+Philsan Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 Man been forever since i've posted. had an extremely crappy year. I got alot of stuff that will keep me away from any of my ongoing work. And yes castlevania is still at the forefront of my game work but it is still far off for a while atm. I had some strange drive to create an image even though I haven't had the time or the drive to do any artwork prior to the drive. lol so I just wanted to share the image for inspiration to others. here ya go. Excellent! The Immortal was a very good game. Do isomethric games exists for VCS? I think that with new bB v1.1 a scaled down version of Immortal could be made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+grafixbmp Posted February 5, 2011 Author Share Posted February 5, 2011 Excellent! The Immortal was a very good game. Do isomethric games exists for VCS? I think that with new bB v1.1 a scaled down version of Immortal could be made. I suppose crystal castles counts as an isometric game. One person asked me if they cared if they tried rendering the 2 marble madness levels I drew. I look forward to seeing it on screen to see what it looked like but haven't heard anything back since he asked me. I used those as a template for this one. I may just check out this new kernel for bB that was created for Harmony/DPC+ Just to see how well the levels would look if they might be playable. The same goes for this one. The only thing I wonder about, especially since some arm code can be run briefly now, is that if the ARM could take over for scrolling the playfield??? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 Do isomethric games exists for VCS? No. Absolutely not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tokumaru Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 Great mock-up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 One person asked me if they cared if they tried rendering the 2 marble madness levels I drew. I look forward to seeing it on screen to see what it looked like but haven't heard anything back since he asked me. Actually, I was waiting for permission. But, since I read this post this morning, I got a little bit excited, and put together something for ya. Not scrollable, but you can see the general idea. I got a little bit bored from the data entry (I just did PF0_1 and PF1_1), but I've shared the source, and I can help explain to people how to "fill in the gaps" if they feel like it. In fact, I encourage it! Not bad for a pre-superbowl exercise. -John marble_2011_01_06_asm.zip marble_2011_01_06_bin.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 Here's the screenshot. As mentioned, doesn't have full data yet. -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian O Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 Great stuff, grafixbmp. Very impressive! -B Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+grafixbmp Posted February 6, 2011 Author Share Posted February 6, 2011 That looks really good. scales rather well too. Ill see if i can prearrange data to drop into place. I take it the image is stationary and can't scroll? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+grafixbmp Posted February 6, 2011 Author Share Posted February 6, 2011 (edited) double post Edited February 6, 2011 by grafixbmp 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 Ok, pre-superBowl I finished just that static screen. I darkened the blue a little bit. grafixbmp, if you can find a way to pre-convert data, then I can get you a scrolling screen. -John marble_2011_01_06_b_asm.zip marble_2011_01_06_b_bin.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 grafixbmp, if you can find a way to pre-convert data, then I can get you a scrolling screen. Couldn't you just write a small tool to extract the data directly from *.bmp files? It'd make it much easier if course/graphics changes were made then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 Simple scrolling added. No new screenshot, since when you scroll up, all you see is a solid screen. Limitations: 1) The current kernel has the screen limited to showing 95 pairs of blue and white lines, making a total of 190 lines visible at any time. 2) Due to a page boundary, at the moment, it'll only support up to 255 pairs of blue/white lines before scrolling stops. This can be fixed later with some smart logic/bankswitching, but I don't want to put the cart before the horse yet. 3) If you scroll ALL the way up, you'll see that the rightmost set of blue is messed up for the first 4 values. This is because I currently have this data overlapping the start vectors. Of course, I can always move this out of there, but for now, it doesn't matter. -John marble_2011_01_07.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted February 8, 2011 Share Posted February 8, 2011 @grafixbmp How hard would it be to put together the Marble Madness title screen? -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted February 8, 2011 Share Posted February 8, 2011 man, i loved the immortal. good gore iirc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+grafixbmp Posted February 8, 2011 Author Share Posted February 8, 2011 It shouldn't be very difficult to do the title screen. I glanced through your asm file and it looked like you were loading the TIA registers PF0 PF1 and PF2 twice for 6 loads per scanline. I thought I would help by prearranging the data but by the time I got through it, it was that time when I noticed the difference in the kernel. I only did about half of the work on this breakdown image as I was going to shrink it verticaly by 50% 2 times and offset the second run so that the grey would be separate from the blue. I just wasn't too sure which data arrangement you were using. I flipped the image and separated the register load data and flipped accordingly ,but I did so on the basis of only 4 register loads and with mirroring turned on. But either way here is what I got so far. I can do more later. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 It shouldn't be very difficult to do the title screen. I glanced through your asm file and it looked like you were loading the TIA registers PF0 PF1 and PF2 twice for 6 loads per scanline. I thought I would help by prearranging the data but by the time I got through it, it was that time when I noticed the difference in the kernel. I only did about half of the work on this breakdown image as I was going to shrink it verticaly by 50% 2 times and offset the second run so that the grey would be separate from the blue. I just wasn't too sure which data arrangement you were using. I flipped the image and separated the register load data and flipped accordingly ,but I did so on the basis of only 4 register loads and with mirroring turned on. But either way here is what I got so far. I can do more later. Thanks! Yeah, I stupidly realized that I don't need to load PF0 with a bunch of absolute,X commands; I could just LDA #0 and save 2 cycles. So, at a minimum, it could be 5 absolute loads, and one immediate load. For the reflected idea, it's a good one in theory, but I don't think I've ever seen any 2600 kernel in source code do reflected PF *and* PF updates, since you have to hit that cycle exactly every single time. That means any page-boundary crossings can't happen; things have to be really, really tight. That's ok, but it just means a very robust kernel. Honestly, since there are 3 color clocks per cycle, I didn't even consider a reflected PF with PF updates as a possibility. In fact, does that color clock hit right on the middle of the screen (i.e. pixel 80)? If it is off at all, that solution may not work. The other thing I considered was... what if it's non-reflected, but shifted? For example, what if shifted left? That would mean my second PF2 would be a load-immediate with #0. But, then again, it's fundamentally the exact same as what I have now, but with the gross problem that HMOVE lines could be visible and interfere in the kernel. So, yeah, I can give your proposed method a shot; I just want to make sure the math works out. Does anyone know if any programmer has ever used that technique? Just curious. -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Well, I'd never believe it, but you're right! If I store to PF2 EXACTLY at cycle 48, preliminary tests seem to show that it'll draw the PF2_1 and PF2_2 seamlessly. I'm going to rethink my kernel. -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+grafixbmp Posted February 9, 2011 Author Share Posted February 9, 2011 Was wondering how well a kernel would do with the PF mirrored as compared to the previous method of rendering for freeing up cycles? I also noticed ya had the scrolling by every 2 scanlines because the grey/blue color pattern never shifted when scrolling. The scrolling is great but as far as allowing for player0 and player1 loads, ya think there will be enough free cycles for that? Possibly double pixel height? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cd-w Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Well, I'd never believe it, but you're right! If I store to PF2 EXACTLY at cycle 48, preliminary tests seem to show that it'll draw the PF2_1 and PF2_2 seamlessly. I'm going to rethink my kernel. Yes, this trick does work if you store PF2 on exactly cycle 48. It is used in quite a few titles, including my Hunchy 2 game. The PF update in Hunchy 2 looks like this: lda (SPTR0),Y ; [16] + 5 sta PF1 ; [21] + 3 < 28 lda (SPTR1),Y ; [24] + 5 sta PF2 ; [29] + 3 < 38 lda (SPTR3),Y ; [32] + 5 sta PF1 ; [37] + 3 > 38 < 60 lda (SPTR2),Y ; [40] + 5 sta PF2 ; [45] + 3 = 48 EXACT Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Well, that's neat to know. I kind of like it how the timing of the color clocks matches that exactly. I never would have thought it possible, and assumed we would have a pixel or two "bleed". I have a basic redesign, but I think I'd like to start with the "Beginner" level, since it doesn't cross 255 pixels in height per color. I'll need some time to get that done, but it's in progress. For the scrolling, yes, grafixbmp, you're right-- it goes at a rate of "two". How the player graphic moves could probably be independent of the PF drawing, and since I'm doing 4 direct/absolute-indexed reads, there are cycles available for other tasks. For the scroll, I had an idea to make it go at the rate of "one", and that's in progress. Oh, and in the beginner map, I noticed a teeny tiny bug. In the leftmost column, the second and third orange pieces (and the white piece in between) need to be shifted down 1 pixel I think. Yes? For the orange/brown, which NTSC and PAL colors would be optimal? http://www.qotile.net/minidig/docs/tia_color.html Regards -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+grafixbmp Posted February 9, 2011 Author Share Posted February 9, 2011 Your right. I never really liked how that looked but couldn't for some reason figure out a good method to present the numbers well. I also meant to add the number spaces at the first ramp but forgot about it. If you can find a better look to the number spaces, go with that cause i was always unsure about that part and wanted some input but never heard anyone say otherwise. As far as color, just any dark hue of 2. say between 02 and 52 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+grafixbmp Posted February 10, 2011 Author Share Posted February 10, 2011 I should apologize. I misunderstood the error you were talking about but I found it and corrected for it. Here are images for the practice level. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 No worries-- thanks for the images. I'll see what I can do, but I may need a little time. -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+grafixbmp Posted February 11, 2011 Author Share Posted February 11, 2011 Yes, take your time, don't rush. I got bored last night. Since valentine's is getting closer, I'm seeing everyone hooking up around me (bow chika wow wow) and about the best i could do was text a girl till 1 in the morning. But while all this was going on, I decided to work on trying to complete all possible graphics for the main marble and I must say as compared to the original, they look rather decent. I'm not sure how they will animate. Not real sure what the sequence patterns are from the NES, since that is what I based these off of. I always had the notion for the marble's shape to be displayed frame 0 and the flow patterns of the crystals in the marble frame 1. I allowed for both possible outcomes to this: full rez and double pix height. Either will work however, for the double height, I left the ball shine off. All this is just in case you want to play with animation possibilities. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cd-w Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 The screens for Marble Madness look great. The main issue I see is how to get the marble to go behind the playfield in certain parts of the map. This is going to require some complex sprite masking to make it look convincing. Normally isometric games draw the screen from the back to the front, so the masking is taken care of automatically. However, that is not an option when using the playfield. Crystal castles cheated and made sure that nothing was ever obscured Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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