Nathan Strum
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Blog Comments posted by Nathan Strum
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Don't bet on it.
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MS is a big company, with many assorted issues, but describing them as a petulant 5-yr old seems...odd. I have a hard time imagining the MS board of directors having hissy fits because they can't beat Sony.
There's a really good documentary called Triumph of the Nerds, which goes into Bill Gates' competitive nature, and how that has shaped Microsoft's business practices. I don't know if it's corporate policy to throw hissy fits, but I can certainly picture Steve Ballmer having one.
And love 'em or hate 'em (does anybody love them?), MS has been extremely successful at creating software monopolies. Hardware is different, but I wouldn't write them off just yet.I'm not writing them off. I'm just saying they're going to come in second.
Then you go and you post something about the Olympics so people miss it!But isn't that what the Olympics are all about? Pre-empting stuff people would normally watch?
Heck, I bet there are many people who think they bought an HDTV when they actually got 858x480 (especially plasmas). Caveat Emptor, unfortunately.I remember seeing plasmas only a few years ago in the $15,000 - $20,000 range, and the same screen sizes are now running $3,000 - $4,000. Ouch.
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I can give it a shot, but more pixels is always better.
Is this 2LK or 1LK? If 1LK, could I make it taller (14 - 16)?
How many rotational positions does it need to have?
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Thanks, but I was able to use cheats to get what I needed.
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By design, most HD-DVDs will only play at 540 lines resolution into any machine that lacks an HDCP port and devices to convert HDCP to other formats will be absolutely positively forbidden.
Yeah, HDCP is HD's dirty-little-secret. If you're an early adopter of HDTV, you're kind of screwed. (Although I think anyone buying an HDTV even now is an early adopter.)
(HDCP, for those keeping score at home, is a copy-protection scheme for HD signals. It uses the DVI and HDMI connectors, and prohibits digital copying. If it doesn't detect an HDCP compliant port, it downsamples the signal so you can't make a full-resolution copy of the source material.)
Again, this is information I doubt they'll volunteer when you're buying a PS3 at Best Buy.
"So, will this PS3 work with my HDTV?"
"Sure!"
(later)
"Hey, how come my movies only play at 540p?"
"Well, you didn't ask how well it would work."
And forbidden or not - there will almost certainly be devices that will "fool" HDCP players, and be able to convert full-resolution HD signals for use with non-HDCP displays. (Not that I would ever condone something like that.
)It would be interesting though, to see how much better a downsampled Blu-Ray disc looked at 540p, than a standard-def DVD does at 480. I would guess, based on it having more picture data to begin with, it would look noticeably better. Not as good as 720, but decent.
Anyway, Sony wants the PS3 (and Blu-Ray) to drive sales of new HDTVs. Despite this, I would assume that even though Blu-Ray movies are downsampled on non-HDCP ports, PS3 games would still play at high-def through any suitable connection. It'd be pretty stupid of Sony not to allow that.
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Yep - HDMI is a biggie. I got a top of the line 65" HDTV 5+ years ago that only has analog inputs for the HD signal. Works great with my cable TV and DVR. I will not replace it until it dies, which means until then I have no incentive to buy into Blu-Ray or HD DVD.
For me, the incentive would be what movies became available on HD discs, how good they would look on my set, and what the cost would be.
At this point, I only own a standard-def TV anyway, but I'm hoping to get an HDTV this year. I'm pretty certain it would be a 720 set, since the 1080 ones are way out of my price range. Even so, 720 looks dramatically better than what I have now, so if the cost of Blu-Ray players was acceptable and there were enough compelling movies, I might look into upgrading. But that's a lot of "ifs" and "maybes". If the original Star Wars (without all of the extra "special edition" crap) came out on Blu-Ray, that would be a big incentive. Ain't gonna happen, but I can dream...
As an aside, after I wrote this whole entry, I noticed that Paramount had indeed committed to producing Blu-Ray titles.
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Wow, what an entry.
Wow, I can't believe anybody actually read all the way through it.
But there's a fly in the ointment for both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD: HDMI. All indications are any Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player (including the PS3) will only support full HD resolution via HDMI. So if your big screen HDTV-ready TV doesn't have an HDMI input, you'll only be able to watch HD DVDs (Blu-Ray or HD-DVD format) at a resolution somewhere between normal DVDs and HD.HDMI is (supposedly) backwards-compatible with DVI, so that will cover quite a few HDTVs that lack an HDMI connector. The important point (from the manufacturers' and resellers' point-of-view), is that even on TVs without either connector, you'll still be able to watch Blu-Ray (or HD DVD) discs, even if it's not at full 1080p. For most consumers, they probably won't even notice the difference, and actually, the vast majority of HDTVs being sold now only support up to 720p anyway (they scale down 1080 content to fit). That's something they don't tell everyone who walks in the door at Best Buy.
I agree with you that Blu-Ray will be a big plus for Sony, assuming the PS3 can remain cost competitive with the Xbox360.I think Sony will make the cost competitive. They'll lose their shirts on the consoles, but make it up in software, movies and HDTV sales. And Blu-Ray licensing fees.
And since the Xbox360 doesn't have an HDMI jack, I have a sneaking suspicion HD-DVD won't be a simple add-on, but maybe a completely different console.The XBox 360 not only doesn't have HDMI, but it doesn't have DVI either. Whether or not this can be added by a special cable, is something I don't know. But as it currently stands, whatever they offer for HD DVD playback, is either going to get funneled through the XBox's component output, or will have to have its own separate output. The latter option sounds really clunky to me, and doesn't make much sense. Why have something that's an "add-on" to the 360 with its own set of cables? (Of course, this is Microsoft we're talking about.) They don't seem to be thinking very far ahead as far as their "multimedia center" is concerned, do they?
Where Microsoft has apparently hit a goldmine is with downloadable content via Xbox Live Marketplace; something which doesn't appear to be on Sony's radar.I think we'll see more online stuff out of Sony. After all, they're doing pretty well with Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies and such. I don't think it's escaped their attention.
Personally, I have a N64; which my 5 year loves for Mario Party 1-3; and a PC on which I play a lot of MAME & VPinMame, and of course a 7800+CC2. But, I'm finding that I simply don't have the time to play games, and there's things I'd rather spend my $$ on to boot.I'm a pretty cheap gamer. Most of the stuff I buy comes from the bargain bins, and I don't buy very much anyway. I got my PS2 for free, and I can't imagine spending more than around $150 on any console, so I think it's going to be a very long time before I own a PS3.
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Wow... that's very impressive!
Apart from title screens... could that be incorporated into a game somehow?
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Couldn't you have played two games today? Or are you only allowing yourself one?
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I think the PF resolution would be too low to make it look decent.
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I just posted a quick version of the logo in my blog - it looks good with the flicker effect! It is just a pity that there isn't an easy way to do double width and multiple copies of the sprites at the same time ...
That looks like it'll work fine. I'll go through and make a cleaner version once the game sprites are done. And yeah, double-width would be nice so you could have a bigger logo on there.
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The hyperspace is more useful than it initially appears - if you are being chased by a lot of homing missiles then the hyperspace will get rid of them.
I hadn't noticed that before. That's very handy. I almost broke 100,000.
I liked the explosions that you did for Colony 7 (a kind of rez effect) - something similar for the aliens would be great. The player could probably use a different kind of explosion, but only if you have time.No problem. I like destroying things.
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So, did you try some rounds of Water Ski already?
Nope, but after your message I did. It's a pretty good game. I think the guy driving the boat is trying to kill me, though.
The Stones were entertaining, and better, probably than any Superbowl halftime show I've ever seen, though I haven't seen (or don't remember) many.I'd much rather see a straightforward mini-concert like that, than most of the overblown garbage they usually have for the halftime show.
And I wouldn't mind being in as good of shape as Mick is in, when I'm his age, either.
The title logo is not important for now, but it would be cool if something like the one in the Arcade could be produced eventuallyI have an idea for how to do that, but I'm not sure if it'll work or not.
Could you flicker between this:
And this:
To get this?
(This is just a rough pass at a 48 pixel version.)
The player ship is a bit odd as it has a flame effect that appears in front or behind the ship depending on the direction. The 24pixel height is intended to include this flame effect. The only other sprites that I can think of are an explosion effect and a warp effect (could be the same animation), which should be 8x8 pixels and as many frames as appropriate.Do you mean the warp at the beginning of the wave? Or the hyperspace effect? (I don't think the game really needs hyperspace... it's pretty useless since it always drops you back off in the same place.)
Do you want a different explosion for the aliens and the player?
Also, something I didn't realize before. The ship will auto-fire five shots in a row when you hold down the fire button. That's a nice feature.
Anyway, I'll start in on these once I get the Four-Play label done. Plus I want to re-work a couple of bug sprites.
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My gripe about the Tetris part of it, was that it wouldn't always give you usable pieces. It's fine if you have to work a little to fit one in, but giving you several completely useless ones in a row was just bad game design. That, or they shouldn't have put such tight time restrictions on rebuilding. I lost more often by not enclosing my castle, than by getting blown up or invaded.
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Eat boogers.
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Something I neglected to mention: the animations for the Ladybug sprites are actually four frames long each. But only three of the frames are unique. The same kind of thing can be done with Pac-Man. You only need to animate his mouth opening, then play the frames in reverese to shut it. So you might mention this to the person working on your sprites when there's an opportunity to re-use frames.
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That's great!
I always really liked Rampart (and I was never crazy about the building part of it, either.)
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From the artist's point of view, would 4 extra pixels be useful?
Well, I'm always after as many pixels as I can get anyway.
Generally it would depend on the circumstance. For instance, logos with text in them (or just text) could benefit from that, since sometimes it gets a little tight trying to cram all of the letters in there. The "Happy Holidays" message in Reindeer Rescue is pretty crowded, for example.
But if there were limitations imposed on those extra pixels that negatively affected the rest of the design, then it would be better off not to use them.
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Nice work Manuel! Although I liked the previous version where I didn't keep getting killed all the time.
But it's cool watching everything blow up.
Fun little quirk: if you lose your second cannon while holding the fire button down and it happens to be on the frame where your cursor is a solid shape (not cross-hairs), you can keep on killing stuff just by moving the now "permanently deadly" cursor over them. It looks like the cursor "sticks" at the last condition that it was in when your last cannon exploded.
(And for what it's worth, the arcade version of Colony 7 didn't use a trackball either.)
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Or Galaga, at the very least. Or... this would work really well for some of the waves in Juno First, too.
Nice demo, Bob!
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Wow - that is quite a list - make sure that you don't burn out trying to do it all! My own rule is that I have a break from programming when it stops being fun.
Not a problem. I have an apathy gene that kicks in when I start getting burned out.
The trick with all of this stuff, is that it doesn't all have to be done now. Some of this is months away. In the interim, I may pick up other projects, too, but I try not to take on too many projects at once.
This list would be very useful as it is difficult to know exactly what information is required. From a programming perspective, I think that the choices are usually:- 1LK or 2LK
- Colour or Monochrome
- Single, Double, or Quad Width
- Number of animation frames (power of 2 is best)
- Delay between frames
- Sprites Height (usually 256-Screen Height max)
- Number of sprites
That's a good starting point. I'll have to go back through my PMs with Bob, John and Manuel, and see what I can add to that.
- 1LK or 2LK
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The veggies and ladybug death-scene are done! (Pending approval.) I got another binary from John tonight - the game is coming along nicely! I think fans of the original are going to be very pleased indeed.
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The vertical one looks too narrow. Would it be too wide if you made it 7 pixels? The body of the near-vertical diagonal one is almost 7 pixels wide.
Also, do you know if there are any command-line utilities that will easily convert a graphics file with a small number of colors into a text file (one line/row) and/or a "raw" RGB file? Could be very handy as part of a toolchain.
My guess is it'd be too wide. But I can play around with it later and see. I think overall it works pretty well now.
John (Champeau) is working on a conversion tool for LadyBug to convert .bmps into sprite data. I don't know how it differs from the one Manuel uses, but hey - now there's two.
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My pixel maps for this kernel are a pain. I have to split the graphic tables into odd and even rows. I'll probably write up a small perl program to do that for me. It's tedious work for 16 sprites, and I'll likely be doing a similar odd/even algorithm for Battle of Midway.
Actually, there are only 5 unique sprites. The rest are flipped or mirrored or both.
Not sure if that will help or not, but maybe it can save you some work.
And here are all 16 frames, as .bmp files. (John said those are easier to convert into sprite data.)
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The Olympics and stuff
in (Insert stupid Blog name here)
A blog by Nathan Strum in General
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You need to find a way to work that into Four-Play using the AtariVox.