Game with Flicker?

[Cybernoid]

Well, I am working on another game, and I was wondering what you think of graphics modes.

 

The graphics mode I am thinking of using is ANTIC mode 4 but change the character set and colors every VBI.

 

VBI 1 colors: Black, Red, Green, Blue

VBI 2 colors: Black, Magenta, Cyan, Yellow

 

So color mixing will provide 16 colors.

 

Also, I may use:

VBI 1 colors: Black, grey25, grey50, grey75

VBI 2 colors: Black, grey25, grey50, grey75

 

But with different character sets, this will provide 9 shades of grey, but I will use PM overlays, like in JellyBeans, in areas. (ignoring the 5th color for now).

 

Anyway, my basic question is, "Do you mind this sort of flicker in a game?"

 

I plan on only alternating between 2 sets of colors/charsets, so the flicker is not too bad (according to my TV experiments), or do you think I should just stay with 5 colors only?

 

 

Thanks,

_C_

[Dr. Van Thorp]

Flicker varies with monitors.

[Cybernoid]

Flicker varies with monitors.

 

Well, that is true, and my PC TV capture card does not flicker at all!

[Dr. Van Thorp]

Another idea:

 

Maybe if you wrote some perfectly timed code, you could change the color registers and get some extra colors on to the screen. Similar to tricks used in 2600 game kernals.

 

If you could get code to execute in close syncronization with the raster, you could change the color registers as the raster moves from left to right, and get some extra colors out of mode 4. It might be easier if you had one or two colors that changed the same, and use only unchanging colors on the areas of the screen where the raster is when your custom code is changing registers.

 

I found a web site once that described a demo hack that did something similar on the VIC-20's modest graphics hardware, but I think that it only did verticle changes.

 

Is it worth doing? Why do men climb mountains? Because it's there.

[analmux]

VBI 1 colors: Black, Red, Green, Blue

VBI 2 colors: Black, Magenta, Cyan, Yellow

 

So color mixing will  provide 16 colors.

 

I think that's far too optimistic:

 

when two colors (with the same luma) are mixed by flickering then you get the best result, but if two colors have different luma (let's say black and blue) then the flickering really hits the eyes. Especially when you're playing a game with flicker for longer than 5 minutes, your eyes get really tired and you want to stop playing. Then, if you want to mix the two palettes you won't get 16 colors that are all useful:

 

palette 1: 0 (black), 1 (red), 2 (green), 3 (blue)

palette 2: 0 (black), 4 (magenta), 5 (cyan), 6 (yellow)

 

possible cominations: (* = flickers too much = colors you shouldn't use)

0000000.... black

1010101.... dark red *

2020202.... dark green *

3030303.... dark blue *

0404040.... dark magenta *

0505050.... dark cyan *

0606060.... dark yellow *

1414141.... red-magenta

1515151.... red-cyan

1616161.... orange

2424242.... green-magenta (brown)

2525252.... green-cyan

2626262.... green-yellow

3434343.... purple

3535353.... blue-cyan

3636363.... green (!)

 

!notice that you can't get pure red,green or blue and the mixture of green-magenta will be very greyish instead of a nice brown. According to my experience you won't get very nice pure deep colors.

 

If you're going to use pm underlays anyway I wouldn't use flickering but the 5th color instead.

 

 

Also, I may use:  

VBI 1 colors: Black, grey25, grey50, grey75  

VBI 2 colors: Black, grey25, grey50, grey75  

 

But with different character sets, this will provide 9 shades of grey, but I will use PM overlays, like in JellyBeans, in areas. (ignoring the 5th color for now).

 

...hmmm, I think it's only 7 shades (black, black-grey25, grey25, grey25-grey50, grey50, grey50-grey75, grey 75). Could be more useful, but it's still just 2 shades more than you already can use (with 5 colors).

 

Flickering is nice for static demopictures but not for games

[Heaven/TQA]

nowadays i hate games which flicker... esp. on 8bit machines... on 2600 i do not care because it's a limited system but later on... but that's just my 2 cents.

[Cybernoid]

VBI 1 colors: Black' date=' Red, Green, Blue

VBI 2 colors: Black, Magenta, Cyan, Yellow

 

So color mixing will provide 16 colors. [/quote']

 

I think that's far too optimistic:

 

when two colors (with the same luma) are mixed by flickering then you get the best result, but if two colors have different luma (let's say black and blue) then the flickering really hits the eyes. Especially when you're playing a game with flicker for longer than 5 minutes, your eyes get really tired and you want to stop playing. Then, if you want to mix the two palettes you won't get 16 colors that are all useful:

 

*snip*

 

If you're going to use pm underlays anyway I wouldn't use flickering but the 5th color instead.

 

Thanks! This is very helpful. You are right, when the luma differs it is not very nice on the eyes. So, I will avoid this. (I may avoid using flicker altogether, but I wanted to go through the exercise.)

 

Also' date=' I may use:

VBI 1 colors: Black, grey25, grey50, grey75

VBI 2 colors: Black, grey25, grey50, grey75

 

But with different character sets, this will provide 9 shades of grey, but I will use PM overlays, like in JellyBeans, in areas. (ignoring the 5th color for now).[/quote']

 

...hmmm, I think it's only 7 shades (black, black-grey25, grey25, grey25-grey50, grey50, grey50-grey75, grey 75). Could be more useful, but it's still just 2 shades more than you already can use (with 5 colors).

 

You are right according to the way I wrote it. If you have a linear set of

shades 0, 2, 4, 6 you can produce these shades: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 (7 shades).

 

But if you have these shades: 0,2,6,8 you can produce: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 (9 shades). Which was what I was using to calculate. Actually if you have these shades: 0,2,6,14 you can produce these shades: 0,1,2,3,4,6,7,8,10,14 (10 shades!).

 

But, I may not use this since it will cause bad flicker...

 

 

Flickering is nice for static demopictures but not for games

 

 

Okay, I will keep this in mind, and come up with a different way to produce colors...

 

Thanks

_C_

[Cybernoid]

nowadays i hate games which flicker... esp. on 8bit machines... on 2600 i do not care because it's a limited system but later on... but that's just my 2 cents.

 

Thank Heavens, I mean Thanks Heaven!

 

Okay, then no flicker it is....

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

I guess this also depends on the game and if it uses full screen gfx or only part of the screen. I do remember "Wall Tetris" which uses Gr. 15 RGB mode. The game flickers, but since it only uses part of the screen (and the tetris tiles/icons are relatively small) the flickering is not so heavy and in my eyes acceptable. I guess such a flicker mode could also (have been) done to Jelly Beans, since it also uses only part of the screen... On the other hand, graphic adventures with full screen gfx and flickering would hurt the eyes... just my two (euro-) cents... -andreas.

[tebe]

gr15, 16 colors

 

http://atariarea.histeria.pl/pliki.php?sec=show&id=122

http://atariarea.histeria.pl/pliki.php?sec=show&id=120

[Cybernoid]

Well,

I guess this also depends on the game and if it uses full screen gfx or only part of the screen. I do remember "Wall Tetris" which uses Gr. 15 RGB mode. The game flickers, but since it only uses part of the screen (and the tetris tiles/icons are relatively small) the flickering is not so heavy and in my eyes acceptable. I guess such a flicker mode could also (have been) done to Jelly Beans, since it also uses only part of the screen...  On the other hand, graphic adventures with full screen gfx and flickering would hurt the eyes...    just my two (euro-) cents...  -andreas.

 

The game is an RPG. I have decided on the graphics mode. I will use the same Priority-zero trick I used in JellyBeans but done a little more intelligently.

 

The main graphics mode will be Antic 4, but only using 3 colors: White, Grey50 and Black. So, the screen will be 40x20 in 3 grey scale shades.

However, where ever your character moves there will be a 16x10 color block that "colorizes" the screen. Each "character" within this block will have 9 colors using PM Over-/Under-lays. I think I will fade the luminance away from your character vertically to provide 29 colors on screen at the same time (this is reduced from the 90 on screen in JellyBeans).

 

This way it will look like you are walking in a color world, but you see a greyscale map area outside of this world.

 

This is my idea anyway, and I will have to finish the engine to see how this looks. This way I can have many colors in this game without flicker.

 

 

Thanks for the euro-cents, especially since 50Hz PAL "hurts" more than 60Hz NTSC in the flicker department.

 

_C_

[analmux]

gr15, 16 colors

 

http://atariarea.histeria.pl/pliki.php?sec=show&id=122

http://atariarea.histeria.pl/pliki.php?sec=show&id=120

 

Okay, but I think Cyber would like to display graphics on NTSC televisions (on which PAL-interlace doensn't work)