How did they do that?

As for me, I wonder, how Bucky O'Hare got parallax scrolling backgrounds. Did it use some mappers or it is some voodoo programming?

File: ulXoqmA.gif (3MB, 480x360px) Image search: [Google]

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>>2957089
Sorry, forgot to add.

>>2957089
Parallax scrolling is just background images moving slower than foreground images.

>>2958306
wow thanks for the perfect, technical explanation

>>2957115
I've seen games with that going on. I want to know how ranger X did what it did ar 12:20 in this vid...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmkyHnh-lWM

How did Out of this World do 3D looking graphics during the "cutscenes" on the SNES without the FX chip? I somewhat understand rotoscoping, but I don't quite get how the graphics looked 3D without just translating each frame into pixels and animating through them.

>>2958420
>I want to know how ranger X did what it did ar 12:20 in this vid...

That's basic line scroll. The same effect that gives the ground perspective in Street Fighter. They just change the X scroll offset per every line.

Ranger X merely applied it twice, and inverting it in the middle. Maybe it also had another bg and some windowing inbetween, I'm not sure, and too lazy to check.

>>2957061
Is your image just a shop, or is that some demake I'm unaware of?

File: 1_layer_scrolling_fg_and_bg.gif (42KB, 200x575px) Image search: [Google]

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>>2957115
Looking at that video, the effect could be pulled off on one layer if the background tiles were very simple (in this case a single 16x16 pixel tile), and if the background tiles were cyclically rotated along their horizontal axis as a function of your position while the tile map stays constant. The picture I made isn't great, but illustrates the technique.

>>2958454
Wasn't it vector graphics? They weren't animating whole images they were animating vertices.

>>2958420
This game looks bad ass, I've never heard of it.

Are you talking about the 3D rendering a little after 12:20? Although the Genesis has a tile based graphics chip, you can fake a low color bitmap by assigning unique tiles to the entire screen and associating them and drawing to the tiles directly.

Line algorithms can be made to be very efficient, and while it takes a little overhead to raster a line accommodating a tile based layout, 3D rendering programs overall can be very simple, and implemented in just a few hundred lines. Run at 30 or 20 fps and you have ample time to draw simple geometry even on limited hardware. Impressive stuff though.

Here's my contribution to asking a question: does anyone know how Super Metroid implemented it's power bomb? Clearly it's a constant color addition with HDMI, but the way the shape is generated must be done in software in s strange manner because the game frameskips due to the extra processing load and the fact that the edge of the power bomb explosion has different granularities. Furthermore, does anyone know if the power bomb's area of effect is rectangular or elliptical? Now that I think about it, maybe that's why the game slows down so much... Btw X-ray scope was a brilliant use of the SNES PPU.

>>2958668
Ranger X is a legit badass game. You should definitely try it out. I loved it. I also liked target earth

>>2958668
>Run at 30 or 20 fps and you have ample time to draw simple geometry even on limited hardware. Impressive stuff though.

You have to limit either the screen size or the FPS though, since you can only upload so many new tiles (new frames) to the VDP during vblank. One of the biggest weak points of the Megadrive.

And yeah, Ranger X looks insanely good. You have levels with tons of parallax, others with highlight effects, others with crazy amount of pseudo-3d tubes and backgrounds done by linescroll, you have water splashing also done by linescroll, the forest level modifies the palette lots of times, and those are just the graphics.
The gameplay also has lots of twists: your bot is solar powered, so you need to find sources of light to recharge. On daylight levels, you get a constant charge. On night levels you have to find sources of light - either blow out an office window where the light is on, or stand on the search headlights in the city (which activates security that hunts you).
Some levels also have puzzle-like tricks, and maze elements.

It is really a great game, you should try it out.

>>2957061
>>2958551
Also interested.

>>2958551
>>2959063
tufsing.deviantart.com/art/Final-Fantasy-VII-SNES-3-0-179005792

shop

>>2958874
Loved that game

>>2958874
It's like creating and uploading a gif to Tumblr. It's an art. You have 2 mb limit and should still look good. Your tools are color, resolution and compression. You have to neglect of the three of use multiple gifs (multiple discs ps1).
color of 128 of 256 and resolution of 540 or 275 and compression from 0 to 20.

File: game20wires.gif (748KB, 500x500px) Image search: [Google]

748KB, 500x500px

>>2958874
> since you can only upload so many new tiles to the VDP during vblank.

That's a really good point. I'm no expert on the VDP or Genesis in general, so somebody help me out here: Was there enough VRAM to set up two full screen backgrounds with unique tiles? That way you could implement a double buffer to circumvent the low data throughput.

For the SNES using 2-bit graphics, the memory footprint would be:
(2 maps)*((32*32 names/map)*(2 bytes/name) + (32*32 tiles/map)*(8*8 pixels/tile)*(2 bits/pixel)/(8 bits/byte))
= 36864 bytes
= 56.25% of VRAM

The DMA throughput of the SNES during vblank is about:
(224-262 scanlines)*(1364 cycles/scanline)*(1/8 bytes/cycle)/(1 vblank)
= 6574 bytes/vblank

The number of vblanks needed to transfer one full frame buffer
ceil((36864 bytes)/(2 frames)/(6574 bytes/vblank))
= 3 vblanks/frame

So a game could theoretically run at:
(60 vblanks/second)/(3 vblanks/frame)
= 20 frames/second

So it's within the realm of possibility. Unfortunately 2 full screens at 4-bits is just out of reach without restricting the display area a bit.

Btw I can't believe Capcom would dump money into making the Cx4 coprocessor just to do shit like in the image. Fucking X got wireframe to work on gameboy years before X3 on the SNES.

File: C4_Solids_Demo.png (2KB, 256x224px) Image search: [Google]

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>>2959601
>Btw I can't believe Capcom would dump money into making the Cx4 coprocessor just to do shit like in the image
Why not?
Cx4 test screen checks exactly wireframes.

>>2958601
Thank you, pretty good explanation.

>>2959601
>That way you could implement a double buffer to circumvent the low data throughput.

No, you can't, because VDP halts all operations if you start uploading tiles to it.

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>>2959105
God damn it. An SNES version of Final Fantasy VII would be awesome.

File: Star Cruiser (J).png (7KB, 320x224px) Image search: [Google]

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What takes Genesis render polygons? What special Genesis VDP has, so polygons are generated pretty quickly?

>>2961284
No it wouldn't. It would suck.

Get to end of cart 1. 'please insert cart 2'. You remove cart 1, system crashes. Fuuuuuu

>>2962346
FF VII isn't that big game, most space is used for in-game movies.
It is ported to NES, though.

>>2958601
you swapped the 01 and 00 positions.

i dont know what the fuck you niggers are talking about with this vdp shit and all this other fucking shit you're saying

>>2962185
I still can't believe Star Cruiser was a near-launch MD title. Masaya working that Jap coding Voodoo.

>>2962350
fair point.

It would still suck though.

>>2962185
It is all software, like playing Quake on a PC with no dedicated 3d accelerator. The processor is doing everything, which means it has to be coded to even be able to run. With a processor as weak as the Genesis', this is hard, and is why you don't see many 3d games, and most of those you do run at abominable framerates.

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>>2957061 >>2958551 >>2959105 >>2961284

Didn't any snes jrpg at all use the mode 7 thing for battles? It would seem to be a pretty simple thing to implement considering what it mostly was used for

>>2962965
But isn't Genesis VDP is tile-based?
Or the processor is just quick enough to use workarounds that write pixel information into the tiles?

>>2957089
>>2957115
>>2958306
>>2958383
That explanation downplays it a little bit considering the NES could not do layers in the way that makes parallax easy. You have a layer for sprites, and another for tiles which is both background an foreground.

You can scroll tile rows at different speeds, creating backgrounds with parallax scrolling. It would be impossible to use for that Bucky O' Hare scene though, since it only works when background and foreground don't overlap.

The trick to the parallax in Bucky O'Hare looks to be animated tiles. Not hard to do since it's one repeating pattern of blocks and the screen only scrolls one direction. Basically, as the screen scrolls, the tiles animate, creating the illusion that they scroll slower than the foreground.

>>2962971
7th Saga has mode 7 battles

I always hated mode 7, stupid pixellated shit.

>>2963490
Its generally pretty bad. I think it looks better than a solid color as a "floor texture" in say, a racing game. But that's about it.

>>2962979
>But isn't Genesis VDP is tile-based?Or the processor is just quick enough to use workarounds that write pixel information into the tiles?

Correctamundo. You draw your polygons in software, then convert them to tiles, and upload them to the VDP. If you are efficient enough, it is not difficult to end up being limited by the amount of tiles you can upload, rather than the amount of polys you can draw, which is the real hardware limit. The 68k was actually fast enough to do ridiculous amounts of work in software - we have the complete shareware edition of Wolfenstein3d running on the Megadrive, for example.

>>2962895
>It would still suck though.

It would play the exact same fucking way as FF6. It wouldn't be worse in any way other than graphically.

>>2963673
It's a JRPG, nobody cares how it plays. Being graphically worse is a very serious flaw, because it wouldn't be able to tell the story properly. Do you think "Aeris dies" would be a meme without the FMV?

>>2957089
Ancient article but still neat:

http://www.racketboy.com/retro/nintendo/nes/best-nes-graphics-sound

>>2958668
>Furthermore, does anyone know if the power bomb's area of effect is rectangular or elliptical?
Seeing as it affects everything on screen does it matter?

I loved the X-ray scope too. What's the PPU? Pixel Processing Unit?

>>2962346
>>2962895
If they could port Resident Evil 2 to the N64 FMV cutscenes and all.

I doubt that'd be impossible in the slightest.

Just put some effort into it.

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>>2957061
Classic

>>2966079
FF7 already has super low res cutscenes. Its not like making them even more low res makes it substantially worse.

>tfw playing chrono trigger and noticing the first time the game is running in some kind of pseudo letterbox

>>2962379
Go to bed kid. Adults are talking.

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How such complicated floor was performed?

File: 1443247528620.jpg (4MB, 2432x1824px) Image search: [Google]

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HOW

>>2966079
SNES ever drive can do cutscense now.I think the chrono trigger ones got ported

>>2975682
>tfw NES was better at CRT shaders than modern high end GPUs

nvidia BTFO

>>2970263
Not actually that hard once you know how to do proper raytracing.

TL;DR: Raytracing basically boils down to drawing one column per width pixels (320x240 means 320 columns). Said column is separated in three parts: sky/ceiling, ground and walls. For each column ("ray of your vision"), you calculate the distance to the wall and you got your wall size in the middle of the screen, the rest can be calculated with "(half my screen height) MINUS (half my wall size)" and you start drawing from the middle.

Drawing textures on each of the three just takes some more calculations (which I don't have) with distance (which you already got)

For reference, a barebones Wolfenstein clone with black ground, red walls and blue ceiling took me about six hours to code from scratch, and I'm shit at maths. Some people from my class did portal clones in two weeks with fully-textured walls.

Here is a nice "how we got here" made from the class before mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOC5lYZPNUs

>>2975682
How what?

>>2957061
Recca on NES is still one of the most extreme examples of this.

>>2957061
Ultima Underworld and Wolf 3D when they came out were utterly fucking mind blowing. If you're not old enough to remember when those games were released then it's difficult to put into words, but there's really never been anything like experiencing those games for the first time since.

>>2976102
>TL;DR
That's not how you use it

>>2976102
>Here is a nice "how we got here" made from the class before mine:
Shame it's in French. Cool though.

>>2976102
>Drawing textures on each of the three just takes some more calculations (which I don't have)
You can divide your wall height by texture height - the result is the number of the same pixels you will have to draw on the wall for a pixel in texture.

>>2961284

Chinese remade it for NES instead of SNES :(

>>2961284
>>2962346
there is an NES demake

its all on one cart

The Delta Force games take place in maps that loop infinitely. It's not randomly generated, but tiled, and I'm not sure if there is a limit to how far you can go but I went through several loops of it once out of curiosity.

How was this done?

>>2962971
Earthbound did that for it's battle backgrounds

>>2962971
Mode 7 eats away vram so it's not that simple.

>>2977645
I think Earthbound did rasters instead of mode 7.

>>2962727
The PC-88/X1 original was already doing voodoo magic in 1988, and then it got an upgrade for the X68000. Arsys did every version of Star Cruiser; Masaya just took credit for publishing it on Mega Drive.

>>2958664
>>2958454
Yep, all hand drawn vector graphics. Required a whole lot of patience to make the data and a highly optimised vector rasteriser to get it done at a playable frame rate. The SNES one went through a few revisions. The first actually used the FX Chip but the publisher didn't want to pay for it so it was redone for the base cpu. It was also supposed to use SRAM but they didn't pay for that either.

>>2980880
>SRAM
not sram, FastRom
snes carts came in two varieties, hirom and lorom, fastrom and slowrom

>>2958668
>Here's my contribution to asking a question: does anyone know how Super Metroid implemented it's power bomb?

I don't *know* but I can guess. Drawing a solid filled ellipse is easily possible in software and the super nes gives you the choice of using the "window" which is a masking you can apply but you'd have to use a raster interrupt every line to transpose the ellipse shape to the mask.
Alternatively you can draw the ellipse to the tiles you are using for one of the backgrounds and blend that with the display. The benefit is no per line rasters, downside is that your ellipse code now has to deal with tiles and this is possibly why it slows down.

>>2980893
Ahh, that makes sense. My source was portscentre on youtube and he kept saying static ram. I assumed he just meant it was originally meant to have save support but they ditched it. Thanks for clearing that up.

>>2980939
> That’s a tough call, since I’ve done so many projects in my career so far. I think I’d have to say was the evil MOD I had to do to get Out Of This World for the SNES to copy backgrounds quickly. Since Interplay wouldn’t pay for a SuperFX chip, I found a way to do it with static RAM on the cart and DMA which got me a great frame rate. Interplay wouldn’t pay for the static RAM either, so I ended up using Fast ROM and a MVN instruction. Interplay wouldn’t pay for a 3.6 Mhz ROM either. So, frustrated, I shoved my block move code into the DMA registers and use it as RAM running at 3.6 Mhz. It worked. I got fast block moves on slow cartridges and made a game using polygons working on a 65816 with pure software rendering.

http://grokcode.com/106/interview-rebecca-heineman/