STE'86

sadly no i dont think you can. fom a personal point of view, i would love to see a g2f in full "auto" mode that would work it out for you. simply because i see no "fun" whatsoever in screwing around trying to "force" the a8 into displaying what i have created in PS. It is similar i think to the various FLI/AFLI/NUFLI mode converters on the c64. they do however seem a bit more "auto" than g2f. however i cant say that for certain as i won't touch them, simply because they all seem to output "new school" c64 graphics that have the surreal rainbow "fades" based on luma values rather than chroma colours. and personally i absolutely loathe that look. what i would like is to be able to draw a image that can be common to both in PS and squirt one version a c64 converter and another with A8 capable colours at an A8 converter. i am pretty sure however that this is a pipe dream. what i would like to say tho for anyone wanting to do A8 art and who is put off by all this "fannying about" is that some of the most powerful and well regarded stuff on the c64 that's regarded as "classic" was done in 3 greys and black. so think on that Steve

Tez: just talking to Pete about PS and we were thinking that if you used rgb and layers to do your a8 stuff, then it's entirely possible to work out your PMG requirements in blocks on a separate layer so you would know BEFORE grappling with G2f whether the whole thing was possible. if you see what i mean. the only difference i have found between drawing in index and drawing in RGB is that in RGB you draw with the "pencil" tool because the brush tools still try to draw with AA. oh and when u "image size" anything to paste onto your 8 bit art select "nearest neighbour" in the bottom menu as opposed to the default "bicubic" Steve

i prefer to work in PS in rgb mode with all the antialising turned off that way i can use layers and keep things a bit more "fluid" by separating certain sections on different layers in case i want to reposition them. i draw in a fixed c64 palette and convert to indexed when saving the final GIF (or testing it) all drawing is ofc done in 160 horizontal res with apect ratio of 2:1 turned on to give pseudo 320 res (double pixel) or double clock as i think u lot term it. Steve

right ok then... Tezz can u spend that extra little bit of time u were on about and reproduce that pic exactly? This is potentially interesting to me because that pic was produced on photoshop from an old c64 gif. it was drawn with a c64 "destination" in mind, but if it is possible for an accurate G2F conversion on most things then any art could just as easilly be produced for a "multi platform" destination. Steve

it means regardless of how much he says he doesnt listen to me, i really do get on his tits, which is great news! Steve

no it wasnt a chroma fade but others on here favour that it seems. it is however a waste of a huge swathe of colour that can't easily be used elsewhere. steve

Why? It sems better than Gray, although, I will go for 1 more brown instead of Pink. If one is Italian and other Japonese will go later, if I have colours/PMs to do it... José Pereira. Because: a) the same grey you have replaced can be used elsewhere in the pic to provide colour in the hair or the headband and thereby freeing colours for the collar. b) the pink looks awful honestly u need to stop obsessing about "true" chroma fades, u havent got the colour capability on screen to do that well enough. your stuff will always look "mono" if you do.

no sorry now you have ruined it. what has to be grasped is that you don't always have to have a "proper" chroma fade in order to fool the eye into thinking its seeing multiple tones. in fact insisting on real colour fades generally only really causes a "mono" look in which the artists has used 4 shades of blue 4 shades of grey etc and basically run out of colours in short order (this used to happen alot on the first ST/amiga games when artists went OTT with the new colour availability. however you can get by, by using a couple of shades of grey or brown to double as highlight and shadow for many different colours of a similar luma scale thereby freeing a couple of colours slots for use elsewhere to add more "punch" and lets face it, on the 8 bits freeing a couple of colours for use elsewhere is a godsend. Steve

actually would you like to quote where i have been pro 64 or anti a8? actually what I did was call out someone for saying that converting that druid 2 pic was "easy" when i know it isnt. and said person then says he can't do it. so how exactly would he know if it was easy or not? Actually you sir can go and boil your head. ...actually @tezz. thats not a bad start. much better than "auto" the darkest brown/orange needs raking down a few notches to give it a bit more "punch" and the mid blue needs a bit of "umph" on the chroma side if possible, but thats better than i expected tbh. well done Steve

while u are at it get g2f to convert that: i am interested to see what g2f will do to that with experienced user intervention. in it auto mode it makes a right hash of it Steve

oooohhh right you mean you cant? see thats where people like me who know that will be tough to convert get confused when u say "yes it's easy" but then go on to say "but i can't do it" people are bound to misunderstand. from now on i will know that "yes it's easy" translates to "i am talking total crap again" Steve

I wonder about your question at all. The picture is no problem to port to the A8. I'd like to see similar pictures - in compexity - as those C64 titles, plus the better A8 palette,as José suggests, too... err if this picture such such an easy convert how come no bugger has actually posted it converted then? come on Emkay its money where you mouth is time again... Steve

are you on medication? post something that makes sense

LOL don't you dare accuse me of rainbow shading! i have just fought a day long battle on CSDB accusing THEM of being sheep and doing nothing but "swirly rainbows" and "surreal colour fades" i suggest that if you want to see REAL use of c64 colour you look at late 80s and early 90's c64 art. oh and you do realise that the last pic you posted was done by one of your "own" A8 guys on a c64? oh and i see no real problem with doing that sub pic on a c64 with minor colour adaptions. (it's got 3 blues a couple of greens a yellow/orange fade and a brown/pink/red fade for the barrels. pretty much a c64 pallette give or take) the only thing you coudnt directly replicate is the super dark green which would have to be rethought. there are far more complex pics than that as c64 loading screens from the 80s. Steve

you could try to g2f this one: its got a reasonably high colour usage but they are localised and alot fall on character edges. (it's also brand new ) Steve

i can only speak from actual usage experience of the c64 koala pad but: their physical shape was very different the atari stylus always seemed a much better design than the solid plastic "pencil" you got with koala. tho in defence of this design it did let you use a cut down chunky knitting needle as a replacement when i wore down the end of the official one on the c64 anyway, the koala software would not work with the atari pad. sadly. i did try this Steve

firstly does the stick move left if u just push the "popper" switch on the board itself with your finger/thumb? you should feel a "pop" on any of these old switches if u activate them manually. if it does work manually then look at the white plastic shaft insert as your source of trouble. specifically on these models "back in the day" the ring around the bottom of the insert would get worn or even broken and be permanently pushed up on one or more "sides" if there are no breaks and its simply stressed, u can CAREFULLY insert/glue something between the shaft and the ring to push it horizontal again (folded cardboard may be enough) Steve

hi, as a designer myself, i can see the plus points of either design. personally i think i favour the more "abstract" top down design, but really, the red text will definitely become "lost" to sight at anything other than a few feet. to use that design i would either 1. make the text white 2. outline the text and the button with a white keyline. on the second "illustrative" design i would agree with the posters who favour the button on the left position. in either case a couple of additional slogans spring to mind like: "Real gamers only need ONE button" or "retro gamers do it with one red button" remember your market will predominantly be the over 35s. Best of luck Steve

is it such a dumb thing to say? if for example your sprite is a side on view of an aircraft/spacecraft, how frustrating would it be to die if ONE pixel of your tail touches something and u die? does it not make a more playable game if the collision only occurs if the main fuselage area of your sprite registers a collision? bounding boxes do not necessarily have to be same size a sprites, they can have a few pixels of "buffer" built in to allow for close shaves and "skillful" escapes. Steve

Just repeat this for a million times, then everyone will believe this is the truth By the way, the points emkay presented are true. If C64 was 4mhz etc... then we could say it is the better machine overall. In reality this is not the case. This is simply the truth. Possibly it is a sad truth for C64-believers. Maybe it is partially off-topic, but it is no trolling, and the tone of this discussion was already set when Jose started calling things 'sad' when comparing A8 to C64 features. However, you are cordially invited to come back on the AA forum if some other chance of bashing with emkay occurs. Sorry, did i misread an earlier post? did ANYONE prior to emkays first troll burst say anything about "better" or "faster" or indeed any other comparison other than a question from someone trying to get their heads around the similarities and differences between c64 and a8 character colour modes? NO THEY DIDN'T! that post was nothing more than an attempt as usual to drag a specific thread question to an OT "versus" thread. well we wont play. and to be perfectly honest anyone suggesting that Jose who is one of the most rabid pro active A8 fans on this board is a closet 64 fanboy needs counselling. oh and he probably asked it here because he knows that several of us can answer it with clarity (as indeed you will note several people did) Steve

Emkay for first post was a troll and you know it. would you like me to quote it? in a technical question thread that was strictly about c64 multicolor char mode you somehow managed to get in snipes at: processor speed SID chip sound Atari designers and marketing. not bad considering his question was simply "how many colours are available to a c64 in multicolour character set mode" you are trying to goad people into a versus thread you know it and so do the people familiar with your methods. Steve

nobody listen to the 2 stooges. we have seen them in action too many times before to fall for it. just ignore them and carry on with the tech aspects of any question. nobody here wants to play your "versus" games so pack up and shove off. Steve

oh just bog off Emkay. why must you always attempt to turn anything with the word "c64" into a vs thread? this is in NO WAY a vs thread its a tech question thread. nobody here said anything about "faster","better" or any shit like that until u piped up. and you whine when u get banned for blatantly trolling. Jose asked a technical question and got answered in a technical manner just deal with it. Steve

yeah that seems to cover it quite nicely. all except the example palette indeed i can honestly say no c64 palette i ever saw "back in the day" on any monitor or tv looked anything like as muted as any of the palettes in use these days. our yellow was indeed YELLOW it screamed its yellowness at u (the exploding fist packaging screenies spring to mind) and by the same token the red never came across as muted and brownish as it does in the emus and the retro graphics apps. Steve

if u had actually ever tried drawing a decent looking sprite in what is effectively 8 pixels in 2:1 aspect mode then you wouldnt ask that question. even the spectrum ones i did for armalyte were 20 pixels across in 1:1 aspect mode so they could be pre-shifted into 24 pixels AND keep definition. Steve