Games that use Apple II-style artifacting for colors

[_The Doctor__]

The center picture I have never seen the like on a real Atari. The other two are the difference between my XL and XE. I remember, back in the day, not liking the reddish landscape, but I liked the fact that my XE had blue water at least. It wasn't until the mid 90's that I owned my first XL and was introduced to the green/purple artifacts, and absolutely hated it. The greens and purples always remind me of IBM CGA graphic colors which I also always hated. But I also used to fiddle with the tint on my TV/monitors to get artifact colors my eyes preferred. In any case, I prefer the artifact colors on games like Ulitma rather than my PAL S-video without them. Of course that's not true across the board, as I said before, only for games made to use artifacts. Amaurote definitely looks better without artifacting.

I simply replaced the Artifact capacitors on the xl to get the colors more correctly done.... so the fire place and clock in jingle disk were reddish and the tree greenish......

[Bryan]

It was explained to me that Altirra needs a little more work before it can do 90 degree shifted colors like the Apple II. And interestingly, only the Atari 800 can do it. All other models don't.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/256683-altirra-280-released/?p=3721129

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/256683-altirra-280-released/?p=3721116

That's not exactly what was stated. First of all, Altirra doesn't need to do what the Apple II does. It needs to emulate the special-case artifacting of the 800 which isn't 90 degrees, but isn't quite 180 either. The only reason it's not emulated is phaeron wants better information on it.

[zzip]

 

It's just a screenshot of someone's Youtube video. I guess the colors themselves are going to be different depending on what machine you use. But my point was that NO Atari screen will look like that Apple screenshot, because the Apple is displaying more artifacted colors than are possible on an Atari, and also I think the Apple II's width in pixels is limited to something like 280 rather than the 320 that the Atari has.

 

exactly. I think the apple II has the same number of bytes per line, but they use an extra bit to swap between two different artifact color sets for each byte, which leaves them with 280 pixels, but up to 4 unique artifact colors (red, blue, green, purple) vs 320 and 2 artifact colors. but that means that you while you can put red and blue in a single byte on apple, you can't mix say red and green. It has to be either red + blue or green + purple. I love how all the 8-bits have their own unique quirks with color placement

[zzip]

I get this from Applewin. Looks nice because of the green landscape and blue water.

ultima_iii_1_000000000.png

 

Then from Altirra I get these, but not able to tweak it exactly like the Apple II.

a1.pnga2.pnga3.png

 

With the Atari800 emulator, I got it to an acceptable green foliage/ purple water (passes for blue), kinda the reverse of your first screenshot

[zzip]

Really?!? I got news for you, ALL artifact colors are FALSE colors...there aren't any true colors. And yes, I see the quotes, on true, which only makes the statement more ridiculous to me. Regardless, who cares if dithering is used if it works?!?

 

But yes the program did use dithering patterns like checkerboard, etc., to make for example a fill of red and blue checkered dither to make a "purple" color, and in fact had an entire page or more of patterns to choose from, it also created more artifact colors like a yellow and light-green and pink (as solid looking on a composite screen as the basic red/blue or green/purple artifact colors) among others through choices of paint brushes with special pixel placement. In any case, I've been meaning to track down that art program again, if I find it I'll post it and you can see for yourself.

 

But to the Ultima stuff, sure, the Atari version doesn't use as many artifact colors as the Apple version. It doesn't mean it isn't possible. Weren't the C64 versions done in a high-res mode similar to Apple and Atari too?

 

The C64 version of the Ultima games do not use artifacting, C64 hi-res mode can place 2-unique colors in each 8x8 on screen block I think. That limitation works out quite well for a tile-based game like ultima, and the C64 version is the most colorful of the 8-bits computer versions I think.

Edited March 20, 2017 by zzip

[_The Doctor__]

Some version of Ultima will as a fresh install ask what colors you see... it will then reverse the Artifacts based on what you select... I remembered this, be very impressed...

 

There might be a mention of how to change it again later somewhere... but that I don't remember... anyways... artifact order was software select-able and a capacitor hardware mod took care of it and the color to a degree as well!

[Robert Cook]

On 3/17/2017 at 1:33 PM, Gunstar said:

Actually, if it was pretty much a straight port from the Apple, then why not do it in a windowed 280? Was it easier to do the full 320? That seems like pixels would have to be added.

That's a good question.  I suppose that since they already had to add pixels for the C64 ports, in order to line its hi-res graphics up with its color memory, it was easy enough to use the same converted graphics in the A8 ports, since both have 320 bits/pixels.  So there was no additional cost for the A8 ports, and this avoided unnecessary distortion as a bonus.  Mystery solved...I think.  Additionally, the A8 graphics had to be changed anyway to reflect the differences in color.

 

On 3/20/2017 at 7:39 AM, zzip said:

I think the apple II has the same number of bytes per line, but they use an extra bit to swap between two different artifact color sets for each byte, which leaves them with 280 pixels, but up to 4 unique artifact colors (red, blue, green, purple) vs 320 and 2 artifact colors.

You are correct.  In the Apple II world, however, I think it is more technically "proper" to say that without that bit (the high bit), there would be 4 colors (black, white, green, purple) and with it there are 8 possible colors (2xblack, 2xwhite, green, purple, orange, blue).  Of course, the 2 types of black and 2 types of white really mean there are 6 total colors: black, white, and 4 other colors.  The different blacks and especially whites actually do make a visible difference, but it's a minor thing--they're still basically black and white.  Small sub-pixel spots of other colors may additionally appear between the intended colors depending on how the bits all line up, but they're not that noticeable.

 

On 3/20/2017 at 7:39 AM, zzip said:

but that means that you while you can put red and blue in a single byte on apple, you can't mix say red and green. It has to be either red + blue or green + purple. I love how all the 8-bits have their own unique quirks with color placement

The red looks more like orange to me, but in any case, yeah, these quirks and others like them are pretty cool.

 

On 3/20/2017 at 7:59 AM, zzip said:

The C64 version of the Ultima games do not use artifacting, C64 hi-res mode can place 2-unique colors in each 8x8 on screen block I think. That limitation works out quite well for a tile-based game like ultima, and the C64 version is the most colorful of the 8-bits computer versions I think.

Correct.  While the C64 can't quite replicate every which way the Apple II distributes color pixels, overall it offers any 8 colors of its 16-color palette to each tile at full resolution (16x16 pixels for each tile and 320 pixels across the screen), while Apple II and A8 pixels are double-width (placed at the full resolution, but ultimately still blockier).  So in this mode, the C64 is both the most colorful and highest in resolution.  Interestingly, the color map doesn't come from the dedicated color memory connected to the VIC-II chip, but rather the character-fetch DMA process.  8 bits per "character" translates to 2 4-bit (any of 16) color codes per 8x8 block of pixels.

 

In Ultima III and Ultima IV the differences between the C64 and Apple II graphics aren't that significant (the translator, "Chuckles", mainly tried to replicate the Apple II graphics), although it is nice to have red bricks and other additional colors being used.  I've always wondered why bricks in the original Apple II versions are purple instead of orange, which is available on the Apple II.  On the other hand, the translator of Ultima V, "Dr. Cat", made far greater use of the C64's capabilities, using brown for doors and tree trunks, adding colors to character's clothes, making some use of sprites, and generally making the C64 port of this game significantly more colorful than the original Apple II version, while still remaining true to the original design aesthetic.

 

Regarding the A8, while it is obvious why some of its Ultima ports were done the way they were, clearly this was suboptimal in terms of color, as there are only 2, besides black and white, and with no consistency in which colors they happen to be!  Ultima I is interesting in that it apparently uses the ANTIC 6 (BASIC 1) mode instead of the hi-res artifacting mode, which offers 5 deterministic colors (including black and white) instead of 4 variable ones--still one short of the Apple II, but a definite improvement.  This would be pretty satisfactory for every Ultima up to and including IV, since the vast majority of tiles were black plus a single color anyway, although the ANTIC 4 (BASIC 12) mode would be even better, especially for a port of Ultima V (theoretical, of course).  If greater resolution is required/desired for text, then the screen layout could be rearranged to provide several rows of ANTIC mode 2 (BASIC mode 0) text.  But of course, Origin were never going to put that level of platform-specific design into any A8 port of the later Ultimas. ?

[zzip]

4 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

In Ultima III and Ultima IV the differences between the C64 and Apple II graphics aren't that significant (the translator, "Chuckles", mainly tried to replicate the Apple II graphics), although it is nice to have red bricks and other additional colors being used.

And I think this was the right approach,  The first five Ultimas had such a great aesthetic that I think was important to preserve across platforms.   Even though the C64 added colors, it was done tastefully.    By Contrast, I never liked the Amiga/Atari ST ports of U3/U4-- they add colors to things because they can..   We lose the iconic silhouette characters in favor of colored-in ones, and it breaks the aesthetic and ends up looking worse IMO

 

5 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

Regarding the A8, while it is obvious why some of its Ultima ports were done the way they were, clearly this was suboptimal in terms of color, as there are only 2, besides black and white, and with no consistency in which colors they happen to be!  Ultima I is interesting in that it apparently uses the ANTIC 6 (BASIC 1) mode instead of the hi-res artifacting mode, which offers 5 deterministic colors (including black and white) instead of 4 variable ones--still one short of the Apple II, but a definite improvement.  This would be pretty satisfactory for every Ultima up to and including IV, since the vast majority of tiles were black plus a single color anyway, although the ANTIC 4 (BASIC 12) mode would be even better, especially for a port of Ultima V (theoretical, of course).  If greater resolution is required/desired for text, then the screen layout could be rearranged to provide several rows of ANTIC mode 2 (BASIC mode 0) text.  But of course, Origin were never going to put that level of platform-specific design into any A8 port of the later Ultimas.

Ultima has always been a problem for the A8,  I've found the best artifacting color scheme is when you have the green/purple colors.   Purple can pass OK for either blue or red tiles.   But expanding the colors means losing the resolution, and I'm not sure this is a good trade-off for these games.   Maybe using P/M overlays could work for coloring tiles,  I've seen other games do interesting things with this technique, but I think it would hurt the Ultima aesthetic

[+MrFish]

I found an interesting and better (in some cases, in my opinion) way to display highly artifacted screens on Atari 8-bit computer games on my JVC BM-H1300SU CRT studio monitor. I took a few photos and posted them here: alternative artifacting option.

 

[Robert Cook]

5 hours ago, zzip said:

And I think this was the right approach,  The first five Ultimas had such a great aesthetic that I think was important to preserve across platforms.   Even though the C64 added colors, it was done tastefully.    By Contrast, I never liked the Amiga/Atari ST ports of U3/U4-- they add colors to things because they can..   We lose the iconic silhouette characters in favor of colored-in ones, and it breaks the aesthetic and ends up looking worse IMO

Generally speaking, I agree with you, especially in this era in which I played and won the original versions of the Ultima series on my Apple IIe (never owned an Apple computer back in the day) because I wanted to experience that.  Faithfulness isn't important to everyone in every case, but when a game has something "classic" or otherwise great to offer, like you I think it should be preserved (if possible).  You're also right about the Amiga and Atari ST versions, and I would add the DOS and console versions to the list of ports I didn't like, despite (and because of) all of the extra colors and/or resolution they added.

 

As for the C64 ports, with Ultima V Dr. Cat actually changed the aesthetic noticeably with his use of more color than ever, but somehow he still managed to preserve the authentic feel of this series; this is subjective and personal, but I think he walked a fine line without stumbling artistically.  In contrast, Ultima II on the C64, despite being simpler graphically and using fewer colors, doesn't look or feel right.  The main difference is that the translator, a guy called Bobbit, changed the background color from black to light green.  This changed the whole nature of the negative space, so to speak, and many back in the day felt that just this one little change made the whole game seem more like an imitator than a genuine Ultima game.  Another unique aspect of Ultima II on the C64 is that it is the only C64 Ultima port that is done entirely in standard character mode (with custom character definitions), while the others are all in hi-res bitmap mode (never mind Ultima VI, which wasn't really finished on the C64 anyway).  This makes no difference visually in this case, however.

 

On the other hand, except for the strange Avatar tile, Ultima I on the A8 basically has the right aesthetic even though it uses a character mode (like Ultima II on the C64) instead of a hi-res bitmap mode.  In my opinion, the Ultima series on the A8 is starving for at least one additional color, and looking right on anything besides the 800 is a major bonus.  The issues with the A8 hi-res artifacting mode are so bad that I for one would even be willing to compromise on things like screen layout.  Or maybe I'd settle for black and white only (and keep the original layouts), to be frank.

 

5 hours ago, zzip said:

Ultima has always been a problem for the A8,  I've found the best artifacting color scheme is when you have the green/purple colors.   Purple can pass OK for either blue or red tiles.   But expanding the colors means losing the resolution, and I'm not sure this is a good trade-off for these games.

I know what you mean because I've seen too many bad C64 ports of Speccy (Sinclair ZX Spectrum) games that used the C64's multicolor mode instead of its hi-res mode, which happens to be a close match for the Speccy's graphics mode (320x200 for the C64 versus 256x192 for the Speccy, with different color palettes, but otherwise they are the same, including having 8x8 2-color cells).  Despite being more colorful, the loss in resolution on the C64 often represents a net loss in the quality of games designed for the Speccy.  This happened often enough that many Speccy owners in the UK (where the Speccy was the top-selling computer, with the C64 as its main competition) believed that the C64 just didn't have enough resolution to compete, when in fact it has greater resolution if only the translator had used the right graphics mode!

 

So I get it, but in the case of the Ultima series, the hi-res graphics of the Apple II has double-wide pixels (unlike the C64 and Speccy).  In fact, only white and black pixels can be placed at full resolution--all other pixels are slightly less than double-wide in appearance, but can only be placed at half-resolution, and when placing different non-white, non-black pixels adjacent to one another, there is a small black space between them.  Being able to place white pixels at full resolution is significant (particularly for legible text), but otherwise the graphics look like they're at half the resolution, much like the 5-color A8 character-based modes I brought up (and Ultima I actually uses on the A8).  Perhaps the latter could work for Ultimas II-IV.  I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I have low tolerance for the issues of the A8 artifacting mode (BASIC mode 8 ), and would do almost anything to avoid them.

 

5 hours ago, zzip said:

Maybe using P/M overlays could work for coloring tiles,  I've seen other games do interesting things with this technique, but I think it would hurt the Ultima aesthetic

That would work quite well for many games, but I don't think it could cover every case uniformly in tile-based games like these.  I'd highly recommend this technique for anyone looking to port Last Ninja to the A8, to take one example, but the Ultima games are a non-starter.

 

[Robert Cook]

8 hours ago, MrFish said:

I found an interesting and better (in some cases, in my opinion) way to display highly artifacted screens on Atari 8-bit computer games on my JVC BM-H1300SU CRT studio monitor. I took a few photos and posted them here: alternative artifacting option.

 

Hmmm, I wouldn't have expected that.  It doesn't solve the problems I'm looking at, but it is interesting.

[+MrFish]

8 minutes ago, Robert Cook said:

Hmmm, I wouldn't have expected that.  It doesn't solve the problems I'm looking at, but it is interesting.

I didn't expect it either. It may just be a result of using an unshielded cable; but I rather like having the option.

 

[zzip]

9 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

and I would add the DOS and console versions to the list of ports I didn't like, despite (and because of) all of the extra colors and/or resolution they added.

Ultima IV on DOS looks pretty faithful IMO,  Ultima III was limited by CGA, if you use a composite monitor, it will actually run in 16-color mode and looks alright, but if you use the standard monitor you get the ugly cyan/purple colors that gave CGA a bad name.   The main problem I had with the DOS versions is they run way to fast on modern hardware, and you need to patch them to slow them down.  DOS is a nice way to play IV and V with the right patches and  MIDI music enabled because there's no disk flipping needed.

 

10 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

As for the C64 ports, with Ultima V Dr. Cat actually changed the aesthetic noticeably with his use of more color than ever, but somehow he still managed to preserve the authentic feel of this series; this is subjective and personal, but I think he walked a fine line without stumbling artistically

I looked up the screenshots for U5 on C64, and I agree it was done faithfully.  

 

10 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

In contrast, Ultima II on the C64, despite being simpler graphically and using fewer colors, doesn't look or feel right.  The main difference is that the translator, a guy called Bobbit, changed the background color from black to light green. 

And that makes a difference.  The ST version of Ultima II was done as a GEM app,  and as such they made the background color white, and it looks horrendous!   It was one of the very first titles ported to ST, I guess before they knew better :)

 

10 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

On the other hand, except for the strange Avatar tile, Ultima I on the A8 basically has the right aesthetic even though it uses a character mode (like Ultima II on the C64) instead of a hi-res bitmap mode.  In my opinion, the Ultima series on the A8 is starving for at least one additional color, and looking right on anything besides the 800 is a major bonus.  The issues with the A8 hi-res artifacting mode are so bad that I for one would even be willing to compromise on things like screen layout.  Or maybe I'd settle for black and white only (and keep the original layouts), to be frank

Ultima III was the first one I ever played, my 800XL was still using a hand-me-down Black and white TV as a monitor, so if the colors were wrong back then I never noticed :)  I think I played Ultima IV on the same TV.  Nowadays I play on Atari emulators where I can select the best artifacting palette.  It definitely could use an extra color or two.

[Robert Cook]

On 11/12/2020 at 6:53 AM, zzip said:

Ultima IV on DOS looks pretty faithful IMO,  Ultima III was limited by CGA, if you use a composite monitor, it will actually run in 16-color mode and looks alright, but if you use the standard monitor you get the ugly cyan/purple colors that gave CGA a bad name.

To be honest, I think I was being too flippant to just throw the DOS versions in, although I had my reasons.  While they did generally maintain the look and feel of early Ultima games in most respects, as with Ultima II on the C64 sometimes color selection alone can really throw everything off.  With Ultima III on DOS, of course it was in CGA, and I've never owned a PC or PC XT that might have had a composite output.  I only saw and played it on later DOS hardware, and as you said the four-color black/white/cyan/purple color limitation of those machines on RGB (later analog as well as original digital) monitors was awful.  I totally agree that it looks fine (and very different) with the composite output.  Effectively it was 320/160x200x16 colors.  The usual 4 CGA colors seemed to get smaller pixels, while pairs of pixels were interpreted as different colors altogether at half the resolution.  This was apparently/effectively a form of artifacting, and indeed some other artifacts are visible, as well.  It is different from Apple II artifacting but still roughly comparable at a high level, including the use of 4-bit combinations to represent 16 colors.  On the Apple II, this is only done on the seldom-used low-res (40x40) graphics mode and almost-as-seldom-used double hi-res graphics mode (enabled by the extended 80-column + 64K RAM card).  The latter is used in a few games such as Last Ninja on the Apple II (at 140x192x16 colors; 560/280x192x6 colors and 560x192xmonochrome are also possible).  The regular hi-res graphics mode is by far the most often used, and of course that's the familiar one with 280/140x192x6 colors that is used for the Ultima series.

 

Ultima IV on DOS in EGA also remains faithful to the overall design of these games, but for me the cyan walkway bricks, red wall bricks, and other peculiar color choices just don't feel appropriate.  The composite CGA version of Ultima III, now that I know what it looks like, is much better.  The cyan grass and water are slightly odd, but everything else is just right, including the red walkway bricks, white walls, and green shrubbery and forests.  I realize that even the true original Apple II versions have some odd color choices, such as purple bricks on the floor, so I can't expect to have my personal sense of aesthetic perfection every time, but this is close enough, while DOS Ultima IV slightly misses the mark for me.

 

And as for DOS Ultima V in VGA, since I was most used to the C64 version of this game, the added color didn't shock me as much as it might have, although personally I think they crossed the line into something that looks obviously 16-bit rather than 8-bit.  Otherwise, the DOS version still feels authentic, just overdone.

 

Yes, I was a C64 owner and user back in the day (gasp!), although I was first a fan of the Atari 2600 console and A8 computers.  How I ended up a C64 guy instead is a long story, but in any case, I actually never got to see what any of the Ultima games looked like on the A8 until much later, and was very surprised (although I shouldn't have been) that the artifacting mode was used, since the colors varied between models, as we know.  If you own an 800 with GTIA, then you're all set, even with the blue & white walkway bricks in Ultima III and green walkway bricks in Ultima IV.  And with the latter game, you're still OK with an 800 with CTIA or 800XL because pressing Control-X during the text loading screen allows you to flip the green and blue/purple colors.  But with every other A8 model, the colors are ridiculous.  I've always known that resolution was never a strength of the A8, while the color palette is, which I guess is why I expected one of the 5-color character-based modes to be used, like it was with Ultima I.  Perhaps I should create a mock-up of what Ultima IV would look like in ANTIC mode 4.

 

On 11/12/2020 at 6:53 AM, zzip said:

DOS is a nice way to play IV and V with the right patches and  MIDI music enabled because there's no disk flipping needed.

True, although I actually don't mind the disk flipping, as it's one of the things that really bring me back to that time (my own experience), believe it or not.   It might be a strange thing to feel nostalgic for, but then again I recently posted somewhere that one of the reasons the Apple II series caught on more than the other personal computers released in 1977 was probably that it offered color graphics (my experience with the Apple II in school was mostly with Amdek color monitors), and then someone replied that they only use their Apple II computers with green monochrome monitors.  His other computers all get color monitors, but he was an Apple II user back in the day, and at the time, all he ever owned/used were green monochrome monitors, so that's all he still ever uses with his Apple IIs today. ?

 

On 11/12/2020 at 6:53 AM, zzip said:

I looked up the screenshots for U5 on C64, and I agree it was done faithfully.

Although I was familiar with and played Ultimas III and IV on the Apple II back in the day (a little), I never saw Ultima V on that platform until years later, and was kind of shocked that it wasn't quite as different from Ultima IV as it was on the C64.  Dr. Cat (David Shapiro at Origin Systems) did more than he had to, but all in a good way.  His use of C64 sprites (for targeting and first-person creature views in dungeons) was effective yet unobtrusive.  And his choice of going with dark blue instead of light blue for the borders had a quite pleasing, subtle effect in this "dark" game.  One thing I've always wondered, however, is why, out of all of the translations for 25-text-row computers, Ultima V on the C64 sits on the bottom of the screen rather than the top (skips the first row rather than leaving the last row empty like every other such port does).

 

On 11/12/2020 at 6:53 AM, zzip said:

And that makes a difference.  The ST version of Ultima II was done as a GEM app,  and as such they made the background color white, and it looks horrendous!   It was one of the very first titles ported to ST, I guess before they knew better

Ew, I just looked it up, and it's wrong in every way!

 

On 11/12/2020 at 6:53 AM, zzip said:

Ultima III was the first one I ever played, my 800XL was still using a hand-me-down Black and white TV as a monitor, so if the colors were wrong back then I never noticed

In my opinion, that's not a bad way to play the Ultima games, especially when the colors are all wrong anyway (purple grass and green water in your case).  Not everyone had a color monitor or even a color TV back then, and I believe that the developers kept that in mind with their graphics.

[zzip]

16 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

With Ultima III on DOS, of course it was in CGA, and I've never owned a PC or PC XT that might have had a composite output.

At some point in the 90s, I ended with an IBM PC 5150 that actually did have a CGA card with composite output..   and that card was a monster!  It spanned the entire length of the case!    But my understanding is composite output on CGA cards was kinda rare.   But it looks like composite/CGA actually had its own demo scene and they did some impressive stuff with it.

 

At any rate, I don't think I ever played Ultima on that beast, the only game in my collection I remember getting to run was Railroad Tycoon,  and it ran kinda slowly.

 

16 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

Ultima IV on DOS in EGA also remains faithful to the overall design of these games, but for me the cyan walkway bricks, red wall bricks, and other peculiar color choices just don't feel appropriate.

Guess I didn't look at the screenshots closely enough,  It's actually using the same color scheme as Amiga/ST versions, which I am not a fan of.   It's a weird game on DOS, the original plays much too fast, so I have several patches installed including some that update the graphics.

 

17 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

And as for DOS Ultima V in VGA, since I was most used to the C64 version of this game, the added color didn't shock me as much as it might have, although personally I think they crossed the line into something that looks obviously 16-bit rather than 8-bit.  Otherwise, the DOS version still feels authentic, just overdone.

The first system I saw Ultima V was on my friend's Tandy 1000.  It didn't have VGA, just so-called "Tandy Graphics" which was CGA + 16 color 320x200 mode.  I don't remember if U5 used the enhanced Tandy modes, but I don't remember it having the ugly CGA colors.  I later got it for my ST.  So those were the versions I was used to.  But I always had trouble getting into Ultima V,  not sure why.  I never played it extensively.

 

17 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

Yes, I was a C64 owner and user back in the day (gasp!), although I was first a fan of the Atari 2600 console and A8 computers.  How I ended up a C64 guy instead is a long story, but in any case, I actually never got to see what any of the Ultima games looked like on the A8 until much later, and was very surprised (although I shouldn't have been) that the artifacting mode was used

Coming from Atari, the biggest thing that jumped out at me on the C64 versions was the music.  It just sounded more appealing, you could almost hear different instruments!   I mean I never had an issue with the music on U3 on Atari until that point,  but I was jealous of the kinds of sounds the SID could do.  And U4 on Atari didn't have any music at all! 

17 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

I've always known that resolution was never a strength of the A8, while the color palette is, which I guess is why I expected one of the 5-color character-based modes to be used, like it was with Ultima I.  Perhaps I should create a mock-up of what Ultima IV would look like in ANTIC mode 4

I never actually played Ultima I on the Atari.   I looked up the graphics and it looks better than I expected.   I did play Questron extensively which either licensed the Ultima engine or got sued for copying it too closely (I forget which) and it looked fine with the 5-color character mode.

 

17 hours ago, Robert Cook said:

In my opinion, that's not a bad way to play the Ultima games, especially when the colors are all wrong anyway (purple grass and green water in your case).  Not everyone had a color monitor or even a color TV back then, and I believe that the developers kept that in mind with their graphics.

Yeah, I'm not sure how I would have reacted to those colors back in the day.  I'm pretty sure they would have irked me, but also at the time my friends had recently got into AD&D, and I was hungry to play any D&D-like computer games I could find.   Up until I got my 1050 drive,  my only real option was 'Gateway to Apshai' on cart..   that was an ok dungeon crawler, but I really lusted after the Ultima games I was seeing in magazine.  Ultima III was my first-   and I think I would have played in spite of bad colors.  Maybe I would have even adjusted the colors on my TV to make them acceptable.

[AHA]

Marauder is another....

[+davidcalgary29]

I'd like to have seen how artifacting could have worked if it had used more creatively, as it was in Tower Toppler. That's certainly the nicest-looking artifacted game to my eyes (but only on the XL, of course).

[Mr Robot]

I think both Choplifter and Lode Runner show off what can be achieved with clever use of artifacting.

 

 

[Gunstar]

19 hours ago, davidcalgary29 said:

I'd like to have seen how artifacting could have worked if it had used more creatively, as it was in Tower Toppler. That's certainly the nicest-looking artifacted game to my eyes (but only on the XL, of course).

I would agree as far as games go. However I have used and seen one high-resolution paint program (it's been 30 years since I used it and I'm not sure which one it was and don't want to guess wrong so I'll search for it) that far a more impressive artifacting color palette could be achieved, and the artist didn't even have to work at the pixel placement by hand, a pattern screen was set-up to choose from, which were a rainbow of different artifact colors and dither patterns giving illusion to even more colors from mixing different artifact colors, when viewed via composite (best) or RF. I couldn't believe my eyes the first time I saw that color/pattern screen as before then, with high-res art and games I'd only seen black &White and 2 other colors depending on the machine: a blue/orange on my 130XE and on an 800XL or 800 they were purple/green. Of course all the artifact colors created on that pattern page were different depending on the machine too. But these patterns weren't just for fills, you could choose a pattern and a brush type and draw in decent detail freely while the pattern chose kept the color the same anywhere on screen.

 

It was a mode 8 high-res only graphics program. There may be others that do the same but I'm remembering one in particular. Though I suppose, being 30+ years ago that the graphic art program might have allowed to choose between 2 or more graphic modes, including 8, but I don't believe so. I think it was a dedicated high-res program. In any case, some images that came with the program, done by the developer's in house artist(s) had far more colors and were far more impressive than I've seen on any computer using high-res artifacting, including the Apple II series. I often wondered, back in the day, why more of these pixel patterns that created so many more artifact colors (blues, greens, yellows, oranges, pinks, and more) weren't used in games or graphic text adventures. Many more colors than the usual 4-5 in medium resolutions on-screen, even if from a vastly more limited palette.

 

Of course the use of brush patterns to maintain the created artifact color means some colors allow less visual pixel detail than others, but a good artist could work around the limitations pretty well. If I track down this graphic art program I will edit or quote this post depending if I locate it soon enough.

[Gunstar]

I

1 hour ago, Gunstar said:

I would agree as far as games go. However I have used and seen one high-resolution paint program (it's been 30 years since I used it and I'm not sure which one it was and don't want to guess wrong so I'll search for it) that far a more impressive artifacting color palette could be achieved, and the artist didn't even have to work at the pixel placement by hand, a pattern screen was set-up to choose from, which were a rainbow of different artifact colors and dither patterns giving illusion to even more colors from mixing different artifact colors, when viewed via composite (best) or RF. I couldn't believe my eyes the first time I saw that color/pattern screen as before then, with high-res art and games I'd only seen black &White and 2 other colors depending on the machine: a blue/orange on my 130XE and on an 800XL or 800 they were purple/green. Of course all the artifact colors created on that pattern page were different depending on the machine too. But these patterns weren't just for fills, you could choose a pattern and a brush type and draw in decent detail freely while the pattern chose kept the color the same anywhere on screen.

 

It was a mode 8 high-res only graphics program. There may be others that do the same but I'm remembering one in particular. Though I suppose, being 30+ years ago that the graphic art program might have allowed to choose between 2 or more graphic modes, including 8, but I don't believe so. I think it was a dedicated high-res program. In any case, some images that came with the program, done by the developer's in house artist(s) had far more colors and were far more impressive than I've seen on any computer using high-res artifacting, including the Apple II series. I often wondered, back in the day, why more of these pixel patterns that created so many more artifact colors (blues, greens, yellows, oranges, pinks, and more) weren't used in games or graphic text adventures. Many more colors than the usual 4-5 in medium resolutions on-screen, even if from a vastly more limited palette.

 

Of course the use of brush patterns to maintain the created artifact color means some colors allow less visual pixel detail than others, but a good artist could work around the limitations pretty well. If I track down this graphic art program I will edit or quote this post depending if I locate it soon enough.

I found the program on Atarimania, though they only have an ATX image of it. It's Graphic Master by Datasoft 1981. It has a color and pattern page that the PDF manual says has 50 colors and patterns. I remember many more colors than I would ever have thought possible from use of artifacting. It also came with ready-made screens of electronic symbols to use the program for circuit design. Anyone have an ATR or file version of this app?

 

http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-graphic-master_15920.html

Edited November 19, 2020 by Gunstar

[zzip]

38 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

I

I found the program on Atarimania, though they only have an ATX image of it. It's Graphic Master by Datasoft 1981. It has a color and pattern page that the PDF manual says has 50 colors and patterns. I remember many more colors than I would ever have thought possible from use of artifacting. It also came with ready-made screens of electronic symbols to use the program for circuit design. Anyone have an ATR or file version of this app?

 

http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-graphic-master_15920.html

It's too bad the screenshots at atarimania don't show what it can do with artifacting.   Now I'm curious.

[Mr Robot]

There are no example images on the disk so here is the title screen and the colour palette

[zzip]

 So I zoomed in on that picture and see at least 8 unique solid (looking) colors on a line.  I don't see the typical orange or purple colors that show up from artifacting.  What's the secret here?   If someone figured out how to do this in 1981, why wasn't the technique used more?

 

[+Stephen]

Yeah - it was my understanding that we only got two artifacting colours - set every odd pixel, or every even pixel given that colour resolution is 160 pixels, and hi-res "splits" that into 320. 

[Gunstar]

 The colors were a bit different on my old 130XE which had the usual two artifact colors appearing more blueish and orange-red than the purple and green my current 800 and 1200XL show, which look pretty much the same as the pictures here. The yellow and pink was still there, on the 130XE, as I recall, and blue and greens, but I think there was a second shade/tone of blue too, and there was an orange color...and of course the different patterns had different colors mixed in too.

Edited November 19, 2020 by Gunstar