Possabilities for using Hi-res in a game

Commodoresales · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 10:16 pm Post subject:

Link to the Past on C64?

fierman · Groupie in Training Joined: 21 Mar 2011 Posts: 140

wec wrote:

I'm pretty sure those tree trunks cannot be done that way.

Same for the clouds. Why are people so afraid of colourclash anyway? Smile

wec · Forum Junkie Joined: 13 Nov 2004 Posts: 483

It probably has more to do with ugly rather than being afraid.

The shadow on the long section of steps does not represent good use of character count limitation.

Fröhn · Grandmaster of C64 Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 1950

fierman wrote:

wec wrote:

I'm pretty sure those tree trunks cannot be done that way.

Same for the clouds. Why are people so afraid of colourclash anyway? Smile

Trunks and clouds seem fine to me. Only 1 color + black per 8x8.

fierman · Groupie in Training Joined: 21 Mar 2011 Posts: 140

Yeah, I was looking at STE's modifications. sorry

wec · Forum Junkie Joined: 13 Nov 2004 Posts: 483

Also, why are the steps casting a sideways shadow, when *everything else casts only a forward shadow?

*bar the trees when don't ?

spider-j · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 8:24 pm Post subject:

wec wrote:

Also, why are the steps casting a sideways shadow, when *everything else casts only a forward shadow?

Two suns

Come on: this is a perspective you won't find anywhere in life than in oldschool rpg-style games. Shadows therefore are used to add a bit depth and not to make it somehow more realistic.

But you're probably right about the waste of chars.

Fröhn · Grandmaster of C64 Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 1950

wec wrote:

Also, why are the steps casting a sideways shadow, when *everything else casts only a forward shadow?

Because of 256 characters only?

STE'86 · Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 10:19 pm Post subject:

I have no real problem with the shadow, it just suggests to me that the stairs are steeper than slope of the "pyramid".

and the 256 char limit isn't really an issue if you go down the route of keeping 1/3 - 1/2 of your charset as "constant" (a tree, a patch of grass, a path, a water tile etc) and then use the other half as "transient" characters which can create the graphically unique objects which change as you walk around the map. as long as there are common tile "buffers" between the unique areas then you can use a much ram as you can get away with for "source" character data and just copy it to the charset as required.

Steve
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Fröhn · Grandmaster of C64 Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 1950

There's a reason why nearly all games use a fixed set of characters. This is C64 you know...

spider-j · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 7:12 am Post subject:

Fröhn wrote:

There's a reason why nearly all games use a fixed set of characters.

Hm. I would be careful with "nearly all". What STE'86 said about buffers is quite common for many games too. There are a lot of games that exceed the number of possible chars/sprites per vic-bank by the use of buffers.

For this stair shadows I'd even store only the complete full stair tile in memory and "calculate" a left or right shadow on the fly by just left/right shift and filling bytes with zero from left/right and then copy it into the currently used charset.

But in the end: everybody as he likes - many ways lead to the goal Smile

Fröhn · Grandmaster of C64 Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 1950

spider-j wrote:

Fröhn wrote:

There's a reason why nearly all games use a fixed set of characters.

Hm. I would be careful with "nearly all". What STE'86 said about buffers is quite common for many games too. There are a lot of games that exceed the number of possible chars/sprites per vic-bank by the use of buffers.

Examples? The only thing which is common is the use of multiple charsets. But I have a hard time finding examples where characters are realtime calculated while scrolling.

fx · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:31 am Post subject:

STE'86 wrote:

I have no real problem with the shadow, it just suggests to me that the stairs are steeper than slope of the "pyramid".

and the 256 char limit isn't really an issue if you go down the route of keeping 1/3 - 1/2 of your charset as "constant" (a tree, a patch of grass, a path, a water tile etc) and then use the other half as "transient" characters which can create the graphically unique objects which change as you walk around the map. as long as there are common tile "buffers" between the unique areas then you can use a much ram as you can get away with for "source" character data and just copy it to the charset as required.

Steve

This is sort of exactly what I had in mind! Since I'm not planning on scrolling in the game, I was thinking that most of the charset would be kept static (all the stuff that is used in most screens) - and some of the chars could be switchable and only loaded when they are needed.

I don't think the stairs are really all that wasteful, if my counting is correct they would use up 8 tiles (as I would almost certain have an all black tile already). Maybe I will change them when / if I actually get some real work done on this game.
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spider-j · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:36 am Post subject:

Fröhn wrote:

But I have a hard time finding examples where characters are realtime calculated while scrolling.

Using buffers is not the same as realtime calculated. It's just as STE'86 said: leave parts of the used charset free to copy chars into it from other memory locations on demand.

Afaik most Manfred Trenz games use charbuffers at least for bullets and I guess many shooters do.

enthusi · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 9:31 am Post subject:

Times of Lore replaces some chars of the charset on occasion. But not 'calculated' of course.
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STE'86 · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:40 am Post subject:

I know it works,

we used a basic form of it in 1987 to do this:

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=6171

and this was only a demo Smile

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Fröhn · Grandmaster of C64 Joined: 13 Jan 2003 Posts: 1950

It's a demo not a game. And: Why do it complicated when you can also do it easy?

groepaz · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:43 am Post subject:

Quote:

only a demo

where you typically have much more memory to waste than in a game, and can get away with a lot of things that are completely out of the question in a real game =P
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PeteD · Forum Junkie Joined: 13 Aug 2009 Age: 44 Posts: 422

hmmm so, a game with 10 levels each with a 2k charset = 20k of data is fine but a game with 10 levels made from 18k of library chars + 2k for the dynamic charset isn't possible?? Okaaaaay then....

And the data moving involved, that's not possible either on a puny c64? but what about bitmap scrolling games??? They HAVE to update a column of data AND shift the whole of the bitmap/colour chars/colour ram every coarse scroll (spread out over the hardware scrolling frames of course) but a dynamic charset scroller only has to copy in a new objects worth of data when it's needed (spread out over probably a shed load more frames).
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groepaz · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 11:24 am Post subject:

Quote:

10 levels each with a 2k charset = 20k of data is fine

you wont find that either (unless its a multiloader)
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PeteD · Forum Junkie Joined: 13 Aug 2009 Age: 44 Posts: 422

groepaz wrote:

Quote:

10 levels each with a 2k charset = 20k of data is fine

you wont find that either (unless its a multiloader)

Nitpicking values apart, you know my point is valid.
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groepaz · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 11:32 am Post subject:

i'd just like to see an actual example, not just theories about what could be done.

also the point was that it was seldomly done, not never.
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