Flimbo's Quest on C64 possible on Atari?

[Heaven/TQA]

Guys,

 

what do you think how in Flimbo's Quest on C64 the parallax scrolling is done??? is it done really by scrolling - by hand - which means without the hardware scrolling???

 

hve

[Jetboot Jack]

Easy Peasy - character set rotation!!!

 

Same as Mayhem in Monsterland - which would make a SWEET 8bit project!

 

Check those Menace Demos on my site Hve - one of em has some nice parallax!!

 

sTeVE

[Heaven/TQA]

Steve,

 

yes i know that it is done with font rotation... BUT the difference

is (to menace) that normally you are rotating small objects in the font, f.e. 2x2 background pattern or 1 pixel stars... but Flimbo has a complete "background" to do.... which i find (maybe) much more complicated? and compared to 128 definable chars on atari and 512 on C64 well... a quite important difference... don't you think so?

 

hve

[Jetboot Jack]

Divide the screen vertically into just 4 zones with DLIs and point each at a seperate characterset - there ya go 512 characters!

 

As to the more complex parallax layer (and I apologise for marking out Mayhem since it does NOT parallax to any significant degree) - if you look at something like Hawkeye on the C64 - it does the same as Flimbo, but you can see the cheat easier, the parallax only occurs on character boundries, all curve or complex overlaps are carefully above or before/after parallax overlap elements...

 

Since the C64 has a very slow CPU and its video processor is much less powerful than the Atari - I see no reason why Hawkeye or Flimbo would not be possible - just gotta solve the sprite numbers problem

 

In truth it would be much better and easier to design a more colorful parallax scrolling (horizontal or vercical) game like these that plays to the XE's powers better, and realize a much prettier game than either of these C64 games!

 

I always go back and compare Luasarts games when I forget the Atari was much more powerful than the C64!!!!

 

sTeVE

[Heaven/TQA]

agreed.... just downloaded tons of d64 from www.c64.com

and running stuff with ccs64 2.0 beta... i have even found c64 win tool to ripp sprites+fonts into bmp file... maybe i'll try stuff out...

 

dropzone, f.e. as c64 owner i would be pissed off as it's a 100% atari port with 1 color sprites, etc...

 

but other games which were "outstanding" at that time, like uridium, last ninja, delta, r-type, turrican etc... do not impress me much as most of them do not cheat too much... the "high tech" methods are "stable raster interrupts", softscrolling... that's all... which i can do with antic as piece of cake...

 

the 160x200 resolution sux... even on c64...

 

but flimbo's parallax is still impressing. do you know Thalion??? they released outstanding games for atari ST like

wings of death I+II and dragonflight or chambers of chaolin

all former demo coders...and best imho is enchanted land. parallax softscrolling on plain atari ST... great game by the carebears (TCB).

 

i would like to try this parallax stuff out...

 

hve

[Jetboot Jack]

Hve,

 

The only one color sprites in Dropzone are the Blunder Storm and the Nmeye, everything else is nicely colorful, on both machines...

 

I would expect that with good software sprite routines and PMG overlays for spot colors that you could make some really good late 80's arcade games on the XE - certainly much more colorful than the C64 versions!

 

Check these 2 screens - I know which one I'd rather play!

 

sTeVE

[Heaven/TQA]

yes. but have a look on the player sprite... it looks so "monochrome"... and the smart bombs indicators..., the "clowds" attacking later or the "face"... i like the software sprite routine... (even possible to see that on the atari screenshot... checkt he overlapping 2 enemies...)

 

on c64 you could use the multicolor sprites even better imho... but anyway.... i love the game... but....

 

best conversion is still international karate nearly 1:1 for both plattforms... even sound+music....

 

hve

[Jetboot Jack]

So how is Timepilot going???

 

I've given up trying to exhume the old 8bit source code for Beast etc, and my last two 8bit projects have floundered too - so little time so much work!

 

I wonder if anyone would be interested in colaborating on an 8bit project?

 

sTeVE

[Heaven/TQA]

timepilot... well... too much work... to less time... damned software biz...

 

as i had a harddisk crash some actual sorces & files are gone... so rebuilding the stuff will be little tricky... f.e. "sprites2.raw" data is missing..... and i can not find it...

 

now its nearly 3/4 year when last time touched timepilot... the engine is working (basics...) but right now i am not sure anymore if its really the best way to do it in gfx. 15 or not better use charmode... blitting stuff in gr.15 is fast right now...but it flickers as well and you will definitly get slow downs like in most of the atari games (even droll...)

 

are you interested to help steve???

 

hve

[Jetboot Jack]

Hve,

 

I don't have a copy of your RAW file - I do have sprites2.bmp from one of your uploads - any use...

 

What kinda help u after???

 

sTeVE

[Heaven/TQA]

1st of all converting level 1 data into bmp files so i can convert them with the supplied turbo basic tool...

 

after having all gfx for the level i would like to implement them...

 

the next step would be to write the shifting routine and to expand the engine that it can position sprites on a pixel basis.... like zone ranger....

 

if this is done.... the next step will be a "normal flight" routine which means that you can fly around and shoot... the clouds are moving correctly etc...

 

i think enough work to do... oh and a big task is to figure out how the game logic is working and how the enemies are attacking etc to build up the rules of the game...

 

hve

[Heaven/TQA]

or what about the tool for the "overlay" information??? should we write a

converter where it reads the "overlay" information out of the bmp file? or do we want to edit the sprites manually not in photoshop but instead on atari???

 

and these extra-colors.... would it not be better to use charmode for the 1 extra-color + the sprite overlays???

 

any help appreciated...

 

hve

[Jetboot Jack]

Hve,

 

Mail me - [email protected] so we can talk!

 

I can sure help out with graphic ripping and setting up image files etc...

 

We can talk about tother stuff too!

 

sTeVE

[Heaven/TQA]

this game is a great example how parallax was used in 50hz on plan atari ST... please note: atari ST has NO softscroll register nor has a display-list nor has a display-list adress for the screen-ram... (well... just adjustable in 256 bytes increments...) and the 68000 8mhz processor was far too slow to do this...

 

http://www.cus.org.uk/~alexh/games/enchant...ed_land/el.html

http://www.edv-rudolf.de/lethal-xcess/tech.htm

http://pizzahut.portland.co.uk/download/sy...cscrolling.html (german!!!)

http://www.lynn3686.freeserve.co.uk/tcb.html

http://steem.atari.org/

http://codercorner.com/fullscrn.txt (READ DIS! strange people... )

 

(why the hell i am writing this??? well... Atari ST was my 2nd "love"... thank god for the atari 8bit hardware... compared to ST )

 

 

download the image files and get STEEM emulator to run it... its great!!! TCB ruled the ST scene...

 

the platformer is really great! has a fantastic gameplay imho... i love the bigscroller while loading...etc.... i love it...sorry... i have even the song on CD...

 

hve

 

ps. and if you are wondering HOW the coders managed to do softscrolling on plain atari ST in 50/60hz... in fullscreen... well... it's a complicated story...but it has to do with switching monitor into 60hz mode on PAL systems and the shifter (gfx chip) opened the borders... and with nice timings and lookup tables you could take these "unexpected" error for scrolling... it's unbelievable how people come to these technique... if you are more interested...search the net for "SYNC SCROLLING ATARI ST"...

 

so i guess that sync scrolling will NOT work on NTSC atari ST machines???? (if you are in 60hz mode anyway...)

[Heaven/TQA]

ooops... Atari ST was connected to color monitors... so the 50/60hz switch should be possible... even in NTSC areas.... shame on me... i had an 1040 STE which had a TV output... so maybe with that output the demos could be not possible...

 

hve

[Heaven/TQA]

really... read the fullscreen text.... how much effort just to increase screen resolution & fullscreen & stable raster lines and softscrolling... atari 1979 made it possible even earlier than in the 16bit range...

 

- WSYNC register to sync with rasterbeam

- DLIs

- DLISTs

- 4k antic counter... so large playfields possible & rasterlines...

- 32,40,48 "visible" screen size...

 

if you every coded on Atari 1040STE you remind on atari 8bit... like i have in 1990....

 

and remember... commodore amiga is the successor of the atari 8bit line... (jay miner)

 

hve

[emkay]

To make C64 Games, you have still to think "C64" ...

Since 1986 (until 1992 than I gave up) I tried to communicate with this..

 

- The XL is able to do more Sprites in Software, and more colorful then the PMG ever ...

- The POKEY is able, due to the unused Modulation capabilities, to play music like the C64 or ATARI ST ...

 

All you have to do is, to use DLI as less as possible and create a Sprite Routine, that splits the Memory of the graphics, so it is usable in Font-Memory...

 

With the reduced CPU Usage (look at DROL) it is possible to generate a fast working software-sprite-routine, to get more Colors, with only 7DLIs and to play well sounding Music (belonging to the POKEY) during a small VBI ....

 

At the end, there are fully C64 Conversions in color & sound. The only Handycap is the high resolution of the C64 Textmode.

 

In every Time (until 1992)I knowed programmers on the XL, they produced some silly Code on the XL, made a Demo with hiding the technique behind.....etc.

 

There are two reasons given hope to see a good Game in the XL/XEs old Days.... NUMEN and Sheddys Space Harrier is the Greatest since the XL was born.

But else?

Always the same story...

One is buying an ol' ATARI, is learning some standard Code ... is creating some silly things... and gets for better programs better Hardware.

So some tried to put two POKEYs in one XL or connected an other Soundchip onto the 8-Bit System. The POKEY is able to sound like a C64 or an ATARI ST, but that Hardwarefreaks made a HW-Extension, that is using more CPU and more Memory, without really better sounding results.

With a little usage os his brain, any Coder could have been able to create a program to use the capabilites of the POKEY... but that didn't ever happen.

Same with the graphics....!

[Heaven/TQA]

hmmm... just realised that when switching in 60hz mode (NTSC) the small demo flickers and the display is not updated fast enough.

 

it's no complicated code... well...i have to dig again into it... to see why...

 

hve