+Gemintronic Posted March 24, 2014 Share Posted March 24, 2014 I'm wondering how many people care about the vertical lines in Arkanoid bricks. Without the lines I can put in an enemy that bounces around. With the lines no enemy. NoLines.bin Lines.bin Flicker.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted March 24, 2014 Share Posted March 24, 2014 My vote is for no lines. The moving enemies/dropping powers are key elements for Arkanoid, and the brick appearance is a little less key. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariFriend Posted March 24, 2014 Share Posted March 24, 2014 Vertical lines make a big difference. Looks like just another breakout without them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted March 24, 2014 Share Posted March 24, 2014 I vote for lines, but only if the enemies bounce around as they're supposed to I guess. Absolutely no other way around it? Maybe just haven't stumbled on a fix yet... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted March 24, 2014 Author Share Posted March 24, 2014 I vote for lines, but only if the enemies bounce around as they're supposed to I guess. Absolutely no other way around it? Maybe just haven't stumbled on a fix yet... Well. The forbidden, secret third option is flickered vertical lines. Random Terrain almost had a seizure so I ONLY used flicker for the lines in this build. I'm wondering if people would find this to be a good compromise. ADDED FLICKERING VERTICAL LINES OPTIONS AT TOP 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr SQL Posted March 24, 2014 Share Posted March 24, 2014 Well. The forbidden, secret third option is flickered vertical lines. Random Terrain almost had a seizure so I ONLY used flicker for the lines in this build. I'm wondering if people would find this to be a good compromise. ADDED FLICKERING VERTICAL LINES OPTIONS AT TOP Wow! The lines look incredible - excellent effect, I can't even see the flicker - definitely go with that version! I can see why RT had seisures over the other version Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fr0st Posted March 24, 2014 Share Posted March 24, 2014 (edited) Definitely needs lines, looks so much better and helps focus on what specific blocks you're aiming for Edit - after just looking at all three, that flickering is horrible! Shame one thing has to be sacrificed for the other to work. Edited March 24, 2014 by Fr0st Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted March 24, 2014 Share Posted March 24, 2014 As you know I hate flicker But could you maybe have each row of bricks wobble in the other direction per alternating frame? (I hope you know what I mean). Im aware that this requires tighter code in that one line space but maybe that would be nicer? This kind of flicker being a 'global' side-to-side flicker is kinda disturbing IMHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 IIRC there's actually 2 enemies at a time possible in Arkanoid, I'd prefer flickering enemies/powerups to the brick deliniation. Once a few bricks have been cleared the lines become less important, and there's plenty of levels that have steps or shapes that make it clear as to the brick size as well. On a static shot, it does look like another Breakout, but in a moving game once there's enemies and bonuses floating around it becomes pretty clear what game you're playing. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 I completely agree with this: Once a few bricks have been cleared the lines become less important, and there's plenty of levels that have steps or shapes that make it clear as to the brick size as well. So my vote would be for no lines. The trick will be the doing color changes necessary for the metal bricks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 Could the option for lines or not be incorporated via a difficulty switch or game option? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 (edited) That flicker hurt my eyes. Here is your mission now. I would like to see you try another version where you alternate between two frames. First frame you draw the bricks. Second frame you draw the paddles, ball, and enemy. This is a flicker utility I wrote for CAA. You can move a cursor around to change the background color. It gives you a quick idea of what combinations work colors to choose to minimize the flicker. In general on a dark background colors with low luminosity flicker less. On a bright background it is vice-versa. FlickerTest.zip Edit: I forgot to say draw the bricks on the first frame with lines, of course!! Edited March 25, 2014 by Omegamatrix 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 It will be even worse for PAL, just in case anyone cares 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted March 25, 2014 Author Share Posted March 25, 2014 That flicker hurt my eyes. Here is your mission now. I would like to see you try another version where you alternate between two frames. First frame you draw the bricks. Second frame you draw the paddles, ball, and enemy. This is a flicker utility I wrote for CAA. You can move a cursor around to change the background color. It gives you a quick idea of what combinations work colors to choose to minimize the flicker. In general on a dark background colors with low luminosity flicker less. On a bright background it is vice-versa. FlickerTest.zip Edit: I forgot to say draw the bricks on the first frame with lines, of course!! HOLY SWISS CHEESE AND HAM BATMAN!! That utility you whipped up is jawsome! I wish I had it back when I was making MMSBC II. I'm a little slow so I am not altogether understanding the mission. Are you saying we should find out if drawing all the vertical lines half the time is better than half the lines all the time? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 A weird idea just came to me... and it might just work: Instead of doing lines and sacrificing the clarity and number of other objects like enemies/bonuses - how about just having the bricks themselves flicker? Think chessboard pattern. Show the bricks which would correspond to "white" one frame, the "black" ones the next. Since it's in that pattern, it should be less annoying and also produce a nice deliniation between the bricks. Disadvantage of course will be that instead of just several objects flickering, it'll be potentially a couple of dozen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 HOLY SWISS CHEESE AND HAM BATMAN!! A full screen flicker of the selected cell by pressing fire would be good too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted March 25, 2014 Author Share Posted March 25, 2014 How do these wider bricks look? The advantages are a get to use both sprites for monsters. The missile could be used for lasers or an extra ball in play. No flicker! WideBricks.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 I would drop the lines and focus on the gameplay, enemies, bonusses, multiball etc. By the way, the lines do not look evenly spaced, which make it harder to check for ball-block collisions? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted March 25, 2014 Author Share Posted March 25, 2014 I would drop the lines and focus on the gameplay, enemies, bonusses, multiball etc. By the way, the lines do not look evenly spaced, which make it harder to check for ball-block collisions? Not so much. The vertical lines are just eye candy. The collisions are strictly missile/playfield. What about my latest example above? The wide bricks seem evenly spaced and allow all the things you're talkin' about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 (edited) It's probably a good idea to do brick/ball collision detection by calculation rather than collision register. You generally want the ball not to overlap the brick before bouncing off it. I imagine the bricks would be simply kept in Ram as a bitmap + count of # remaining which should lend well to such a method. Edited March 25, 2014 by Rybags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland p Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 Like Rybags said, calculation will be better then register (assuming you check the register). Good physics/collision will create a better game. Not so much. The vertical lines are just eye candy. The collisions are strictly missile/playfield. What about my latest example above? The wide bricks seem evenly spaced and allow all the things you're talkin' about. I'm still processing it It looks a bit oversized. The first one (nolines.bin) has the impression of a higher resolution due to more blocks and a smaller ball. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted March 25, 2014 Author Share Posted March 25, 2014 Using Omegamatrix's flicker tool I came up with this: Wide Blocks with Flicker An improvement? Or, can people still feel the flicker? WideFlicker.bin P.S. Please try this full screen to avoid syncing problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enthusi Posted March 25, 2014 Share Posted March 25, 2014 It doesnt flicker much, but also I dont see very much. Flicker is directly proportional to contrast (no surprise 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted March 25, 2014 Author Share Posted March 25, 2014 Slightly tweaked the contrast. Added custom score font. Changed ball back to a missile instead of the hardware ball. Yeah. UPDATE: Now with Triangle enemy! WideBrick3.bin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted March 26, 2014 Share Posted March 26, 2014 There was a bug in the flicker utility for the bottom row. Here is the fixed version: FlickerTest_rev2.zip . HOLY SWISS CHEESE AND HAM BATMAN!! That utility you whipped up is jawsome! I wish I had it back when I was making MMSBC II. I'm a little slow so I am not altogether understanding the mission. Are you saying we should find out if drawing all the vertical lines half the time is better than half the lines all the time? . I meant something like this: Choose your colors carefully, so they don't flicker so much. I just threw these mock ups together in Paint, and it doesn't represent what the actual colors should be. The important elements are that by alternating frames you can draw the bricks with lines, and draw an extra enemy or two. The borders don't have the color bleed from the blocks on them. I'm not sure if the ball can have an independent color, but I drew it black anyhow... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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