Space Patrol 3-D

[intvnut]

All, I spent 30-40 minutes tonight hacking up an initial idea of what a 3-D Space Patrol might look like, using the Hover Force compatible glasses. (Aside: I think Kool-Aid Man was also meant to work with those glasses. Can anyone confirm?)

 

Anyway... keep in mind the below is pretty preliminary, based on about a half hour of mockup time. I'm interested in whether folks think it's as neat as I do...

 

http://spatula-city....im14u2c/spsp3d/

 

Like I said, it's a Q&D mockup. There's both a static image and an animated GIF at that page. Scroll down for the ani-GIF.

 

PS. It almost goes without saying, you need the 3-D glasses discussed in the Hover Force thread to see it. I should have plenty of these to sell in Vegas at modest prices if all goes well. Also, the ani-GIF is of course much choppier than the real game.

Edited August 2, 2012 by intvnut

[+DZ-Jay]

All, I spent 30-40 minutes tonight hacking up an initial idea of what a 3-D Space Patrol might look like, using the Hover Force compatible glasses. (Aside: I think Kool-Aid Man was also meant to work with those glasses. Can anyone confirm?)

 

Anyway... keep in mind the below is pretty preliminary, based on about a half hour of mockup time. I'm interested in whether folks think it's as neat as I do...

 

http://spatula-city....im14u2c/spsp3d/

 

Like I said, it's a Q&D mockup. There's both a static image and an animated GIF at that page. Scroll down for the ani-GIF.

 

PS. It almost goes without saying, you need the 3-D glasses discussed in the Hover Force thread to see it. I should have plenty of these to sell in Vegas at modest prices if all goes well. Also, the ani-GIF is of course much choppier than the real game.

 

Way to ramp up the sale of your glasses! LOL!

 

It looks good, without the glasses... I'll have to purchase a pare to check. DAMN! I fell for it too.

 

Anyway... is that an AT-AT or a mutant camel I saw you shooting down?

 

-dZ.

[IntellivisionDude]

All, I spent 30-40 minutes tonight hacking up an initial idea of what a 3-D Space Patrol might look like, using the Hover Force compatible glasses. (Aside: I think Kool-Aid Man was also meant to work with those glasses. Can anyone confirm?)

 

Anyway... keep in mind the below is pretty preliminary, based on about a half hour of mockup time. I'm interested in whether folks think it's as neat as I do...

 

http://spatula-city....im14u2c/spsp3d/

 

Like I said, it's a Q&D mockup. There's both a static image and an animated GIF at that page. Scroll down for the ani-GIF.

 

PS. It almost goes without saying, you need the 3-D glasses discussed in the Hover Force thread to see it. I should have plenty of these to sell in Vegas at modest prices if all goes well. Also, the ani-GIF is of course much choppier than the real game.

 

That looks nice using the glasses on.

 

Just checked Koo-aid Man and it only slightly works. If it was meant for 3-D they did a poor job implementing it. The yellow on the title screen pops out slightly and once again the yellow on the game over screen. The colors during the actual game look like it is trying to be 3-D but nothing really pops out.

[Intymike]

 

PS. It almost goes without saying, you need the 3-D glasses discussed in the Hover Force thread to see it. I should have plenty of these to sell in Vegas at modest prices if all goes well. Also, the ani-GIF is of course much choppier than the real game.

 

If there are a few left over after CGE, I would be glad if you can sell one to me.

[intvnut]

 

PS. It almost goes without saying, you need the 3-D glasses discussed in the Hover Force thread to see it. I should have plenty of these to sell in Vegas at modest prices if all goes well. Also, the ani-GIF is of course much choppier than the real game.

 

If there are a few left over after CGE, I would be glad if you can sell one to me.

 

Certainly! The only reason I'm not selling anything before CGE is because I'm too busy getting ready for CGE. :-) That, and they haven't arrived yet.

 

Lest anyone think I'm trying to get rich on these things -- I only bought 100 pair and will be selling near cost. Mainly I want to get these out there, and it seems easier than all of us raiding obscure things on eBay or buying $5 side-walk chalk at the toy store.

Edited August 2, 2012 by intvnut

[Intymike]

PS. It almost goes without saying, you need the 3-D glasses discussed in the Hover Force thread to see it. I should have plenty of these to sell in Vegas at modest prices if all goes well. Also, the ani-GIF is of course much choppier than the real game.

 

If there are a few left over after CGE, I would be glad if you can sell one to me.

 

Certainly! The only reason I'm not selling anything before CGE is because I'm too busy getting ready for CGE. :-) That, and they haven't arrived yet.

 

Lest anyone think I'm trying to get rich on these things -- I only bought 100 pair and will be selling near cost. Mainly I want to get these out there, and it seems easier than all of us raiding obscure things on eBay or buying $5 side-walk chalk at the toy store.

 

And the $5 for the chalk are the least, the ebay sellers want up to $30 for the shipping!

[catsfolly]

Even in 2D, Pluto looks like a tough place to go for a drive...

[IntellivisionDude]

People with the glasses watch this video. Some parts of it work better than others but it might be a good example of what works.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxrKTAmJN40&feature=related

[IntellivisionDude]

Red and Yellow over top of green works really well.

[the antithesis]

It looks neat. My biggest complaint is that the player's car, enemies and hazards don't really take advantage of the 3D effect and kind of blend into the background. Maybe most people won't care, but I would rather see the actual gameplay elements make use of the effect to make them more visible.

 

I posted a link to a tutorial on how to use this ChromaDepth stuff on the Chromatek website in the Hover Force thread. I've been toying with experimenting with it a bit to see what works and what doesn't.

 

Mind if I use your screen shot to experiment with?

[intvnut]

It looks neat. My biggest complaint is that the player's car, enemies and hazards don't really take advantage of the 3D effect and kind of blend into the background. Maybe most people won't care, but I would rather see the actual gameplay elements make use of the effect to make them more visible.

 

I actually haven't changed any of the color tables yet for the ships and rocks. I did experiment briefly with making the tank and the rocks both red. That was eye-bleedingly bad.

 

One of the issues I've run into is that red isn't pure on the Intellivision, so you get a strong green halo off of bright red objects.

 

I posted a link to a tutorial on how to use this ChromaDepth stuff on the Chromatek website in the Hover Force thread. I've been toying with experimenting with it a bit to see what works and what doesn't.

 

Yeah, I saw that, but I haven't had a chance to read it just yet.

 

Mind if I use your screen shot to experiment with?

 

Be my guest! If you find any great insights or manage to mock up something compelling, I think it'd be cool if you shared it.

[pimpmaul69]

its kinda cool how the (atleast crayola) glasses also magnify everything putting it all in your face

[the antithesis]

Alright. I've done some fiddling with it. One thing I've found is that some colors when placed near another color can develop, for lack of a better word, "noise." What happens is the left and right edges will appear to turn whitish and blurry. There is probably a proper name for this as well as a known list of what colors should not be next to what. The general rule of thumb seems to be that darker colors next to darker colors and brighter colors next to brighter colors tend to have this effect.

 

This means that a simpler background is better. Night Stalker was accidentally a pretty good example of it.

 

 

(Note: I recolored the bats)

 

Night Stalker is probably the best use of the effect I have yet seen. The walls appear to be flat, but attempting to recolor the walls tends to ruin the way the robot and the bunker really "pops." Unaltered, the dark blue and black background do appear to be floating above the screen, which is the kind of "wow" effect you want from 3D. So I'm holding this as the gold standard until I find something that looks better.

 

Space Patrol is a different kettle of fish to Night Stalker. The main draw is the parallax scrolling in the background, which I personally find amazing. The problem is the Intellivision has a very limited color palette. There just are not a lot of choices. Even then, you are still limited to what would work using the 3D. It seems to be a shame to not use the 3D to enhance the background, but in doing so we risk making the game hard to play if the game characters are hard to see. It's a trade-off, but I think making the game play elements pop is more important and that the background can fade into the, well, background.

 

So, using Night Stalker as inspiration, I went with a dark blue and black background and wound up with this:

 

 

I had recolored the sprites again. But, this works rather well with the 3D. The mountains do appear to be behind the craters. If this were animated, it would probably look even better. But the important thing is how clean the other elements are and how they really stand out with the 3D. This sort of set-up is also a bit more versatile since it allows for more of the limited color palette to be used and work with this background.

 

 

This can allow for most of the rest of the Intellivision's palette to be used on game elements.

 

It also means you'll lose some of the character of the game, the color schemes for different planets such as red on Mars. But that's the trade off when working with this 3D. Not all the colors work the way you want and the Intellivision only has 16 to start with.

 

I don't know how feasible this would be to implement. Maybe it's more work than you want to do. But this is the best option for a clean 3D effect that I have found so far. My other attempts were less than inspiring.

 

 

This tied up two colors, three if you count the black sky and the green did not play well with several of the other colors. Also, note how that jetski thing appears to be further back than the rock and buggy even though they are all the same color. This is because of the 3D on the mountains making it look further back. This could work, too, but I found it to be problematic with the 3D. The game elements don't seem to "pop" as much here. The background looks nice, but you're stuck with green since there aren't any other two-tone choices. The light blue is too light and causes a lot of noise. The other combinations I tried didn't work very well. Dark green craters over dark blue mountains had a bit of noise that was more evident in the alien city skyline.

 

I am hardly an expert on this, but these are my findings.

[Rev]

Very nice shots, but my glasses havent arrived yet!

[the antithesis]

I altered the video and put it here.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eN8kBL6X8Q

 

Forewarning, in editing the gif I degraded the image quality completely. The mountains came out waaay too light, so they're hard to see here. But the techniques I used were a lot easier and faster than redrawing 700+ frames of animation. But it's just a tech demo to show what the blue and black background looks like when animated. I think it gets that idea across.

 

As usual, you will need the glasses to see it.

Edited August 4, 2012 by the antithesis

[the antithesis]

Okay, so I took down the previous video because converting the gif to an AVI reduced the already poor quality and then uploading to Youtube reduced the quality further. I would have just posted the gif but Flickr doesn't seem to like animated gifs, at least of this size.

 

So I hosted the image here:

 

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/ufr2c

 

Sorry it's so small. Pretend you're using a smartphone. Unless you are using a smartphone. Then you shouldn't have to pretend.

 

Again, this is meant to be viewed with the glasses to get the full effect.

[IntellivisionDude]

Also be warned that my Valiant Visions glasses come with a warning.

 

These glasses are to be used soley for the purpose of viewing VALIANT VISION comic books and are not intended for use over extended time, looking into the sun, performing physical activity, while driving vehicles or operating machinery.

 

"performing physical activity" damn there goes the 3-D porn i was going to watch.

[+DZ-Jay]

Also be warned that my Valiant Visions glasses come with a warning.

 

These glasses are to be used soley for the purpose of viewing VALIANT VISION comic books and are not intended for use over extended time, looking into the sun, performing physical activity, while driving vehicles or operating machinery.

 

"performing physical activity" damn there goes the 3-D porn i was going to watch.

 

You know, if you use your 3-D glasses to look into the sun, you feel like you're there!

 

-dZ.

Edited August 5, 2012 by DZ-Jay

[the antithesis]

Also be warned that my Valiant Visions glasses come with a warning.

 

These glasses are to be used soley for the purpose of viewing VALIANT VISION comic books and are not intended for use over extended time, looking into the sun, performing physical activity, while driving vehicles or operating machinery.

 

"performing physical activity" damn there goes the 3-D porn i was going to watch.

 

They ain't whistling Dixie. I'd been fiddling with the glasses all weekend making the mock ups and such and my eyes are all screwed up now.

 

On the positive side, I did find another Intellivision game that accidentally works well with the glasses.

 

 

This further confirms that background using the dark blue and black works best. There is a bit of "noise' on the hot dogs and the fries look out of whack, but the lighter blue platforms and the burger pieces stand out nicely, interesting considering the different colors involved with the burgers. I would have thought the hamburger patties wouldn't stand out as well as they do. This gives further hints on what kinds of screen layouts work well with the 3D and which ones do not.

[Rev]

How much did you alter the Burgertime screen shot?

 

I can Imagine it now:

 

Burgertime 3D

[intvnut]

How much did you alter the Burgertime screen shot?

 

I can Imagine it now:

 

Burgertime 3D

 

Complete with an in-your-face animation of the guy saying "WE ARE CLOSED NOW!"

[Rev]

How much did you alter the Burgertime screen shot?

 

I can Imagine it now:

 

Burgertime 3D

 

Complete with an in-your-face animation of the guy saying "WE ARE CLOSED NOW!"

 

Nice

 

So, black background games work the best? I hope my glasses come tomorrow, I want to test a few games.

 

I want to test: Popeye 3-D!!!!!

[cparsley]

Wonder about Lock'n Chase and Space Spartens (mispelling on the last one I know)

[the antithesis]

How much did you alter the Burgertime screen shot?

 

None. Actually I found that screenshot on the internet, but I doubt if it's been altered.

 

So, black background games work the best?

 

I wish it was that simple. I have found that black with blue works really well. It may depend on other factors. I have found that just plain black background doesn't work very well. Buzz bombers really doesn't work because most of the stuff on the screen is the same color, yellow, on a black background. Looking at screen shots of Popeye, I think it could work really well with the 3D but the ROM would have to be hacked to change the colors.

 

Lock'N'Chase and Space Spartans are unremarkable with the 3d. I think Lock'N'Chase the yellow dots all over the screen throw off the 3D effect. So I messed with a screen shot a bit. Those of you with the 3D glasses can compare.

 

Here's the original:

 

 

Here's a version I edited to work better with the 3D:

 

 

The original kind of works. In fact, both of these images look much better blown up to full screen. But on the black background, the yellow dots have a lot more noise. Swapping the blue and black reduces the noise on the dot and the dots, the characters, the thin blue 'gates' in the walls and the dollar sign all appear to be floating above the surface of the screen. Much moreso than in the original. In this case, changing the background enhanced the effect.

[the antithesis]

You know, I keep talking about how the 3D is contextual, so here's a non-3D example. It's a lot like this optical illusion.

 

The two squares labeled in the picture are the exact same shade of gray. It's only by a trick of how our minds perceive the color in context with the shadow effect that square B looks lighter in color. I think this is a useful analogy to the 3D.