DimensionX
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Posts posted by DimensionX
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Well, i can't program a "Xenon" within days.You don't need to program it you just make a mock-up of the screen using the A8 palette and take into account the limitations of the hardware. As programmers (who you are arguing with) we are all able to specify how graphics for our favourite machines should be drawn if we have an artist on board for our projects. Since you are the expert at saying what is possible, please show us.
The basic point is...
Xenon uses shades
C64 can't use shades of more then grey, possible, and then we don't even talking fine shades.
Xenon is all about shades, something that A8 can display.
You will not get an exact copy of the ST game, but you will get something that looks more Xenon thanks to shades.
Shades of green, shades of blue, shades of yellow, that's Xenon.
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At last you admitted that.i've said all the time that the C64 couldn't replicate that ONE GAME EXACTLY you idiot, the point is that the concession of dropping all the "pretty" rainbow colours (there are Atari coders who will tell you it doesn't look particularly good, by the way) isn't a deal breaker and the game is just as playable. The things that the C64 does that the A8 can't replicate are more important for actually making games.
Are we finished with this discussion now?No, because you made bogus claims about Xenon being possible on the A8 and still haven't proved it - presumably because you haven't got a clue how the A8 hardware actually works and should therefore not be posting to this PROGRAMMING DISCUSSION AT ALL.
It's not only that game. A lot of games couldn't be reproduced on the C64, because of the colours. Atari has many more, remember? Besides that A8 can do some graphical tricks that C64 can't. What you get is NOT the Atarigame.
Xenon is for sure playable on the C64 too...
Nuff said
Graphics matters.
I have posted lots of games that the C64 never could recreate with it's tiny palette of only 16 colours.
But you will for sure get them "playable", like Xenon or the C64 version of Alternate Reality, minus all the magic colours.
Well, i can't program a "Xenon" within days. But who knows, perhaps someone puts up a remake of Bitmap Brothers excellent shooter. Fine nuances shouldn't be a problem anyway.
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It becomes a bit silly TMR. You can't say that a big palette is a bad thing to have.
i never said a big palette is a bad thing, just that not being able to use it well is a problem. You don't understand the Atari 8-bit's display hardware well enough to realise that and it's not even about comparisons with the C64, it's a pain in the arse to work with.
But that want stop you to get some pretty good results if you know the hardware. I have seen more then one real good looking game on A8 i can tell you. After so many years, it stills produces awesome colours. The best one was the orginal Atari 800 even if it had fewer colours.
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You couldn't even recreate one screen from the Atari version of Alternate Reality with that few colours. Alternate Reality uses a minimum of 64 on screen colours.
Doesn't matter, you've found one game the C64 couldn't replicate exactly but i could name a hundred in return that the A8 can't do without major concessions. And we already have a challenge on the table because you reckoned the A8 could handle Xenon better than the C64, so mock-up or shut up.
At last you admitted that. Well, i agree. C64 is the better machine for some things, but for other things Atari is the better machine. None of them is best, just different.
Are we finished with this discussion now?
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This is not much to choose from, is it?
And that's got naff all to do with what i just said. Again, mock-up or shut up because until you've actually tried doing something with the A8's graphics you are not qualified to talk about what they can do in this programming forum.
You couldn't even recreate one screen from the Atari version of Alternate Reality with that few colours. Alternate Reality uses a minimum of 64 on screen colours.
It becomes a bit silly TMR. You can't say that a big palette is a bad thing to have.
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Compare with the Atari 2600 palette for exemple.
Or Atari XL
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This is not much to choose from, is it?
Let's see...
2 Greens
1 Yellow
2 blue
1 purple
3 greys
1 white
1 turquoise
2 brown
1 black
2 red
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Thanks to this thread i have understand what C64 is good at. But i have also understand what C64 isn't good at. Thanks for many both interesting and readable postings.
A8 can't simply compet with C64 in certain areas because of it's limitations. But outshines C64 in other areas that C64 isn't good at. Like clear colours for exemple.
@Pete
There is several advantages of having a big palette to choose colurs from.
1.You can choose nuances of colours
2.You can switch palettes lots of times in a game to make it more different, perfect for both shoot'em ups, driving games and platform games. On ST they often changed the palette for every new level to create more variation. Like in Xenon for exemple. So 16 colours can become hundreds of colours in the same game, but not simultaneously off course.
3.The game library will be more diffrent when you use different colours for different games
So even if "on screen" colours is limited it's a great thing to have a big palette to choose colours from.
Now over to something completly different...
I have been talking about the quality of the A8 colours. Now i'm about to show you what i mean. To make this more easy i will post all pictures as attachements AND from my picturehost.
Well, we are about to take a look at the game "Alternate Reality The City". The first time i saw this game was in the british computer magazine Your Computer. US Gold was about to release some new titles for Atari and C64, one of the titles was "The Goonies" but it was title nr 3 that was most interesting, Alternate Reality. I thought that the graphics was no less then stunning. Wow, i must buy this game when it's released.
We will take a Look at the C64 version to begin with.
Hmmmm, pretty basic and not much use of colours to create a moody game.
PNG, 652x1048px, 83 KB (0.08 MB)Next we will take a look at the DOS version. Pretty basic too.
PNG, 652x624px, 256 KB (0.25 MB)Next up is the Atari ST version of the game. I recall myself being very disapointed with this version. It looks okey, but no more and the gradients is far off from the A8 version of the game.
PNG, 984x624px, 77 KB (0.08 MB)Next up is the Amiga version, now we expect a bit more. Amiga is using more colours and this version is more moody then the ST version and looks a bit like "The Bards Tale". But it's still very little use of colours in some places.
PNG, 984x1472px, 236 KB (0.23 MB)Last, the A8 version. I have added a couple of screenshots that i didn't post earlier. This version is pure magic. The colours are sooo clear and moody. For me personally this version beats the crap out of all previous mentioned versions of the game. Digital art.
PNG, 780x1500px, 371 KB (0.36 MB)To show you how much more clarity A8 has, i will post two more screenshots.
To the left we have the ST version, including gradients. But if you compare with the A8 version to the right the pale in clarity and richness. Not even comparable. The A8 colours are sooo much clearer.
PNG, 668x240px, 15 KB (0.01 MB)
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You will have to make it more monochrome then the ST version, but you can still create a Xenonlike game with some fine nuances.
About Xenon
Then you have effekts of the shots for exemple in Xenon that uses some more colour.And many time is that colour used somewhere else too. It's about to compromise a bit.
Be my guest, I'd actually like to see it because there are things that are possible on the 800 but I think you're waaaaaay out of your depth with that one.
Pete
Never say never.
Miracles has happend before.
I must log out for now, have a great evening Pete and TMR.
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ST could usually afford about three spreads. 4 nuances per colour = 12 colours. The rest went to the status display.
In the screenshot i was prodding at, it has fifteen colours in the play area alone and a colour count of the entire screen is also fifteen colours so no, the rest didn't go to the status.
The grey in Xenon is almost certain a spread of 4 greys.
Five, so that's already used your entire colour quotient on the A8 and there are no blue tiles, red bullets, yellow markings...
You will have to make it more monochrome then the ST version, but you can still create a Xenonlike game with some fine nuances.
About Xenon
Then you have effects of the shots for exemple in Xenon that uses some more colour.And many time is that colour used somewhere else too. It's about to compromise a bit.
Off Topic
Thanks for an intresting discussion guys.
I have a big problem that you don't have. I must concentrate on the language all the time, else it will be more errors just about everywhere, all the time.
How do you say this in english? Something that you don't have to focus at.
Och skriver jag på svenska fattar ingen vad jag skriver
(and if i type in swedish no one will understand)
I'll take a break for now, but i'll be back (like arnold).
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ST could usually afford about three spreads. 4 nuances per colour = 12 colours. The rest went to the status display.
In the screenshot i was prodding at, it has fifteen colours in the play area alone and a colour count of the entire screen is also fifteen colours so no, the rest didn't go to the status.
The grey in Xenon is almost certain a spread of 4 greys.
Five, so that's already used your entire colour quotient on the A8 and there are no blue tiles, red bullets, yellow markings...
You will have to make it more monochrome then the ST version, but you can still create a Xenonlike game with some fine nuances.
About Xenon
Then you have effects of the shots for exemple in Xenon that uses some more colour.And many time is that colour used somewhere else too. It's about to compromise a bit.
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No, C64 was not built for anything it runs, both you and me can mess things up and overload any computer with tasks it doesn't is capable of to handle. Then we'll have to rewrite the code a bit.
My definition of runs is obviously different to yours. I don't mean random crap or impossible code, I'm talking about the 1000s of games/demos/etc that run properly.
Pete
Okey, then i understand what you mean.
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The main difference between the machines is that you can choose fine nuances of whatever colour on Atari, something you can't on C64. It's no problem to choose 5 fine nuances of green for exemple thanks to a big palette to choose from. On screen colours is something else.
No, onscreen colours is the whole bloody point because it doesn't matter if you have half a million shades of green with as many stupid bloody "nuances" as you want, it's all but USELESS if you can only get four of those shades onscreen at once. Having lots of shades does not equate to being able to use lots of shades and i'll say it again because i'm a masochist and love repeating myself, the "nuances" you reckon are there aren't - colours tend to be selected based on utility rather than artistic merit.
So your mission, should you decide to accept it, is still to demonstrate how right you think yourself to be with a mock-up of Xenon - don't forget that anything you get wrong (like putting too many colours in a single 4x8 pixel cell or having the status bar there or using more than 128 characters for the backgrounds) will be pointed out to you at length. Good luck and this message won't self destruct in five seconds.
Why do you think that computers have big palettes? And few on screen colours?
Look at the ST for exemple.
Now, imagine a ST with only 16 colours in total...
Goodby Xenon, you aren't possible.
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What i mean by "clean" is pure colours, no dithering and no messy coloring that mixes lot of colours. Clean, like in the older games for C64.
Like this...
Both colorful and clean.
If that's what you like then that's fine but you shouldn't really say everything else is messy as that's also just your opinion. I'd never tell you you were wrong for liking something like that so why is it so bad some of us prefer the more complex graphics? To me that type of stuff looks VERY early 80s and I like to see things that show how the hardware has advanced or been pushed but I wouldn't say that was wrong in any way.
Pete
Sad enough that's to "simple" for many. Even if it looks good. That's the type of games that C64 was built for and handles without any problems at all.
The C64 was built for anything it runs. The only problems displaying graphics on the C64 are do you want more than 8 sprites on screen, or do you want to scroll a whole bitmap screen AND 2 lots of colour data. Both of those are reasonably easily overcome.
Pete
No, C64 was not built for anything it runs, both you and me can mess things up and overload any computer with tasks it doesn't is capable of to handle. Then we'll have to rewrite the code a bit.
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The main difference between the machines is that you can choose fine nuances of whatever colour on Atari, something you can't on C64. It's no problem to choose 5 fine nuances of green for exemple thanks to a big palette to choose from. On screen colours is something else. If the ST only had 16 colours in total the games would never looked like that.
And even if you only use 5 colours for your game, you can still choose nuances of whatever colour.
There's no denying the bigger range of colours on the Atari, that would be crazy but you can't ignore colours on screen. In a lot of cases it doesn't matter how many colours you've got to choose from when you can only display a very small percentage of them without resorting to CPU usage to add colour and in a lot of cases that's still in a fairly inflexible way. One of the biggest problems is Atari artists DO seem to choose a gradient of the same colour for their game and that seems kind of crazy when you've got all those colours to choose from.
The same kind of thing happened in the early 16 bit days. Artists (a lot of who were moving up from the C64) didn't know what to do with all those colours so you see a lot of games with loads of shades of grey and loads of shades of blue and little else.
Pete
On screen colours isn't that importand. The importand is to have a big palette to choose from. Else you can't create fine nuances of colours. Often 4 colours is enough to create a nice spread. (as in Xenon)
So Xenon only has 4 colours?
Pete
ST could usually afford about three spreads. 4 nuances per colour = 12 colours. The rest went to the status display. The grey in Xenon is almost certain a spread of 4 greys. Then ST uses blue, orange and some more colours in Xenon.
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What i mean by "clean" is pure colours, no dithering and no messy coloring that mixes lot of colours. Clean, like in the older games for C64.
Like this...
Both colorful and clean.
If that's what you like then that's fine but you shouldn't really say everything else is messy as that's also just your opinion. I'd never tell you you were wrong for liking something like that so why is it so bad some of us prefer the more complex graphics? To me that type of stuff looks VERY early 80s and I like to see things that show how the hardware has advanced or been pushed but I wouldn't say that was wrong in any way.
Pete
Sad enough that's to "simple" for many. Even if it looks good. That's the type of games that C64 was built for and handles without any problems at all.
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The main difference between the machines is that you can choose fine nuances of whatever colour on Atari, something you can't on C64. It's no problem to choose 5 fine nuances of green for exemple thanks to a big palette to choose from. On screen colours is something else. If the ST only had 16 colours in total the games would never looked like that.
And even if you only use 5 colours for your game, you can still choose nuances of whatever colour.
There's no denying the bigger range of colours on the Atari, that would be crazy but you can't ignore colours on screen. In a lot of cases it doesn't matter how many colours you've got to choose from when you can only display a very small percentage of them without resorting to CPU usage to add colour and in a lot of cases that's still in a fairly inflexible way. One of the biggest problems is Atari artists DO seem to choose a gradient of the same colour for their game and that seems kind of crazy when you've got all those colours to choose from.
The same kind of thing happened in the early 16 bit days. Artists (a lot of who were moving up from the C64) didn't know what to do with all those colours so you see a lot of games with loads of shades of grey and loads of shades of blue and little else.
Pete
On screen colours isn't that importand. The importand is to have a big palette to choose from. Else you can't create fine nuances of colours. Often 4 colours is enough to create a nice spread. (as in Xenon)
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If this is what you mean by good C64 graphics?, in that case i haven't a single clue of why it should be so much better then the 8 bit Atari?
Jeeez. One guy mentions R-Type, says he wonders if something like that can be done on Atari. We have a discussion about it and even state the C64 version is pretty dire. Now it's as if we said Atari can't do this!
You really need to remember what's been said and by who in a thread if you're going to use something as the basis of an argument.
Pete
I posted that because one in this thread was a big fan of R-Type and didn't thought that Atari could handle such game. Then he complained at the gradients in A8 games.
So it was not aimed for you or TMR.
I'm sorry but it doesn't matter who it's aimed it, it's still a position you're taking.
Anyway..
If you're going to compare a "clean" looking C64 game and see if it's possible on the Atari you only have to look at Paradroid. 320x res (hires) with multiple colours on screen and 320x res sprites. You just can't do that on the Atari, trust me I've been trying. You've got a choice of 1/2 the x res giving you the possibility of displaying the colours the C64 one does or keep it hires and attempt to re-colour parts of the screen using PMGs with which you don't have the flexibility of the C64s colour RAM so no doubt there would be lots of cases where it wouldn't work (I had a quick check a while ago and decided it really wasn't the way to go).
Pete
What i mean by "clean" is pure colours, no dithering and no messy coloring that mixes lot of colours. Clean, like in the older games for C64.
Like this...
Both colorful and clean.
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I would like to see a remake from Polen of this classic. Even if A8 only use 6 on screen colours it would look much better because of finer nuances.
No come on, you've been spouting off about how other people's work is a smeary mess so it's time to put your money where your mouth is; you produce a mock up of Xenon for the A8, show everybody how well it handles it. Then when we stop laughing, we'll do things like point out where you went wrong.
Who knows, maybe we are about to see a version of this game for A8.Yeah, maybe we are... but i'll lay very good money that it doesn't look much better or worse than the existing C64 version.
The main difference between the machines is that you can choose fine nuances of whatever colour on Atari, something you can't on C64. It's no problem to choose 5 fine nuances of green for exemple thanks to a big palette to choose from. On screen colours is something else. If the ST only had 16 colours in total the games would never looked like that.
And even if you only use 5 colours for your game, you can still choose nuances of whatever colour.
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If this is what you mean by good C64 graphics?, in that case i haven't a single clue of why it should be so much better then the 8 bit Atari?
Jeeez. One guy mentions R-Type, says he wonders if something like that can be done on Atari. We have a discussion about it and even state the C64 version is pretty dire. Now it's as if we said Atari can't do this!
You really need to remember what's been said and by who in a thread if you're going to use something as the basis of an argument.
Pete
I posted that because one in this thread was a big fan of R-Type and didn't thought that Atari could handle such game. Then he complained at the gradients in A8 games.
So it was not aimed for you or TMR.
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I'm completly honest when i say that i don't like this type of messy graphics, some of the shots looks awful messy. Why, in the world...create something like this when you can create something that is both clear and colorful?
BECAUSE THEY WERE DOING IT IN A HURRY TO MAKE MONEY. We said as much.
I agree. They would have done a much better job if they had reworked the whole graphics for C64.
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I Agree, the Megadrive version isn't a very great job. The only thing that's a bit better is the sound and the scolling. Else it's the same game as on ST with a bit different colours.
Which is the point Pete and i were making; those games aren't shaped by the "style" and there's no "nuances" between them, it's literally all about how fast the same game can be shovelled from one box to another. As actual games, most of the Bitmap Brothers output is sub par and Xenon 2 in particular is just crap.
You can very well see what's missing in the C64 version, gradients. The Spectrum version is quite terrible.
And i'll say it again the A8 can't do a better job.
I would like to see a remake from Polen of this classic. Even if A8 only use 6 on screen colours it would look much better because of finer nuances. Who knows, maybe we are about to see a version of this game for A8.
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If this is what you mean by good C64 graphics?, in that case i haven't a single clue of why it should be so much better then the 8 bit Atari?
It's not the best example of C64 graphics, but calling it a "smeary mess" is just trolling again. If you read the original posts properly you'd see that the request was for a game in that style rather than specifically R-Type and that i said it was a rushed six week conversion so of course it's not as good looking as it could've been.
i'm guessing from some of your more ridiculous statements that you've never actually tried drawing graphics for any of the 8-bits, perhaps you should try to see how hard it actually is.
I'm completly honest when i say that i don't like this type of messy graphics, some of the shots looks awful messy. Why, in the world...create something like this when you can create something that is both clear and colorful? If they had reworked the whole graphics to suit C64 and forgot the orginal arcade graphics they had done a much better job, because it's an impossible task to recreate the arcade orginal.
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But Xenon or Speedball with graphics designed for an Amiga would have looked better than Xenon or Speedball designed for the ST and shovelled over.
The problem isn't to "look better", the problem is to keep the orginal Bitmap look of the game. Some enhancements were made for both the Amiga and Megadrive. But the general look of the game was practically the same.
No, the "original Bitmap look" was born in part from having to keep the colour count down for the ST to make converting the graphics easier in order to make cross development quicker and more efficient. The only thing stoppping the "Bitmap look" from being 32 colours was the ST hardware and there's no grand artistic plan that demands sixteen colours.
And in the particular case of Xenon, i've always assumed that's a straight rip-off of Valtric since it's got a similar control mechanic and graphical style - it may be more detailed and a bit brighter, but the "Bitmap style" in that game is more "NMK style".
And the Atari 8-bit wouldn't have fared any better because it would have run out of colours in the display a little before the C64 did.ST was quite limited in the colour area thanks to 16 on screen colours so Bitmap Brothers had to choose their palette well from the 512 colour palette. I think that Xenon would have been a quite good game for Atari 800 to reproduce manily for one thing, the shades. Xenon was mainly about one thing, shades of colours, something that Atari 800 is built for with it's big palette. Shades of grey, shades of green, shades of purple, that's Xenon.
As we've said repeatedly it's got shades of colour but using those colours is a problem - the C64 version had to make concessions because of the palette but it'd still be making less concessions than the A8 would need to.
Check out Warhawk to Atari 800 for exemple, that's shades, and lots of them to get that metallic look in several different colours. C64'limits of 16 colours in total makes it impossible to reproduce a game like Xenon.You're offering a converted C64 game to prove that the Atari could handle something better than the C64... nope, that argument falls flat on it's arse.
I mean the use of hardware. Xenon II used Megadrives and Amiga's hardware scrolling for exemple like almost every other game did too, something that ST couldn't do because lack of hardware support.The Amiga version probably isn't using hardware scrolling either - removing and redrawing the parallax each refresh would take longer than just dumping the background and foreground layers in like i'm assuming the engine currently does. The Megadrive is hardware scroll but, as i said, it had to be rewritten anyway to use the Megadrive display hardware, it probably wouldn't have been if they could've just fudged the ST code to run directly since hiring someone to convert it cost them money.
I Agree, the Megadrive version isn't a very great job. The only thing that's a bit better is the sound and the scolling. Else it's the same game as on ST with a bit different colours. I don't have GENS on my harddrive right now but watched a video of Xenon II on Megadrive on YouTube.
Xenon II
From up
Amiga
Sega Master system
Megadrive
Atari ST
I'll post some shots on Xenon too.
From left to right. C64, Spectrum, Atari ST
You can very well see what's missing in the C64 version, gradients. The Spectrum version is quite terrible.
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Commodore 64 vs Atari 800 Xl
in Programming
Posted
Alternate Reality is not only still pictures, it's moving too. You walk around in AR.