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Project-M 2.0


NRV

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18 minutes ago, ivop said:

 

It's a two dimensional array. [16][16] = 256

 

With 7-bits you could do either [8][16] or [16][8]. Slopes and angles that is.

 

 

And with interleaved switching, you could use 2 times [16][8] for the angles.

Using 256 chars won't leave free chars for enemies or else.

As the Atari is rather limited with it's PMg, you have to keep chars free from "prepared" data.

128 chars in possibly 16 x 4 =64 and use 4 charset for the Angles per character line. A character set with 256 chars uses also more memory than a 128 chars set.

Actually, the "4 character sets" could help doing "rotation animations" or "animation rotations" ;) , just by changing the viewing angle.  So particular "strafing around some object" could get very impressive.

 

 

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Using 4 charsets per line won't work. If I recall correctly, right now it uses 1 per line, 16 lines equals 16 kB of font data. If you want to use 4 charsets per character line, times 16 lines, equals 64kB. That won't fit ;)

 

Ofcourse using all of the 128 (or 256 characters on machines that support that) won't leave room for enemies. But in any case, having more available per charset makes it easier to have proper slopes and proper angled textures. And leave some room for softsprites.

 

1 charset of 256 characters, is not the same as 2 charsets of 128 characters. You might need character 42 of charset 1 and character 69 of charset 2. That simply won't work ;)

 

Also consider that this is all the same texture. Having multiple textures, like Project-M, is impossible. PM overlays might help with distinguishing doors and all, if you have softsprites for enemies. I'd rather opt for using all available characters for the walls and use PMGs for enemies and bullets and doorhandles :)

 

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4 minutes ago, ivop said:

Using 4 charsets per line won't work. If I recall correctly, right now it uses 1 per line, 16 lines equals 16 kB of font data. If you want to use 4 charsets per character line, times 16 lines, equals 64kB. That won't fit ;)

 

Ofcourse using all of the 128 (or 256 characters on machines that support that) won't leave room for enemies. But in any case, having more available per charset makes it easier to have proper slopes and proper angled textures. And leave some room for softsprites.

 

1 charset of 256 characters, is not the same as 2 charsets of 128 characters. You might need character 42 of charset 1 and character 69 of charset 2. That simply won't work ;)

 

Also consider that this is all the same texture. Having multiple textures, like Project-M, is impossible. PM overlays might help with distinguishing doors and all, if you have softsprites for enemies. I'd rather opt for using all available characters for the walls and use PMGs for enemies and bullets and doorhandles :)

 

There are currently 32 bytes used, and the characters have to build the "slopes" for one character mode line angles, textures can be set every other character mode line in the depending angle.

More than 64K for the character sets won't be a problem on a 130XE.  

Partial Mirroring of the "Wall" projection is strongly recommended to save memory. I could be done in vertical ranges where no moving software objects appear.

There is also the possibility of changing some character's content mid screen, if needed. 

So the upper border of a wall could be re used on the floor (mirrored by hardware)  with a gap where the wall can be passed through.  

And so on.

 

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Having a look at MooD on the C64 , which is showing half of the resolution and  plays "OKish" at 6-8 fps, possibly all that character mode juggling, is to use simple Antic F with repeated lines , and to get a resolution of 40x50 and GTIA 10 overlay , could end up in a playable game in a much easier way. Both ways could end up in a 14-16fps 3D game.

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maybe it will be possible to create static opponents similar to those from "Eidolon", in which the player after seeing the opponent would have a few seconds to react before he shoots,after the enemy has fired a "missile", the next reaction time will drop drastically,maybe  there is nothing to stick to the mechanics of "Wolf",but it would be nice to see a shooter referring to "Wolf" instead of a 1 to 1 copy.

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The biggest mistake a coder could do is to run the fps always to the limit. This destroys the gameplay , if the fps get lower when the action appears.

OK, if there is a low fps of 30 and high fps of 300 , you won't get the problem that quick.

But if the low fps is 3 and the high fps is 30 , you may get it very quickly.

The aimed 14-16 fps should never be exceeded, even if the cpu and graphics chip could produce 30 fps of more.

It would make more sense to the game, if the fps is  always 14-16fps and depending on the amount of "enemies", add pauses or let the CPU do other stuff. Unpacking something, leveldata for example, or play some digital sound... whatever...  load a sector from disk... ;)

 

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, tabar said:

i realize it is early in development, but how is the level data stored and can it be edited? i enjoy creating levels for doom( 1, 2, hexen, heretic, wolf3d).

Well, I wouldn't call it exactly "early" :)

The start of this thread is from 2010 and the map is the same as my last experiment:

 

mapf1.thumb.png.8813c7a6744138ff7513f851182b6213.png

 

This was done in Envision PC.

 

The 3 maps after this are done with a kind of "language" that draw the map in memory, so they use less space than the final size of the map.

For example the next one:

 

mapf2a.png.2f62c2d21e078c80a8da98f100df617e.png

 

Basically the language let you draw square zones or lines of any type of tile, and also list of objects, if I remember correctly.

 

 

For people talking about trading slanted borders of a column against vertical resolution.. I don't think it's a good trade off.

Remember that you need both orientations for the slope (increasing or decreasing from left to right).

That the slope can connect to the side chars, but also to the chars above or below them (because.. perspective).

That you need more than the 32 different heights of a column, because for size 32 you still need some different columns, because the inside of the texture changes when you are nearer a wall.

And the number of columns in a font is already very limited (128), so it would mean a very coarse vertical resolution in the end.

 

I don't know if I read it well, but using more than one font per line is not useful for this technique.

Assuming you can do it (is impossible in the bad lines and you are going to consume all the cpu in the char lines, for every hardware frame!) it doesn't help you,

because you can need every possible column variation in any horizontal position of the screen (so they must be in every font used in a line).

 

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7 hours ago, tabar said:

i realize it is early in development, but how is the level data stored and can it be edited? i enjoy creating levels for doom( 1, 2, hexen, heretic, wolf3d).

Seems, one more has been trapped in the bait of Atari development.

What you see in "project-m" is a border walk of 3D presentation.

Coders mostly turn that way (walking on the edge of what is possible with their ideas) , just to proof something. Ending up in "I will finish it later". But it will never get finished, caused by the limits of the machine.

Yeah, a Wolf 3D could be possible using this projection of the background, if the enemies were just silhouettes/shadows, or look displaced by the different projection.

If you want to know what is really possible, just have a look at "m.o.o.d." on the C64. Either the double resolution, or the double fps was possible, if you want to have a consistent game.

 

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4 hours ago, NRV said:

This was done in Envision PC.

May we ask what kind of software is that ?
And that language you mentioned is inside that software too ?

 

Keep on making good stuff NRV :)

We'll wait patiently for that xex file we can load on a real machine and see it's beauty first hand :)

 

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17 hours ago, tabar said:

i realize it is early in development, but how is the level data stored and can it be edited? i enjoy creating levels for doom( 1, 2, hexen, heretic, wolf3d).

 

Yeah, there once was a demo named "Numen" and they planned a 3D dungeon game with this engine named "Vector". But allthough there was a PC editor available and the Vector game had possibilities like in Duke Nukem (e.g. look up or down), no-one ever created any levels for it. So all you can see (or download) are some short demos... in very low resolution (80x48 pixels afaik, up to 256 colours).

 

Info about Vector at atarionline.pl (polish language)

vector demo at Fandal's webpage

Vector demos at atarionline.pl

Vector Info at atariki (polish language)

 

Think I have 7 or 8 different Vector demos in my collection, but I do not remember where the PC editor was available, maybe right here at AA ?

 

 

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8 hours ago, popmilo said:

May we ask what kind of software is that ?
And that language you mentioned is inside that software too ?

 

8 hours ago, Jetboot Jack said:

Google is your friend...

 

https://atari.miribilist.com/envision/

 

Yep, that's the original PC port.

There was another version with improvements, but the links seem to be broken:

 

https://code.google.com/archive/p/envisionpc-reborn/

http://atarionline.pl/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=1220&page=3

 

Here is the version that I have:

epcr.zip

 

The "language" is something that I did for Project M because I was low on memory for more maps x).

That second map (27 x 20 tiles, should use 540 bytes) look like this in code:

TabMazeCode2
	.byte MCMD_BLOCK, 28, 0,0, 32,45		; full level

	.byte MCMD_REPEAT_IN_BLOCK, 5,2, 4,4	; 5x2 empty rooms of 3x3
	.byte MCMD_BLOCK, 0, 6,12, 3,3
	.byte MCMD_REPEAT_END

	.byte MCMD_BLOCK_ARRAY, 9, 0			; 9 empty space blocks
	.byte 2,1, 9,9
	.byte 12,3, 7,7
	.byte 24,3, 3,3
	.byte 11,4, 1,2
	.byte 19,7, 2,1
	.byte 21,4, 1,4
	.byte 22,4, 2,1
	.byte 15,10, 1,6
	.byte 17,17, 5,1

	.byte MCMD_BLOCK, 28, 4,3, 5,5		; normal brick block
	.byte MCMD_BLOCK, 22, 14,4, 3,2		; purple brick block
	.byte MCMD_BLOCK, 21, 14,7, 3,2		; red brick block

	.byte MCMD_POINT_ARRAY, 3, 11			; yellow metal
	.byte 6,4, 7,5, 5,17
	.byte MCMD_POINT_ARRAY, 4, 14			; green metal
	.byte 6,0, 11,7, 13,17, 21,13
	.byte MCMD_POINT_ARRAY, 8, 0			; empty space
	.byte 9,17, 11,15, 13,13, 19,15, 4,5, 5,5, 6,6, 6,7

	.byte MCMD_POINT, 1, 6,5				; key
	.byte MCMD_POINT, 4, 6,17			; gold cup
	.byte MCMD_POINT, 5, 26,4			; teleporter
	.byte MCMD_POINT, 47, 27,4			; animated texture


	.byte MCMD_END

Obviously, you need to add the memory used by the code to "draw" those commands, so in the end I don't know if I ended using less memory x) (there are two more maps like this one).

 

 

 

Edited by NRV
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On 3/16/2020 at 5:55 PM, CharlieChaplin said:

 

Yeah, there once was a demo named "Numen" and they planned a 3D dungeon game with this engine named "Vector". But allthough there was a PC editor available and the Vector game had possibilities like in Duke Nukem (e.g. look up or down), no-one ever created any levels for it. So all you can see (or download) are some short demos... in very low resolution (80x48 pixels afaik, up to 256 colours).

 

Info about Vector at atarionline.pl (polish language)

vector demo at Fandal's webpage

Vector demos at atarionline.pl

Vector Info at atariki (polish language)

 

Think I have 7 or 8 different Vector demos in my collection, but I do not remember where the PC editor was available, maybe right here at AA ?

 

 

Numen uses the original build editor of Duke Nukem and some java converter to import into final native format.

Edited by Heaven/TQA
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17 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

looks like emKay is not ok... as those posts that came after prove he's being a negative nancy as well as quite incorrect again. Information is key.

Where is my latest Post wrong? There is no depending answer written afterwards .

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the problem dearest emkay is that you always tell everyone to give up, and that it's not possible... no matter how many times it has not been the case. People try and they learn, success or fail. I don't know how many times we've seen this. You tend to cut folks off and make them not even make the attemp. You always mention some other platform to do the stuff on. The best of all the coding and programming people I have met worked and struggled and succeeded to some degree on the early Atari lines and the Amiga... no to so much on other platforms... this is the case when dealing with many of the engineers working with all manner of micro controllers and specialized chip applications of today. These are the people making the firmware and micro code that drive dang near all the appliance and phones of today... There has to be a reason why. So let them try!

Encourage them, work with them. Amazing, it can't be done stuff has been done during the last 12 or so years and continues to progression today. Each time a person has said that's all there is and no more... well more has come!

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5 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

the problem dearest emkay is that you always tell everyone to give up, and that it's not possible... no matter how many times it has not been the case. People try and they learn, success or fail. I don't know how many times we've seen this. You tend to cut folks off and make them not even make the attemp.

 

 

I'm not doing that. And there is NO project done where I mentioned the problems. 

It's also not me who does "cut folks off" . They reach the limits of the machine and drop the project.  You may find a scapegoat in me, caused by my writings, but that is not my fault. 

I'm only helping to point to the possible things. If people don't listen, well let them move on. 

You also seem to follow my posts for some cause. But you oversee that I did "thousands" of music experiments and explanations. Only "some" people did take care , well some died  already. It's sad anyways. We had so much done to develop things. And then ? The next day you read "O I did something new" , while it is just a re invention of the wheel.  In theory you could write the same on and on. Every day someone might stumble upon the written. 

You might know, people always blame the TV Broadcasters to rerun broadcasts on and on. But every day a new viewer might have a look there, receiving something new. 

 

 

Quote

 

 

You always mention some other platform to do the stuff on.

 

 

What a misplaced view of things is that now?

 

I'm also not telling to do the stuff on other platforms. I'm pointing to  the related possibilities., including the differences of the machines and their capabilities.  

 

 

Quote

 

The best of all the coding and programming people I have met worked and struggled and succeeded to some degree on the early Atari lines and the Amiga... no to so much on other platforms... this is the case when dealing with many of the engineers working with all manner of micro controllers and specialized chip applications of today. These are the people making the firmware and micro code that drive dang near all the appliance and phones of today... There has to be a reason why. So let them try!

Encourage them, work with them. Amazing, it can't be done stuff has been done during the last 12 or so years and continues to progression today. Each time a person has said that's all there is and no more... well more has come!

 

No need to encourage people when they were doing right. I never did. 

 

 

Enough off topic. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by emkay
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  • 2 weeks later...

First of all thanks that this project is still alive, as it's incredible stuff as for any 8-bit computer, actually I managed to shock many Commodore 64 users with that over past few years ?

Is there possibly a chance of new Project-M A.D. 2020 playable demo, please? :)

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/1/2018 at 11:34 AM, oky2000 said:

Great to see this is still alive after all these years. I found this again after checking out an awesome tech demo of Wolfenstein for 7mhz Amigas at a similar sort of stage.

 

Wolfenstein is quite an underwhelming game on the Jaguar, there are more impressive Wolf style games that run in HAM mode on a £300 Amiga 1200 already so clearly that is not exactly pushing the Jag. Also, said HAM based FPS is more impressive than Wolf on a £1000 386DX VGA high street DOS PC families were buying in the mid 90s.

 

In fact Doom and Wolf are only average games anyway and championed by losers, probably the fathers of the losers who constantly champion Super Mario Bros NES as best game in history (another average game with crap music). "DOSwankers" go on and on about them but I never played it yearly for decades and yet I could name 100+ 8bit and 16bit computer games, let alone console games, I wouldn't mind playing right now. I play Lotus II challenge on ST/Amiga all the time and Lotus III on Amiga 1200. The music on Doom and Wolf is also rubbish (because every bit of music on PC is crap and inferior to even the 1985 Amiga 1000 before Windows could handle unlimited DAC based streamed sound from an API)

Look, I know this is 2 years old but....you must be joking. Are you sure you don't have a bit of bias here? Wolf and even more so, DOOM, were very groundbreaking at the time and inspired so many clones that in itself proves its significance.  I remember the first time I went to a guys house and saw Wolf3D playing on his PC and knew right there my ST was at the end of the line. Then, throw in a sound card so you could hear them speak and WOW!
You mention the Amiga and Jaguar. If Wolf3D/DOOM were crap then why would anyone try to make games for these systems? But that is exactly what they did....or did some clone of that. Those games didn't come before Wolf3D/DOOM, they came after and they came because those system owners wanted to play something like those games. I mean, "DOOM Clone" is a well known phase for good reason. I know you play other games but there are a TON more people that still boot up those original games. Popular doesn't always mean good but there is so much content other than games around DOOM that I can't see how significantly important these games were. No one is still talking about Lotus II/III nor are people clamoring for an updated version of it but both DOOM and Wolf3D have because they're so beloved.
As you mention, you probably consider me a loser but I don't really think you made a winning argument before you made those claims.
This guy did an entire video on DOOM Clones on non-PC systems.

 

Edited by Justin Payne
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4 minutes ago, Justin Payne said:

Look, I know this is 2 years old but....you must be joking. Are you sure you don't have a bit of bias here? Wolf and even more so, DOOM, were very groundbreaking at the time and inspired so many clones that in itself proves its significance.  I remember the first time I went to a guys house and saw Wolf3D playing on his PC and knew right there my ST was at the end of the line. Then, throw in a sound card so you could hear them speak and WOW!
You mention the Amiga and Jaguar. If Wolf3D/DOOM were crap then why would anyone try to make games for these systems? But that is exactly what they did....or did some clone of that. Those games didn't come before Wolf3D/DOOM, they came after and they came because those system owners wanted to play something like those games. I mean, "DOOM Clone" is a well known phase for good reason. I know you play other games but there are a TON more people that still boot up those original games. Popular doesn't always mean good but there is so much content other than games around DOOM that I can't see how significantly important these games were. No one is still talking about Lotus II/III nor are people clamoring for an updated version of it but both DOOM and Wolf3D have because they're so beloved.
As you mention, you probably consider me a loser but I don't really think you made a winning argument before you made those claims.

Seriously, the one you quoted is clearly an Amiga die hard, and is (well at least two years ago) still annoyed that Doom wasn't released on the Amiga when it was current.  Also the comment he made about Wolfenstein 3D not being that great on the Jaguar... Pretty sure even Carmack said it is the best version of the game available.  Everyone went on to hack on Doom, but I wonder if someone crafty can add the Spear of Destiny to the Jag Wolf3D.... 

So if you look at Doom clones on the Amiga.  They all require at least an 030 to run at a playable rate (so wouldn't be advisable on a stock A1200).  Hell, I think the Falcon pulls off Doom mostly because of the DSP in it.  Granted, had it been released with a 32mhz 030, it would have been much better...

 

But all of that is way off topic, seeing an 8bit computer do the things that are shown in this project is quite amazing!

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3 minutes ago, leech said:

Seriously, the one you quoted is clearly an Amiga die hard, and is (well at least two years ago) still annoyed that Doom wasn't released on the Amiga when it was current.  Also the comment he made about Wolfenstein 3D not being that great on the Jaguar... Pretty sure even Carmack said it is the best version of the game available.  Everyone went on to hack on Doom, but I wonder if someone crafty can add the Spear of Destiny to the Jag Wolf3D.... 

So if you look at Doom clones on the Amiga.  They all require at least an 030 to run at a playable rate (so wouldn't be advisable on a stock A1200).  Hell, I think the Falcon pulls off Doom mostly because of the DSP in it.  Granted, had it been released with a 32mhz 030, it would have been much better...

 

But all of that is way off topic, seeing an 8bit computer do the things that are shown in this project is quite amazing!

Oh, "Amiga die hard" is quite evident and that would be a conversation I would only expect to be having on a school playground in 1997. Adults should have a more objective viewpoint. ?

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