kiwilove Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Liking this alot! Great stuff ... These are only Work-in-progress examples - the final versions will have extra stuff not shown yet... We had to release these at this time - not of our own choosing, but because someone else could very release something in the same graphics mode (which did happen in the first example) - and it's never a good feeling, when your own work goes unrecognised (eg. when Laser Hawk was released, I did think it was the first NZ made computer videogame? but it seems it was beaten by 'Dinky Kong' for the Vic-20 - of which no screenshots or copy of it, is to be found... by a year maybe?). Anyway I don't think GTIA modes 10 and 11 have been used in computer videogame before? And GTIA 9 has never been properly used in a game, until this year... While this project is on a very very slow development cycle - there are many different things we are working on (and testing/evaluating/etc...) and what does work, will be used... much of what we are doing now - could have been possible to do some 25 something years ago - if the time and effort was put into it... and certainly the democoders could have experimented in this area any time from the late 90s'... onwards.. I was not impressed by much of the demos made by democoders, etc - although only a few of such demos did stand out.. Harvey 3 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-2805081 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 (edited) These are only Work-in-progress examples - the final versions will have extra stuff not shown yet... We had to release these at this time - not of our own choosing, but because someone else could very release something in the same graphics mode (which did happen in the first example) - and it's never a good feeling, when your own work goes unrecognised (eg. when Laser Hawk was released, I did think it was the first NZ made computer videogame? but it seems it was beaten by 'Dinky Kong' for the Vic-20 - of which no screenshots or copy of it, is to be found... by a year maybe?). Anyway I don't think GTIA modes 10 and 11 have been used in computer videogame before? And GTIA 9 has never been properly used in a game, until this year... While this project is on a very very slow development cycle - there are many different things we are working on (and testing/evaluating/etc...) and what does work, will be used... much of what we are doing now - could have been possible to do some 25 something years ago - if the time and effort was put into it... and certainly the democoders could have experimented in this area any time from the late 90s'... onwards.. I was not impressed by much of the demos made by democoders, etc - although only a few of such demos did stand out.. Harvey There have been other games which used modes 10 and/or 11 ... there was a Tetris game written by someone on here that used Graphics 0.10 (as I call character modes using GTIA) ... and I also did a remix of Itay's The Wall tetris game. Itay's version used COLRVIEW mode, a triple RGB interlace that does 64 colors but flickers badly. I modified the code to use an ICE mode called CIN 12 (or CIN lo-res) that uses Antic 4 but alters the GTIA every scanline between normal Antic 4 and Graphics 12.11 to display 60 colors onscreen at once. This usage of mode 11 under Antic 4 allowed for the use of only 14 of the 16 colors, and you have to use inverse characters to get at 5 of those colors. There was also a game called Cygnus XL that used APAC mode (9+11 every scanline) for part of the display as well. I also found a couple of breakout clones that used Graphics 0.9 ... can't remember what they were called, one of them only used 9 for part of the playfield border, the other actually used it for the blocks. I even tried to play around with these modes in my 80's programming days ... most I got out of it was this nice little opening screen for a utility I wrote called Textdraw. The title screen was done using Graphics 0.10 ... I also wrote a chess timer once, which used Graphics 1.10 (or mode 10 under Graphics 1) ... it's a 20 column mode like Graphics 1, but you get Antic 4 style characters (4x8 pixels) with between 3 to 4 colors per character cell, using three different color ranges. I've always thought there should be more games which use the GTIA modes in character mode ... not only Graphics 0, but also Antic 4/5, and Antic 6/7 (Graphics 1 and 2) ... it's really an unexplored area of Atari graphics. Edited August 6, 2013 by Synthpopalooza Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-2805167 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwilove Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 There have been other games which used modes 10 and/or 11 ... Thanks for that info. I don't really know what games were like from the 90s' onwards - especially from overseas sources, ie. Poland and the likes... If someone could count the colours in the most recent GTIA 11 demo - maybe you could see? that more than 16 hues are present? But it's about impossible to do this when colours are of the same brightness in this mode. Extra colours are there... Anyway in my little experimentation - there is the technique of colour blending, whereby you can gain additional colours by the use of coloured stripes - where your eye (or brain) mixes the colour - this can also be done in GTIA 10 - for example you can try counting the colours in this demo - which is easier to do, than the GTIA 11 demo - because distinct colours of GTIA 10 are used. Again it is possible to gain additional colours - but I have not done a true colour palette test - to see which colour combinations are the most effective? It is usual? to gain about only 2 more additional colours (with GTIA 10) - plus others which are obvious stripes - with the new additional colours they don't appear as stripes at all. I don't like any mode in which flickering is present. I cannot check out all the various demos - especially that of the demoscene - there are too many to go through - I always like to see the best that has been done so far, to see any really brilliant graphics demonstration(s). But I usually find going through demos - very boring and disappointing. I have in mind to go down a different path - that no one has done before?... sorry but I cannot give too much (or anything...) away at this point in time... but there are always possibilities present ... truly. Harvey Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-2805216 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Adam+ Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Anyway I don't think GTIA modes 10 and 11 have been used in computer videogame before? And GTIA 9 has never been properly used in a game, until this year... Oh, dear... And then you are writing "I don't really know what games were like from the 90s' onwards". It's really not hard to find examples of Atari games that are using GTIA modes, some of them are quite well-known, and some of them were made before 1990, for example: Space Lobsters - 1987 http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-space-lobsters_4838.html Winter Events - 1988 http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-winter-events_5780.html Bewitch Castle - 1989 http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-bewitch-castle-_22606.html Cygnus X1 - 1989 http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-cygnus-x1_1472.html Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-2805240 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Adam+ Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Anyway - I'm very glad that GTIABlast! is in production and there will be another game in lesser known graphics modes. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-2805251 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Adam+ Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Ah, the most famous "GTIA game" is probably Koronis Rift (1985) by Lucasfilm Games which uses GR.10 and GR.9. Another early example of GR.9 usage is Colony 7 (1983) and of GR.11: Murder on the Zinderneuf (1983). 30 years ago... Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-2805379 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Thanks for that info. I don't really know what games were like from the 90s' onwards - especially from overseas sources, ie. Poland and the likes... If someone could count the colours in the most recent GTIA 11 demo - maybe you could see? that more than 16 hues are present? But it's about impossible to do this when colours are of the same brightness in this mode. Extra colours are there... Anyway in my little experimentation - there is the technique of colour blending, whereby you can gain additional colours by the use of coloured stripes - where your eye (or brain) mixes the colour - this can also be done in GTIA 10 - for example you can try counting the colours in this demo - which is easier to do, than the GTIA 11 demo - because distinct colours of GTIA 10 are used. Again it is possible to gain additional colours - but I have not done a true colour palette test - to see which colour combinations are the most effective? It is usual? to gain about only 2 more additional colours (with GTIA 10) - plus others which are obvious stripes - with the new additional colours they don't appear as stripes at all. I don't like any mode in which flickering is present. This is a technique called PAL blending. It usually works best if you put the lesser luminance color on top of the brighter luminance one. PAL Ataris will blend the colors together. In bitmap mode, using Antic E you would typically change the PF registers to monochrome and it would get you 160x96x16 colors ... using Antic 4, this increases to 23 colors due to the presence of PF3. The technique will also work without color palette changes too. Using Graphics 11, I've calculated about 104 possible luminance combinations, not counting combinations where one of the scanlines is the BG color. Greys are gotten if you blend colors from opposite sides of the color wheel (blue+yellow, red+cyan, magenta+green). This illusion can be enhanced, if you scroll at half speed and jitter the screen up and down a scanline every VBLANK, this causes the scanlines to blend together. The striping technique (which is incidentally how the APAC 9+11 mode works) will look better on PAL Ataris than NTSC, tho with NTSC, the jitter half-scroll method will work to blend the colors. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-2805446 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwilove Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 This is a technique called PAL blending. It usually works best if you put the lesser luminance color on top of the brighter luminance one. PAL Ataris will blend the colors together. In bitmap mode, using Antic E you would typically change the PF registers to monochrome and it would get you 160x96x16 colors ... using Antic 4, this increases to 23 colors due to the presence of PF3. The technique will also work without color palette changes too. Using Graphics 11, I've calculated about 104 possible luminance combinations, not counting combinations where one of the scanlines is the BG color. Greys are gotten if you blend colors from opposite sides of the color wheel (blue+yellow, red+cyan, magenta+green). This illusion can be enhanced, if you scroll at half speed and jitter the screen up and down a scanline every VBLANK, this causes the scanlines to blend together. The striping technique (which is incidentally how the APAC 9+11 mode works) will look better on PAL Ataris than NTSC, tho with NTSC, the jitter half-scroll method will work to blend the colors. Thanks for that info - I wondered why greys were appearing a lot - and blue greys, etc.. The GTIABlast mode 11 demo - of course shows something from a colour palette test, when all those colours are used/shown - I could not fit all the colours in - plus normal designs. i would have liked to have used the full number of colours available but did not get around to finding a way to display them in an engaging manner. It is a challenge to find how to most effectively use the GTIA 11 mode colours - because you have no white available, and colours are all of the same brightness - but still, there are things you can do with it. Harvey Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-2807612 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwilove Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 (edited) Here is a video that shows further development of AtariBLAST! - for those keen to see it's further development.. It is a sneak peek at one of the new levels http://youtu.be/Sd8JxSYLUX4. A lot of time and effort has gone into the project overall - so I hope people will appreciate all that. It's never going to be a perfect game - and neither will it live up to all expectations... etc. Harvey Edited March 2, 2015 by kiwilove 9 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3189695 Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Looks cool. I love the zaxxon throwback graphics. Good job! Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3189741 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Nice work! Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3189886 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg2600 Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Amazing new level! Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3190137 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Beautiful! Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3190252 Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Looks very good. If only the music fitted to the game Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3190335 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 looks good... only one thing... 2d movements in the "zaxxon" iso seems not fitting... can you change in those levels the movements? fex instead of ypos=ypos+1 in moving down... you do a ypos=ypos+1 xpos=xpos+1? Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3190946 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwilove Posted September 7, 2016 Share Posted September 7, 2016 ab_cart.zip OK - here is the final version of the 8-bit version for the Atari home computers which can run off a 8mbit flashcart with the original hardware or via emulation. Instructions are provided. Have fun! Can someone confirm all the files are here intact and working. This will run fine on NTSC or PAL Atari's - PAL should be easier to play and the NTSC would look/play that little bit better/harder. Due thanks must go to Paul Lay for the amount of work that has gone into this project. Harvey 23 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3589779 Share on other sites More sharing options...
snicklin Posted September 7, 2016 Share Posted September 7, 2016 (edited) HARVEY!!! PAUL!!!! This is absolutely amazing, much better than I expected I must admit. I think that the 1000 point bonus animation and the end of level animation are purely amazing. I don't see it often enough and it is too fast to analyse how this was done, it looks like some kind of interlace on alternate scanlines?? I won't give it away to anyone, but the change in the game that occurs on the 2nd level blew my mind, you don't normally see this kind of dynamics change in an Atari game. I for one am glad to see it at last. I did have a problem with the game pausing for around 5s on the 2nd level, but something could have been happening, I had my sound down as I'm at home waiting for an engineer to turn up and I need to listen out for the door. The variety of weapons is good also. Oh, and the end of level bonus system is also very good. Well done to you both, you've got a mint on your hands here. [Edit] And the front screen animation is superb, I love it. Edited September 7, 2016 by snicklin 2 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3589828 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted September 7, 2016 Share Posted September 7, 2016 I did have a problem with the game pausing for around 5s on the 2nd level, but something could have been happening, I had my sound down as I'm at home waiting for an engineer to turn up and I need to listen out for the door. Yeah, great game !! Your problem is not really a problem, its fully intentional and mentioned in the manual: "HIDDEN TARGETS Occasionally the screen may stop scrolling which indicates there is a hidden target in the landscape somewhere. Destroy the target before scrolling starts again to receive a 1000 point bonus." 3 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3589865 Share on other sites More sharing options...
FifthPlayer Posted September 8, 2016 Share Posted September 8, 2016 Well, I certainly know what to reflash my Atarimax cart with now....looking forward to playing this game. 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3590112 Share on other sites More sharing options...
snicklin Posted September 8, 2016 Share Posted September 8, 2016 Thank you CharlieChaplin, I now know why it stopped for a while. I got too excited when I realised it was released to read all the instructions. Anyway, I have to say, I am really enjoying the game. Somewhat like R-Type, but better in my opinion. I'd go as far as saying that this may well be the best 8-bit Shoot 'em up that I know of. Unless someone can port Galaga '88 to the Atari then I can't see this being bettered. Anyone care to share level codes? 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3590220 Share on other sites More sharing options...
electrotrains Posted September 8, 2016 Share Posted September 8, 2016 Amazing work! - so many graphics techniques on display, and the game is pretty damn good too.. 2 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3590234 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted September 8, 2016 Share Posted September 8, 2016 (edited) I'm with Snicklin.....Blown away, its just amazing good fun, music you can't get bored of and so much pretty action... Dead sexy.... THANK YOU SO MUCH GUYS!!!! I'd have loved to have seen this playing in Silica shop, you would have seen sales go insane...Yup, its that good. I can safely say that I'm stunned now but If I'd seen it then I think I would have had a nerdgasm... Yeah yeah...too much info..... Edited September 8, 2016 by Mclaneinc 3 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3590254 Share on other sites More sharing options...
snicklin Posted September 8, 2016 Share Posted September 8, 2016 "HIDDEN TARGETS Occasionally the screen may stop scrolling which indicates there is a hidden target in the landscape somewhere. Destroy the target before scrolling starts again to receive a 1000 point bonus." Contrary to my come back before, I actually had a point whereby the whole game stopped, I couldn't move my craft or anything, though I've not seen this happen again after several plays. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3590256 Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvas Posted September 8, 2016 Share Posted September 8, 2016 Contrary to my come back before, I actually had a point whereby the whole game stopped, I couldn't move my craft or anything, though I've not seen this happen again after several plays. There is the pause key mentioned in the manual.... 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3590267 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted September 8, 2016 Share Posted September 8, 2016 13100 and level 3. Fantastic game. Colorful and good sound, too bad we didnt see something this cool back in the day! 1 Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/page/3/#findComment-3590273 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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