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Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!


rensoup

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2 hours ago, rensoup said:

I was still using the BBC artwork... next preview will feature @TIX 's artwork!!

 

Now that I'm seeing this adaptation from BBC computer that I'm start to like more this irregular rocks walls than the ones we had on our version.

I hope that @TIX doesn't destroy them and improve other things...

?

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12 hours ago, rensoup said:

I did spot a few in coll.s and ctrlsubs.s. (labeled sm...) . Would be interesting to know if you left those in ROM and the game actually ran fine ?

Yes, that's correct. The first one is in RAM for me, and the second one (QUICKFLOOR) is only called as part of setupKid/setupShad which is required for drawing the characters into the bitmap. In my case, that code is replaced with sprite stuff, so it's not in my version. 

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1 hour ago, José Pereira said:

Now that I'm seeing this adaptation from BBC computer that I'm start to like more this irregular rocks walls than the ones we had on our version.

I hope that @TIX doesn't destroy them and improve other things...

?

Well I think he did the best version for 8 bit computers and perhaps it could get backported to other platforms... it almost took his eyes and mental health though ?

 

As for the background I like it and I also like MrFish's version, wish someone would do a mix of the two.

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18 hours ago, rensoup said:

I like Xbios, it's really easy to work with. (It's just confusing to get started using it though!).

It's a fine set of procedures to make use of for standard hardware.

7 hours ago, Heaven/TQA said:

Me used it in Arsantica 2 and got the back lash, too. But it’s so cool loader that I would use it again. Who cares about real drive with all those SD drives.... ;)

 

Arsantica 3 was even better using custom SIO loader HARD used in their demos which I of course was not the best way either but I wanted to use a custom loader once in lifetime and to play music while loading finally.... ;)

 

@Tezz you should continue.... who cares about the pack as we want Barbarian...

I'm resuming work on Barbarian now and also starting work on a title the A8 badly needs in its library.

 

Nice progress with POP :) Looking forward to seeing how TIX will rework the sprites.

Edited by Tezz
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9 hours ago, rensoup said:

And here's another gif: The first iteration of the main sprite code!

 

 

pop3.avi.gif.b77b832aeb15f573d80d9359cd3a8626.gif

 

There was no clipping, no screen save/restore so it looked a little funny... I was thrilled though ?

 

I was still using the BBC artwork... next preview will feature @TIX 's artwork!!

 

Has it’s style with those “fast after glow” frames ;)

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26 minutes ago, STE'86 said:

when you get to the cutscene stages, if any of the c64 art would be of use as a base, PM me, its probably alot easier to convert the c64 stuff to 4 colours and add colours by raster than it will be to decipher the pixel dither patterns of the beeb colours.

Thanks, I'm not sure about cutscenes so far, I cut them out a while back to save a bit of code space (they'll be back of course!) and I'm still unsure about the backgrounds final look as well.

It took the BBC artwork as placeholder and I recolored it real quick so it's a little buggy (gates, spikes) but it turned out better than I thought... so I don't know.

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yeah the backgrounds are basically 4 colour plus effects on anything but the bedroom art and title screens are very much "free pixelled" so i would guess the c64 art would convert to 4 colours easier because the c64 palette has 3 luminosity levels plus black so any given colour will convert to either light, medium, or dark plus black which would be handy in converting it to 4 colour atari bitmap. the beeb has no such luminosity and all its colours are full on rgb so converting it will be more painstaking.

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12 hours ago, mrsid said:

Yes, that's correct. The first one is in RAM for me, and the second one (QUICKFLOOR) is only called as part of setupKid/setupShad which is required for drawing the characters into the bitmap. In my case, that code is replaced with sprite stuff, so it's not in my version. 

Got another question: Did you try optimizing parts of the game beside the mask buffer?

 

Perhaps by messing with artwork ? I think the BBC version for instance uses ORA mode for a bunch of stuff (gates, potions, thin pillars with a large base,...) instead of proper masking because the screen is 16 cols and they split the art in 3 colors palettes.

 

There are strange things, like in the first room when the first plate falls the clear area is huge for no reason. There's a define for it in the Apple2 code (for the height) with a comment saying that it's for clearing spikes too.

 

In Level 1, the room with 2 falling plates I noticed the framerate tanks on the C64, it does as well on the A8 but perhaps not as much (yet!). I'm guessing the plates are properly masked but still I didn't expect it.

 

On the A8, I believe the logic code (everything but the sprite/clear code) takes a full frame. I think it scans for stuff in neighbouring rooms but again that unexpected.

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42 minutes ago, STE'86 said:

yeah the backgrounds are basically 4 colour plus effects on anything but the bedroom art and title screens are very much "free pixelled" so i would guess the c64 art would convert to 4 colours easier because the c64 palette has 3 luminosity levels plus black so any given colour will convert to either light, medium, or dark plus black which would be handy in converting it to 4 colour atari bitmap. the beeb has no such luminosity and all its colours are full on rgb so converting it will be more painstaking.

Oh yes for the bedroom art I plan on using sprites and palette changes to give it more colors... Someone converted one of the cutscenes some years ago:

 

 

Pretty nice, just a little too pinkish.

 

If anyone wants to step up and give it a try in G2F... ? (perhaps a C64 conversion to G2F is possible?)

Edited by rensoup
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Hey guys,

 

it took a 'while' but we finally settled on the style of the prince :P

here is a comparison shot of the starting (bbc) template, a intermediate state and the final run animation..

As much as I admire Jordan Mechner for his incredible animation work, the running in particular suffers from an incomplete cycle.

I studied POP on various platforms and all seems to inherit the problem.

 

So in addition to the usual spit and polish, I tried to address that too !

 

bbc-running.gif.a78b5252fdbfea7164bf9e6c5c09573a.gifprince-8frames-run.gif.62de062ab304b28065e3b45a2e8d1ba8.gif.b4669f5e9f63582e8d36c3dab4600fbb.gifrunning4.gif.a8dda797f4fa0d2b08888b7cd0e87688.gif

 

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34 minutes ago, TIX said:

Hey guys,

 

it took a 'while' but we finally settled on the style of the prince :P

here is a comparison shot of the starting (bbc) template, a intermediate state and the final run animation..

As much as I admire Jordan Mechner for his incredible animation work, the running in particular suffers from an incomplete cycle.

I studied POP on various platforms and all seems to inherit the problem.

 

So in addition to the usual spit and polish, I tried to address that too !

 

bbc-running.gif.a78b5252fdbfea7164bf9e6c5c09573a.gifprince-8frames-run.gif.62de062ab304b28065e3b45a2e8d1ba8.gif.b4669f5e9f63582e8d36c3dab4600fbb.gifrunning4.gif.a8dda797f4fa0d2b08888b7cd0e87688.gif

 

The middle one was TIX's very first iteration and it convinced me that he was the man for the job!

 

The right one is my favourite now and what we're going for.... although for the first release there will be no skin color as I still need to implement the PMGs (big job!)

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1 hour ago, Defender_2600 said:


Fantastic news! Best wishes!

 

Regarding the background, I have always loved the clean look of the DOS version and I was thinking it could be a nice option. But maybe I'm just nostalgic.

 

not sure about that one... I'm more of the retro 21st century kind ?

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TIX improves Mechner's animation! Awesome!

1 hour ago, TIX said:

Hey guys,

 

it took a 'while' but we finally settled on the style of the prince :P

here is a comparison shot of the starting (bbc) template, a intermediate state and the final run animation..

As much as I admire Jordan Mechner for his incredible animation work, the running in particular suffers from an incomplete cycle.

I studied POP on various platforms and all seems to inherit the problem.

 

So in addition to the usual spit and polish, I tried to address that too !

 

bbc-running.gif.a78b5252fdbfea7164bf9e6c5c09573a.gifprince-8frames-run.gif.62de062ab304b28065e3b45a2e8d1ba8.gif.b4669f5e9f63582e8d36c3dab4600fbb.gifrunning4.gif.a8dda797f4fa0d2b08888b7cd0e87688.gif

 

 

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21 hours ago, Tezz said:

I'm resuming work on Barbarian now and also starting work on a title the A8 badly needs in its library.

That would be great to have Barbarian in the close future, following Flimbo's Quest and PoP :)
 

As for cheats in PoP, optional unlimited time / lives would do and maybe SHIFT-L to skip level up to level 4 as on PC, for historical reasons ;)

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2 hours ago, TIX said:

Hey guys, it took a 'while' but we finally settled on the style of the prince :P

here is a comparison shot of the starting (bbc) template, a intermediate state and the final run animation..

As much as I admire Jordan Mechner for his incredible animation work, the running in particular suffers from an incomplete cycle.

I studied POP on various platforms and all seems to inherit the problem.

 

So in addition to the usual spit and polish, I tried to address that too !

Nice work TIX, the anim is much improved. It could be that perhaps Jordan dropped some frames for memory reasons in the original which has carried over into all of the conversions. Props for being the first to study the frames and address it ?

 

1 hour ago, rensoup said:

The right one is my favourite now and what we're going for.... although for the first release there will be no skin color as I still need to implement the PMGs (big job!)

It shouldn't be too difficult to add the PMGs to the masking procedures, I had fun working out the masking in Chimera+. I'm sure you don't need any help with that but feel free to PM if ever you do.

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3 minutes ago, Jacques said:

That would be great to have Barbarian in the close future, following Flimbo's Quest and PoP :)
 

As for cheats in PoP, optional unlimited time / lives would do and maybe SHIFT-L to skip level up to level 4 as on PC, for historical reasons ;)

It will be good to get back to it now that I've completed the last project, who needs free time anyway!

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