, the score turns into hat, as the image below.
     
    Then the level restart, and in second screen the player freeze, like if hit by airplane, when I leave the rom to pick the camera, the demo mode was started.
     
    Now I'm playning Enduro, but there no way to finish this, I think for score get 999999 I need 6 or 7 hours of play, no way, no time and no pacience for this.
    The maximun I ran was 10 "laps", and I get bored.
  19. LS_Dracon
    Last year I figure how far lemmings could be in Atari 2600.
    Obviously you can't create hundreds of characters per row, the limit of VCS is two.
    Then I have the idea to create only one lemming and interesting, its looks cool for me.
     
    Basically you have to control the main character around the maze, using limited number of tools to find the exit door.
    If you use a tool in wrong place, its over, you need restart the level.
    The lemming just walk. One very usefull tool on Lemmings is the stop. Then the lemming turn into a barrier and the others cannot go to danger areas, using 1 lemming only I can't use this tool, but I can replace to "change direction" tool.
     
    With 1 lemming the game is really do able. Figure the 6 digit score changed to looks like a tool box. The arrow pointer can be done by missile, keeping free the other player to be used as ladder or bombs. You can dig the playfield for create holes. I thing BatariBasic can handle this game very well due playfield style.
     
    Its just an idea, I have others projects before try something for this side.
  20. LS_Dracon
    Here me again with some new Sega Master System game cover art from various games we never expected see on Master System.
    Well, Tetris probably exist somewhere... Even MicroVision has Tetris!
    Space Invaders definitely exists on SMS.






    And the previous entries :

    Part 4

    Part 3

    Part 2

    Part 1

  21. LS_Dracon
    MegaDriver is a band that play classic video game musics in heavy metal style.
    All musics can be downloaded as free in mp3 format.
     
    Mega Driver official homepage
     
    And a video :
     
    Sega Genesis guitar - Mega Driver
     

  22. LS_Dracon
    I like videogame musics from 16 bit era most because in that machines (Snes, Genesis, Neo-Geo) the musicians used their full potential without much limitations, they have good chips with 6 or more sound channels and lot of rom to use. I collect Midi since end of 90's, vgmusic was one of the first internet sites that I visit and still downloading midis today, even with possibility to play original music files emulated by programs.
    Aways wanted to create midis, but I'm not musician and have no talent for this. I know how to create sound fx for games, but music require special timming that I don't have.
    My first midi comes from R-Type 3, snes game that have awesome sound track but sadly nobody makes midi from this game.
    This midi is old actually, I did it more than a year ago. The program I use is AnvilStudio, freeware midi composer and AudioOverload, that play original music files from many consoles and computers WITH possibility to disable audio channels and record to wav.
     
    With wavs from single channel I tryed to reproduce, note by note, on the Anvil midi composer. Snes has 8 sound channels
    After many days the midi was a crap, althoug alone the notes sounds good, together sounds out of tune.
     
    Finally I found another tool to help on the midi conversion : Amazing Midi
     
    With this tool I can create midi file from a wav. Nope, the result is far from perfect, but it pick the correct note, all I need to do is erase the unanted notes and fix the lenght wich is a lot easier than find the correct note by ear.
     
    Here's the result. Still "bad" but compared with my fist attempts, it's ok. Also I'll attach the midi created by AmazingMidi, wich are used to pick the correct notes. The midi is on vgmusic also.
     
    I have plans to convert R-Type3 level 1 music, wich is the badass one, also Top Gear 2, wich is another game with great musics and nobody convert to midi.
     
    The original sound for comparission :
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