+DarkLord Posted March 16 Share Posted March 16 Is that low-res on the Atari ST shot? (320x200) Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 16 Share Posted March 16 2 minutes ago, DarkLord said: Is that low-res on the Atari ST shot? (320x200) Yes, which is exactly the reason I'm using it for comparison, since that's the Atari 8-bit resolution being used here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted March 16 Share Posted March 16 Gotcha, thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted March 17 Share Posted March 17 I will say one thing - every time I go to VCFMW festival, the GUI gets major "holy shits". I'm going again this year, and will definitely have it on display. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Philsan Posted March 17 Share Posted March 17 I like this project so much that I mention it for years on the home page of my site. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradc Posted March 18 Share Posted March 18 On 3/16/2024 at 3:01 PM, MrFish said: Speaking of file management... I don't think we ever talked about it in this thread, but we did a few experiments before to see how many files could be displayed in a single window with different-sized icons. Here are some of the examples. To be noted is that these are using the default icon font. We have other, smaller-sized fonts that could be leveraged for maximizing the number of files on screen beyond these examples too. Compare those to an example from the Atari ST in the same resolution (320 x 200). That's just awesome artwork on your part. The whole GOS look is so professional. I'm sorry but the ST look was... well, let's say it looks like I did it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 18 Share Posted March 18 4 hours ago, bradc said: That's just awesome artwork on your part. Thanks, but those particular examples were just stitched together quickly in order for Jon and I to conceptualize file lists. Did the job, though... 4 hours ago, bradc said: The whole GOS look is so professional. I used a little Mac Classic II for a number of years (and a number of other 68K & PowerPC color Macs). The original Macs did a lot of things right and are a great template for a GUI on the Ataris in hi-res. I also did a fair amount of artwork on the Mac Classic II (black & white, 1-bit). 4 hours ago, bradc said: I'm sorry but the ST look was... well, let's say it looks like I did it. The ST had higher-resolution modes to rely on; but they really would have benefited from having proportional fonts for filenames and menus; monospace fonts really eat up screen real estate. They also could have benefited from having icons available in more than just large-size. ----------------------------------------------------------------- We've mainly just shown bits and pieces of the graphics that I've worked on for this. I probably should put together an example collage or two to demonstrate the graphical side a little better (icons, fonts, wallpaper, apps, dialogues, etc.). 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 Here's something I know I didn't show on the forums before. I was looking at Adobe's (then) products webpage (it was more like a window frame that popped up when you clicked on "products" from the main page), which looked really nice and simple; and wondered how it would look scaled to Atari hi-res (minus the small amount of colored areas that the original had); and of course considering it for some kind of possible dark scheme. Just tossing around some ideas at the time. I liked the simplicity of Adobe's products webpage. The desktop is basically just inverted; but some of the controls were changed in order to look right in black. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 (edited) On 3/17/2024 at 4:12 AM, Stephen said: I will say one thing - every time I go to VCFMW festival, the GUI gets major "holy shits". I'm going again this year, and will definitely have it on display. Yeah, I used to do this with Project M and IK+ as well... Sad side is all those are just a demos after decade(s), but they show A8 powers as only few do. Edited March 19 by Jacques 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 40 minutes ago, Jacques said: Yeah, I used to do this with Project M and IK+ as well... Sad side is all those are just a demos after decade(s), but they show A8 powers as only few do. Seeing the Rastaconverter enhanced international karate RCX game, Prince or Persia, the astounding Rewind demo, and the gtia doom and gr 10 doom engines for me are those which in recent years are really showcasing this 1979 chipset. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 5 hours ago, Jacques said: Yeah, I used to do this with Project M and IK+ as well... Sad side is all those are just a demos after decade(s), but they show A8 powers as only few do. I don't see anything to be sad about with either of these; they're both playable games, and I've had a blast with them over the years. I guess there's some disappointment that they haven't been developed further; but, in the case of Project M 2.0, @NRV never was going to develop Wolfenstein 3D, as people had wanted or thought. He just had plans to do something else with the engine, which we haven't seen yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 On 3/18/2024 at 7:01 PM, MrFish said: The ST had higher-resolution modes to rely on; but they really would have benefited from having proportional fonts for filenames and menus; monospace fonts really eat up screen real estate. They also could have benefited from having icons available in more than just large-size. Well, we did wind up with NVDI and SpeedoGDOs, which helped. I love the way my NeoDesk/Geneva desktop looks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 2 hours ago, DarkLord said: Well, we did wind up with NVDI and SpeedoGDOs, which helped. I love the way my NeoDesk/Geneva desktop looks. I know those are various speed and usability enhancements. Did any of them provide proportional fonts for the filenames and menus (I can't remember if they did or not)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 13 hours ago, MrFish said: never was going to develop Wolfenstein 3D, as people had wanted or thought. I've never thought about fully-blown Wolfenstein 3D clone on A8. But simple escape-the-maze type of game based on this would be possible and fun. Just some more levels and few ideas to make the gameplay of reaching the exit more attractive (hidden places, points). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarixle Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 16 files at once, needs 4 pages when having 64 files max, quite ok scrollspeed even in Turbo-BASIC. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beeblebrox Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 (edited) 25 minutes ago, Jacques said: I've never thought about fully-blown Wolfenstein 3D clone on A8. But simple escape-the-maze type of game based on this would be possible and fun. Just some more levels and few ideas to make the gameplay of reaching the exit more attractive (hidden places, points). Not to hyjack this thread but just quickly, do you mean a simple maze game based on Nrv's project m engine? Would be great. We have an increasing number of existing or wip/poc ray casting 3d/psuedo 3d engines for the A8 as you are likely aware. To highlight a few: 2 x astoundingly good WIP Doom engines by Swiety and Co: a gtia gr11 based 16 luma, real-time lighting and texture one based on the maze engine; and the fr. 10 9 colour one we currently have a playable beta for. Shanti77's 3d engine (poc) Globe's fantastic 128k 3d raycasting engine (poc) Globe's fantastic 3D FPS game from 2021, Final assault The gtia gr11 maze engine and subsequent Doom engine utterly blew my mind when I saw them!! https://retroage.net/doom-3/ Anyways, back to the GUI. Edited March 20 by Beeblebrox 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 1 hour ago, Jacques said: I've never thought about fully-blown Wolfenstein 3D clone on A8. But simple escape-the-maze type of game based on this would be possible and fun. Just some more levels and few ideas to make the gameplay of reaching the exit more attractive (hidden places, points). Might be alright; but I already like the goals of collecting gold and keys, finding hidden doors, and intelligently using keys to reach all mazes. I suppose it'd be nice to see some new maps; but I think his time would be better spent on further development as he has planned. He was also working on some variations for his rendering engine with Project X. Last I heard from him, he was quite pressed for time with work. @NRV also spent a lot of time on Raymaze 2000 (together with myself, @VinsCool, and @Synthpopalooza), which is more of a fully-playable game, but still quite a ways from being completed as planned (currently considered v0.5). 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 1 hour ago, Beeblebrox said: Not to hyjack this thread but just quickly, 1 hour ago, Beeblebrox said: We have an increasing number of existing or wip/poc ray casting 3d/psuedo 3d engines for the A8 as you are likely aware. To highlight a few: Development for any of those games has to languish a minimum of 5 years to qualify for discussion here. 1 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 5 hours ago, MrFish said: Did any of them provide proportional fonts for the filenames and menus (I can't remember if they did or not)? Not sure about "MiNT", but the multi tasking OS "MagiC" supported proportional fonts for all GUI elements: File mangers like "Jinnee" offered a lot of options for the display/arrangement of files. (...like some file selector, e.g. "Freedom", where I was part of the development. 😁) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 And just a side note: From the usability stand point, equidistant fonts can be beneficial for the usage. Humans can fetch words then better as a "picture" and operate with them faster while e.g. selecting an entry out of a menu. Regarding monochrome GUIs with limited area, I find many of the "Palm Pilot" applications quite usable while looking neat: 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 8 minutes ago, Irgendwer said: Not sure about "MiNT", but the multi tasking OS "MagiC" supported proportional fonts for all GUI elements: File mangers like "Jinnee" offered a lot of options for the display/arrangement of files. (...like some file selector, e.g. "Freedom", where I was part of the development. 😁) Looks good, but I still see mono spacing on the filenames' font. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 6 minutes ago, Irgendwer said: And just a side note: From the usability stand point, equidistant fonts can be beneficial for the usage. Humans can fetch words then better as a "picture" and operate with them faster while e.g. selecting an entry out of a menu. I never thought mono-spaced fonts are without benefits/merits, which is why I've spent ample time creating some for the GUI myself; but when it comes to the UI itself, with such a limited number of pixels to work with, they are self-defeating when attempting to maximize usage of the screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 (edited) 8 minutes ago, MrFish said: Looks good, but I still see mono spacing on the filenames' font. Interestingly there are not many screens shots in the web. (And I won't fire up anything here to make own ones.) Most things are configurable. While the system support dropped, I even had the impression that one of the main tasks for the users was to tweak the appearance of the desk/GUI as there was a lot of offerings - contrary to productivity applications... 😉 Edited March 20 by Irgendwer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 (Just to support my statement...) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 20 Share Posted March 20 2 minutes ago, Irgendwer said: (Just to support my statement...) Yes, much better: those are all proportional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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