Demo effects seen on other platform's you would love to see the A8 have a crack at doing

[Beeblebrox]

Having just acquired an Atari 1040STe to add to my nicely growing collection of Atari machines, (completely unplanned diversion from my 8-bit obsession), I've been busy looking at a few demos that really showcase the ST's graphics capability when pushed. (Got me a Gotek drive so loads of .st files being downloaded as well as searches on YouTube).

 

Looking at some of these ST demos quickly made me think that actualy some of the effects demonstrated may well not be out of reach of our beloved Atari 8-Bit machines.

 

Made me think are there any demo effects that you have seen on other platforms, (including 16-bit ones), which you think may actually be possible on the A8 in the hands of talented coders, (of which the A8 scene has many)?

The A8 is constantly surprising me in terms of what can be accomplished in the right hands.

 

I'll get the ball rolling.

 

First up I saw this Youtube video of a 2015 ST demo called We are @ which at the very end had this very interesting rotating/interlocking horizonal cog effects in a monochrome colour. 

I'd hazzard a guess a similar effect is possible using the lower res 16 hue GTIA mode on the A8:

 

 

 

Then I saw this amazing demo called Sea of colours, showcasing some stunning effects and images on the ST. 

 

In particular the opening effect of a porthole and a very impressive colour fill plasma/water/mirror effect inside it

Maybe this is possible on the A8 with a mixture of a higher res colour graphics mode for the porthole, and a lower res GTIA colour plasma inside, (where the A8 is very well known for plasma demos):

 

 

Also on the same demo above, this amazing effect immediately follows which is a multcoloured animated ribbon lantern effect twisting with colours.

On the A8 perhaps possible with some clever use of DLIs, DLI rollbars and possibly using mixed graphics modes including GTIA:

 

 

Again same demo immediately follows this cool pseudo 3D moving multicoloured tower block effect.

I'd imagine is totally possible on the A8 with GTIA mode and DLIs given it's all on the horizontals:

 

 

Another following the above is this effect with a static image and a lower res animation mixed in.

Maybe possible on the A8 mixing graphics modess - at least to a degree:

 

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[Cyprian]

good selection of STE demos.

I also would see some ST effects on XL.

 

 

[zzip]

I have a hard time believing that Sea of Colour even runs on an STe.  It blows just about everything else I've seen on STe.    I would be shocked to see A8 get anywhere close to it.    But bring it on! 

[Beeblebrox]

@zzip Sure, some of the effects showcased in that demo are obviously beyond the reach of the A8. Howeer those elements of said demo mentioned above I'd imagine an A8 may be capable of at least to some degree perhaps.  

(FYI here is the link to the Sea of colour demo download files for the ST : https://demozoo.org/productions/140822/ )

 

It's amazing what can be achieved in the right hands on 8-bit and 16bit platforms all these years down the line. 

 

The amazing Photochrome (EDIT: download page here) on the STe allows for many more colours on screen owing to clever coding and of course hammering away at the CPU 

Case in point

 

 

But then we already know our A8s can be pushed to the limits to display the most amazing images courtesy of the likes of Rastaconveter and G2F 

 

RC:

     

 

G2F:

 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[Mclaneinc]

That sea of colours is very striking, terrific artwork and I even liked the music.

[Beeblebrox]

@Mclaneinc  Great isn't it?    I love the very first intro to the demo with the waves animation.

 

So any other demo effects you have seen on other platforms you think/would love the A8 could potentially do?

Edited May 2, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[+Nezgar]

2 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

This effect seems like it could be done pretty easily with pre-rendered vertically short animation frames for the cog-wheels in GR.9 mode, and using simple DLI tricks to swap frames and repeat down the screen. The overlay text would presumably have to be done with PMG.

[pps]

The text could be added without pm, when you use 1 of the 16 shades, the A8 has in gfx9. 

 

This "blending text and gfx together" I used in my "mode 11 revised" and "colored FX" intros, but I used there gfx11 instead of gfx9. 

[pps]

Here a little 'quick and dirty' gfx9 plasma + scroller: mode9.xex

EDIT: For amusement only same in mode 11: mode11.xex

Edited May 2, 2022 by pps
added mode 11

[Cyprian]

9 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

First up I saw this Youtube video of a 2015 ST demo called We are @ which at the very end had this very interesting rotating/interlocking horizonal cog effects in a monochrome colour. 

I'd hazzard a guess a similar effect is possible using the lower res 16 hue GTIA mode on the A8:

 

I've just cut all needed frames for that effect. I have sixteen PNG files, 4bits per pixel, 80px width 32px height.  And now I wonder how to convert them to binary format, headless, two pixels in one byte.

 

2 hours ago, pps said:

Here a little 'quick and dirty' gfx9 plasma + scroller: mode9.xex

EDIT: For amusement only same in mode 11: mode11.xex

 

nice

Edited May 2, 2022 by Cyprian

[pps]

10 hours ago, Cyprian said:

I've just cut all needed frames for that effect. I have sixteen PNG files, 4bits per pixel, 80px width 32px height.  And now I wonder how to convert them to binary format, headless, two pixels in one byte.

One path could be, to convert the image to 16 greys and then use graph2font tool to import the frames manually. But it's not the most comfortable way. 

[zzip]

I always loved the "panning over the alien landscape" effect from the "Second Reality" PC DOS demo starting at around 0:42 - 2:00.   Seems that an Atari 8 could do the stars in high-res and use a multicolored mode for the landscape,  maybe using P/M Graphics for the ship flyover at the end.   Not sure if POKEY could do the music justice.

 

 

And if any more motivation is needed, looks like the demo has already been ported to  C64

 

 

 

[Rybags]

Photochrome "52 palette changes per scanline".

 

I guess that's all CPU driven (MOVEM.L) and the blitter can't write to hardware registers?

I remember Spectrum 512 in the earlier ST days - I think that could manage 48 colours per scanline.  I guess if you're doing horizontal overscan then more colour changes become usable.

 

Some of this stuff possible for sure - but we're at a big disadvantage vs STe with mainly 128 vs 4096 possible colours.

[zzip]

28 minutes ago, Rybags said:

Photochrome "52 palette changes per scanline".

 

I guess that's all CPU driven (MOVEM.L) and the blitter can't write to hardware registers?

I remember Spectrum 512 in the earlier ST days - I think that could manage 48 colours per scanline.  I guess if you're doing horizontal overscan then more colour changes become usable.

no idea if the blitter can be used here.   Photochrome has a few different modes,  some are using techniques similar to Spectrum 512, but extended to 4096 colors on STe.  Others modes are rapidly flipping between two images to increase the perceived number of colors.   I believe some of the Atari8 high-color modes use a similar flipping technique.

[ggn]

1 hour ago, Rybags said:

Photochrome "52 palette changes per scanline".

 

I guess that's all CPU driven (MOVEM.L) and the blitter can't write to hardware registers?

I remember Spectrum 512 in the earlier ST days - I think that could manage 48 colours per scanline.  I guess if you're doing horizontal overscan then more colour changes become usable.

 

Some of this stuff possible for sure - but we're at a big disadvantage vs STe with mainly 128 vs 4096 possible colours.

Probably moot point but: nope, the blitter can write to the palette registers just fine. I believe the 52 colour mode is actually blitter powered (as shown in this file: https://bitbucket.org/d_m_l/agtools/src/master/rmac/ste/b416c52.s which is included here: https://bitbucket.org/d_m_l/agtools/src/master/rmac/ste/dispv6.s). But as you say, movem.l or an unrolled move.l (a0)+,(a1)+ is the standard way to go for multipaletted images.

[Cyprian]

2 hours ago, Rybags said:

Photochrome "52 palette changes per scanline".

 

I guess that's all CPU driven (MOVEM.L) and the blitter can't write to hardware registers?

I remember Spectrum 512 in the earlier ST days - I think that could manage 48 colours per scanline.  I guess if you're doing horizontal overscan then more colour changes become usable.

 

Some of this stuff possible for sure - but we're at a big disadvantage vs STe with mainly 128 vs 4096 possible colours.

Amiga's blitter can't do that, the ST's BLiTTER is smart enough and have an access to the hardware registers (it has access to the full 24bit address bus).

[emkay]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

I always loved the "panning over the alien landscape" effect from the "Second Reality" PC DOS demo starting at around 0:42 - 2:00.   Seems that an Atari 8 could do the stars in high-res and use a multicolored mode for the landscape,  maybe using P/M Graphics for the ship flyover at the end.   Not sure if POKEY could do the music justice.

 

 

And if any more motivation is needed, looks like the demo has already been ported to  C64

 

 

 

4x4 pixels and gr. 10 GTIA MODE

 

[emkay]

On 5/2/2022 at 4:56 PM, Nezgar said:

This effect seems like it could be done pretty easily with pre-rendered vertically short animation frames for the cog-wheels in GR.9 mode, and using simple DLI tricks to swap frames and repeat down the screen. The overlay text would presumably have to be done with PMG.

The whole effect could be done in hires plus PM "Underlay"... the mode that allows up to 18 colors per scanline. 

[Poison]

There is one super effect in amiga Desert Dream demo - Lightshadowed scroll in realtime ( video with timestop) from 1993 year

 

 

 

And in 1996 we did the same effect in our unfinished megademo Top Secret  But I found video only with some gfx bug  Timestop on video too  I think that our coder did great work in Czech Republic in 1996

 

 

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

Hmmmm,

 

C64 demos on A8:

Raytracing part

 

Amiga demos on A8: 

Atari 8Bit Boink

 

ST demos on A8:

Cyberscape XE

Shiny Bubbles

maybe also: Video Blitz XE

 

There must be some more - please, name them!

 

A few of the fx above (sphere, waterfall, etc.) and many others can also be found as very simple GIF animations (and these can be turned into TIP animations).

 

TIP_FX.zip

[emkay]

9 hours ago, Poison said:

 

And in 1996 we did the same effect in our unfinished megademo Top Secret  But I found video only with some gfx bug  Timestop on video too  I think that our coder did great work in Czech Republic in 1996

 

 

If you didn't point that out, a viewer to the demo wouldn't really recognize the lightsource FX, because the "mirror in the bottom" works wrong. 

Edited May 4, 2022 by emkay

[Beeblebrox]

@CharlieChaplin  thanks for those. I recall seeing some of them running Bitd.

 

Any particular demo effects on other platforms that you would love to see on the A8 that you think the A8 is capable of doing if pushed? ?

[Jetboot Jack]

11 hours ago, Poison said:

There is one super effect in amiga Desert Dream demo - Lightshadowed scroll in realtime ( video with timestop) from 1993 year

 

 

And in 1996 we did the same effect in our unfinished megademo Top Secret  But I found video only with some gfx bug  Timestop on video too  I think that our coder did great work in Czech Republic in 1996

 

 

 

Isn't that just changing colour register values rather than actual light source ? since all characters are affected equally rather than just those close to the light?!?!

[Poison]

2 hours ago, Jetboot Jack said:

Isn't that just changing colour register values rather than actual light source ? since all characters are affected equally rather than just those close to the light?!?!

No, colours are changing in realtime when position of light source is changed. you can look into the code of this part. It is great effect in year 1996, only three years later  Our coder was only 15 years old and he was very good.

Video on YT is not running properly, there are some gfx glitches and music sounds strange

[+CharlieChaplin]

5 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

@CharlieChaplin  thanks for those. I recall seeing some of them running Bitd.

 

Any particular demo effects on other platforms that you would love to see on the A8 that you think the A8 is capable of doing if pushed? ?

 

I cannot name any, since I never owned any other platforms than A8, okay except Jaguar and PC. On the Jaguar I never watched any demos, only played games, on the PC I also never watch any demos, do not even play games (since the 90s), only serious stuff for work and surfing the internet in my spare time. Thus, I do not know any C64, Amiga, ST, STE, Falcon, PC, etc. demos or fx shown there. In the mentioned demos above, it was noted where they originally came from (converted from or inspired from).

 

But you are not alone, in the Abbuc forum someone also asked a while ago what demos are available on the A8 that came from other platforms and since there were not many, he asked if it would not be cool if more demos from other platforms would be re-made on the A8. On the other hand, if it is not clearly noted that the whole demo or some of its fx are stolen/borrowed from another platform, then this is heavily critisized. I do remember that e.g. the "Cool Emotions" demo by HARD was heavily critisized since some/several/all (???) effects were stolen/borrowed from C64 and this was not mentioned anywhere.

 

And as a funny sidenote, if you are satisfied with low 80x100 pixels resolutrion, many demos available at youtube can be downloaded and converted into movie (AVF, IMG) format and played back with 50fps or 60fps on the A8 with AVG or SIDE (1/2/3) cart. That's absolutely not the same as a re-make (or demake), but if you desperately want a certain demo from another platform on the A8, you can try to convert it that way. Think Poison (or someone else) already converted the Amiga demo Desert Dream into AVF movie format.  You can argue pro/con in many ways, e.g. AVF is just a low-resolution movie stream requiring extra hardware like AVG or SIDE cart (therefore it works with 64k computers) or a real remake/demake of e.g. Desert Dream would most-likely require more than 64k RAM and/or still have lower resolution (and less colours), etc.

 

Some computer nerds like those demakes/remakes, some simply hate them.