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RushJet1

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Posts posted by RushJet1

  3. Posted · Edited by RushJet1

    8 hours ago, Skeeter said:

     

    I tried it using the .bin renamed to .a78 and got as far as a garbled screen. I mentioned it on the MiSTer discord and like you, one of the devs said something about the header and took a look.

     

    The game is now running on the MiSTer sans the .mus files, so you get sound effects but no music. I played it, it's fantastic. Of course it'd be much better if the music was in. But there's some very smart people developing for the MiSTer so I wouldn't be surprised if it happens.

    I halfway jokingly told Osman that I might have to really try at making a TIA version of the soundtrack if emulating bupboop isn't possible

    sand.bin

    • Like 7

  5. Posted · Edited by RushJet1

    Three ways:

     

    1) make percussion that does it, and retrigger the percussion every x steps as necessary.  For example if your chords are 3 notes and your tempo is 5 frames per row, then you'd need a 15-length instrument of those three notes and you'd repeat them every 3 rows so they line up.  You have a limit of 15 percussion instruments so this is kind of limiting, chord-wise, especially if you have other percussive instruments.

     

    2) you can do this with instruments if you set the sustain start to something like 1 and the release to 4.  It will play the "sustain" part in a loop until the note is no longer held.  This is very limiting as there are 7 instruments max.

     

    3) just use patterns, but you can re-use old patterns over and over.  Patterns do not need to line up between channel 1 and channel 2, so you can have one channel be looping a shorter arpeggio pattern and be doing whatever on the other one.  I did this for the empty space in one of my .ttt files a while back- it basically plays a 4-note pattern, then plays the same empty 60 rows pattern multiple times to save space.  I might retool a program I wrote awhile ago to optimize .ttt files for repetition this way.  If I ever need to....

     

    edit: I would not recommend 1 or 2 because each frequency jump is not the same between notes.  You basically have to make a new instrument or percussion for each individual chord as a result.  I'll attach an example of the 3rd method.

    example.bin example.ttt

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  6. Posted

    A couple of things:

     

    - Vertical movement is slower than horizontal movement.  This is a result of the double-wide pixels I think, but you could change movement based on the ratio to make it feel closer.  Basically make him move left/right a little slower to match the up/down speed (or increase the up/down speed, either way).

     

    - Bomberman returns to his default "facing the screen" pose every time you let go of the controller, but he should just continue facing the same direction you were just pushing.  Probably set it to the first sprite in the animation of each direction so he doesn't look like he is taking a step but pausing.

     

    It is looking great so far though.  The animations look good and the movement looks like it's properly moving you around boxes/you aren't getting stuck.

     

    • Like 5
    • Thanks 1

  12. Posted

    1 hour ago, Defender_2600 said:

    It was also my thought, in fact I had used four colors for the brown rocks, including the brown background color.
     

    However, using the background tiles for explosions in 160A, the color green should be used for the background in order to leave the other three colors free for the explosions.

    Either that or you can simplify the backgrounds to only use one green during the explosions, but use the more colorful background when it's not exploding, shouldn't be too noticeable.

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    2 hours ago, TwentySixHundred said:

    Thanks Defender, im keeping in mind of what Matt has said earlier about running out of rendering time when using both modes. I still may very well use both but not sure if it's a good idea at the moment. The last thing i want is to run out of rendering time and get stuck in the mud. I still need to add alot to the board like enemy balloms, bombs, HUD and explosion graphics which will take multiple sprites that need rendering. Not to mention upgraded explosions and other additional upgrade items to pick up. I would hate to get long into the development and have issues with say displaying the explosion effects correctly ect. Horizontal is fine as i can have wide sprites, however with a zone height of 16 i will need multiple explosion sprites vertically. Problem is i just don't know how expensive this sprite-based tile concept really is, until i hit that brick wall i guess.

    Edit: I could however have the explosion sprites dissipate as they run along the rows. Meaning i wouldn't have to use as many sprites but rather change the sprites x and y pos over multiple frames. I can see this would save rendering time as it cuts down the amount of sprites needed at one given time.

     

    Wouldn't the explosions just be background tiles that animate?  I'm pretty sure that's what Bomberman 2 did on the NES.

    • Like 1

  14. Posted

    I played the demo for a bit.  As for collision, I'd recommend checking these points (in yellow): 

     

    image.thumb.png.7edb5bb6e810acd0b901df08189d1d91.png

     

    That way his head can be a little on top of the ones above since that's how the games usually handled it.  Also enable diagonal movement because it feels a lot more stiff just doing up/down/left/right.

    • Like 1

  15. Posted · Edited by RushJet1

    Updated again.  Yeah I'm fine with you using this track (and others I might make in the future) in this game, that was the idea!  I'll send you relevant files when I'm done (I can export to k65, mads, dasm, csv format with TIATracker).

     

    Edit: So far my file is PAL; is your game going to be NTSC or PAL?

     

    bomber.bin

    • Like 2

  17. Posted

    I think you could go pretty far with this - the original NES games didn't have big bosses like the SNES ones did, but your game could totally do that because the Atari 7800 can scroll larger graphics around the screen with a background.  

     

     

    If that doesn't load to the right time, the first boss is around 8:50.  It's just a big mostly static character that floats around and occasionally uses an attack.  Not super graphically intense, doesn't require very good AI or anything.  I'd think this would be totally possible on the 7800.

    • Like 6

  20. Posted

    18 hours ago, bizarrostormy said:

     

    Agree about the NES.

     

    A lot of 7800 games did sound better than their 2600 counterparts IMO, even though they used the same chip. Maybe that’s for technical reasons (the 7800 has more available processor cycles per frame, more RAM, more ROM per bank, and usually more ROM overall) or maybe it’s just due to programming. Still, audio was clearly the stock 7800’s weak link.

     

    What does “overhaul the entire game for the XM” mean?

     

    I’m all for bringing new conversions to the 7800 — that’s what I’m doing. I think the idea of updating existing 7800 games for POKEY audio also makes a lot of sense. It’s a different scale of work and a somewhat different skillset.

     

    Ultimately, of course, the decisions about what to work on are going to be made by the people doing the work.

    I think some of the 7800 sounding better than the 2600 boils down to competition.  Games were under a lot of pressure to sound better in 1986 than in 1977-1983.  During the 2600's first run, the competitors also had pretty rudimentary sound capabilities- even the PCs had just a beeper a lot of the time.

     

    Having more available RAM and ROM space didn't hurt, though.

  21. Posted

    8 hours ago, Tidus79001 said:

    One thing I will say is that I find the TIA sound to better than the sound produced on the Sega Master System that was just very plinky and high pitched.  The 2600 had some a nice range of sound from low deep rumbles to high pitched sounds.  Master System sound on the other hand just tends to make my ears want to bleed.  That all being said as these demos have pointed out it is how you use the hardware, so if you are clever you can get a lot of mileage out of these chips with clever programming to mask their limitations.  The music in Jr Pac-Man for the 2600, the warbling sound of Jr and gobbling of the pellet are some great examples of what the TIA can do and I always found those sounds very pleasing when playing the game.

    You can do similar things with the SMS to make it sound nicer:

     

     

    Game gear is identical to SMS but with stereo.

    • Like 1

  22. Posted

    12 hours ago, Synthpopalooza said:

    Is there also a setting that let's you play those same notes in F instead of E?  The Pitfall jump sound?

    My statement about the key of E specifically applies to "sound 6" on the 2600.  Each sound/distortion has its own scale, though some are shared.

  23. Posted

    2 hours ago, dodge ramman said:

    Yes, but Atari probably didn't want the Famicom sound! After all every console had it's own unique sound! At least back then! Think AC/DC and Def Leppard! Both great bands but you can hear one and the other and tell them apart just form the music! Very unique and distinct sounds! I myself would not want an Atari with Nintendo sound! At that point why not just buy a Nintendo? I think Warner made the right choice!

    I think this was a decision made based on cost alone, not on aesthetics.  They could have used a POKEY like the Atari 5200 if they wanted to avoid the "NES Sound" which wasn't really too prevalent back then anyway.

     

    They probably basically looked at it and were like "we have this thing we need to release cheap.  Can it do sound?" and heard "yes" because of the 2600 support, and that was the end of the story.  Adding extra chip support for cartridge-based sound was a shortsighted way to sell the console cheaper. 

  24. Posted

    Many demos I've noticed stick to E minor with the C as a 7th etc because those are literally the keys available to the "6" sound that sound in tune.  The first TIA track I wrote does this exclusively:

     

     

    You can do some stuff with the normal squares too but they're more shaky tuning-wise.  It helps to vary it up and have more than one thing going on per channel, like perscussion or harmonies.

     

     

    You can even cover other tracks if you are smart about where they are transposed to so you avoid problem notes.

     

    popcorn2600.mp3

     

    But there are definitely tracks that aren't possible on the TIA, whether due to frequency problems or polyphony... I will say that such extreme limitations make it fun to write music for occasionally.

    • Like 9

  25. Posted

    10 hours ago, Theallknowingsause said:

    That's kinda what I was saying, I think that people should figure out that the 7800 can use more then just the pokey chip for audio, but I think because that's the only special audio clip official 7800 games have used, coding for the pokey chip is much easier then finding a new chip and having to manually map out the new chip and what ever.

    I think one day we should all agree to use 1 audio chip to exploit and get at the documentation to create the definitive 7800 audio chip.

    Yes instead of the POKEY I would propose to make an enhanced version of what the 7800 has.  Maybe double the channels, increase the bit depth of the pitch registers to include more actual notes, maybe add some extra sounds!

     

    Wait that's the POKEY

    • Like 1
    • Haha 1
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