I want to know more about the intellivision limitations, because i want to do a Rygar mockup(NES based)

[Viny wants to learn how to VCS]

Question 1

The exclusive colors for bg or sprite is real? If yes, what colors are?

Question 2

How we can change the size of sprite? A answerer like: 2x vertically or 2x horizontally for example

Question 3

How much tiles can I use for bg at same time? How many sprites tiles can be used at same time? And how many tiles can I store in cartridge?

IMPORTANT!

If you are going to answer this, answer without complicate things.

[+DZ-Jay]

1 hour ago, Viny wants to learn how to VCS said:

Question 1

The exclusive colors for bg or sprite is real? If yes, what colors are?

Sprites can be only one color.  There are 16 colors available:

 

 

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Question 2

How we can change the size of sprite? A answerer like: 2x vertically or 2x horizontally for example

Each sprite can be magnified 2x horizontally and 4x vertically.  Additionally, sprites have twice as high a resolution vertically than background cards, so by default their pixels are half the height.  That means that 4x vertically makes them only the size of two background cards.

 

You cam change the vertical resolution to be the same size as the background, which means that magnifying the sprite 4x vertically makes it actually the size of 4 cards.

 

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Question 3

How much tiles can I use for bg at same time?

The Graphics RAM (GRAM) holds 64 cards.  There is also a Graphics ROM (GROM) which, depending on the color mode you choose, has either 64 cards (mostly Alpha-Numeric characters) or 256 cards(including geometric shapes and lines).

 

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How many sprites tiles can be used at same time?

There are 8 hardware sprites that can be defined and moved independently at the same time.  There are no restrictions on their vertical positions, like in some other consoles.

 

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And how many tiles can I store in cartridge?

What do you mean?  By default, you can store up to 42K Decles (16-bit words) in a cartridge.  With page-flipping (aka bank-switching) you can store a lot more.

 

The size of the cartridge is not really a big problem, most of the time.

 

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IMPORTANT!

If you are going to answer this, answer without complicate things.

If anything I said is not clear, feel free to let me know, and I'll try to be more helpful.

 

  dZ.

Edited October 10, 2021 by DZ-Jay

[Viny wants to learn how to VCS]

39 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:

Sprites can be only one color.  There are 16 colors available:

Okay, but any sprite can use one from every color that is in that image, right?

 

Edited October 11, 2021 by Viny wants to learn how to VCS

[+DZ-Jay]

1 minute ago, Viny wants to learn how to VCS said:

Okay, but any sprite can use one from every color that is in that image, right?

Yes, each sprite can get its own color, tile, and attributes, independently.

[Intelligentleman]

1 hour ago, DZ-Jay said:

Yes, each sprite can get its own color, tile, and attributes, independently.

Any ONE sprite cannot use more than one color at a time, right?

[+DZ-Jay]

7 hours ago, Intelligentleman said:

Any ONE sprite cannot use more than one color at a time, right?

 

Yes, that has already been said:

 

9 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:

Sprites can be only one color.  There are 16 colors available:

 

 

9 hours ago, Viny wants to learn how to VCS said:

Okay, but any sprite can use one from every color that is in that image, right?

9 hours ago, DZ-Jay said:

Yes, each sprite can get its own color, tile, and attributes, independently.

 

 

[Zendocon]

10 hours ago, Intelligentleman said:

Any ONE sprite cannot use more than one color at a time, right?

Correct.  A number of games appear to have multi-colored sprites, such as the characters in Thunder Castle.  They are just multiple sprites, each with a different single color, linked to one another.

[carlsson]

It could be added that the background layer consists of 20x12 cards, where each card equals 8x8 pixels and has its own combination of background and foreground colour. The exact limitations on how those can be chosen depends on the graphic mode, just like the number of symbols from GROM depends on graphic mode.

 

The selection of colours for each card and selection of colours for the sprites are independent, but it is important to stress that a single card can't have more than one foreground colour and a single sprite likewise can't have more than one foreground colour. You can stack multiple sprites onto eachother though to generate the effect of more colours, but then you have used up more sprites. Sometimes you can use a background card to enhance the sprite, but background cards generally (*) don't move as smoothly as sprites do.

 

(*) You could create a routine for so-called software sprites, which are background cards that you redefine over and over to mimic the behavior of a real sprite. Those can't go on top of other background cards anyway, or will melt into other background elements if you merge the two.

 

Somehow I think there should be a pinned topic in the programming section with "Intellivision basics" as these types of questions reoccur from time to time, and that other sources like the Intellivision wiki might be harder to find and are a little bit more technical in nature.

[Intelligentleman]

So how many single sprites can be stacked? How many total colors are possible if that was the only thing a programmer cared about

[+cmadruga]

15 minutes ago, Intelligentleman said:

So how many single sprites can be stacked? How many total colors are possible if that was the only thing a programmer cared about

You could stack all 8 if you wanted to. Leading to up to 8 colors.

[Zendocon]

15 hours ago, Intelligentleman said:

So how many single sprites can be stacked? How many total colors are possible if that was the only thing a programmer cared about

All 8 of them, if you like.  Number Jumble does just that during the death animation.  Combine that with Colored Squares Mode, and you could achieve up to 12 colors within a single background card.

 

Speaking of Number Jumble, two sprites apiece are used for the player and three of the vehicles in the selection screen, which is why only 3 of the 4 vehicles are randomly available each time.

[carlsson]

I recalled that Pixelrat has made a few Intellivision demos using a technique of flickering graphics, updating some of the cards with different colours on each frame. That may not be so practical for a game, and depending on which type of display you are using, could be tiring on the eyes but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

 

The screenshots used are composed of two frames at once, thus they look so colourful. Some examples:

https://demozoo.org/graphics/299581/

https://demozoo.org/graphics/273365/

[Viny wants to learn how to VCS]

2 hours ago, carlsson said:

I recalled that Pixelrat has made a few Intellivision demos using a technique of flickering graphics, updating some of the cards with different colours on each frame. That may not be so practical for a game, and depending on which type of display you are using, could be tiring on the eyes but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

 

The screenshots used are composed of two frames at once, thus they look so colourful. Some examples:

https://demozoo.org/graphics/299581/

https://demozoo.org/graphics/273365/

Interesting, bro!