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If you had to choose a color to lose..


Gemintronic

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So, I'd like to "port" the Inty colors to other systems. Maybe make a version of my game for BOTH Intellivision and Genesis. Trouble is, most allocate the first color as transparency. If a color had to be lost then which one?

 

I'd think the criteria would be:

 

* Most redundant

* Least used

 

So, how about it? If you had to pick a color to lose.. which one?

 

post-13304-0-28106100-1474337006_thumb.jpg

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Genesis can have 2 different 16 color palette for sprites right? You could layer the 15 color sprite over the missing color sprite with the 2nd color palette. Or have that specific sprite use the 2nd color palette. The background layer, you should be able to use all 16 colors for 1 background plane. Leave the paper color black while reproducing the other 15 colors for the Genesis.

Edited by Kiwi
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Genesis can have 2 different 16 color palette for sprites right? You could layer the 15 color sprite over the missing color sprite with the 2nd color palette. The background layer, you should be able to use all 16 colors for 1 background plane. Leave the paper color black while reproducing the other 15 colors for the Genesis.

 

That's doable. But, you have to be careful. There's a limit to how many sprite pixels can be on the same horizontal plane. You could also combine both background planes with doubled up tiles for 30 colors. It gets complicated fast.

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Most console games in the '80s had 4-bit character graphics with 16 colours per tile. Sega Master System, TG16, Genesis, SNES, etc.. The major difference is how many palettes were available.

 

Per tile - but is there any actual reason to exclude a color from your selections entirely? Just use one palette with one color missing, and a second with a different one missing (IIRC the Genesis requires 0 to always be transparent).

 

Disclaimer - it's been EONS since I've looked at how the more advanced systems work. So I could be very much not making sense with my conjecture. :dunce: Does it just make things easier to stick with one palette?

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There's a max of 8 sprites on the Intellivision on screen at once, and each sprite could be double size horizontally. So it'll takes up 32 pixels, so all 8 double x sprites can be shown on a line with Genesis running at 256x224 resolution. Now at y being 4 times for all 8 sprites might run out of sprites to be displayed. It very rare to see a big sprites on Intellivision from my Intellivision bidge, I think Icetrek the only one I seen with a big 4 times big sprites forming that ice bridge. I'm thinking 15 colors can be assigned for palette 1, then if you need additional color, then the 16th color can be for palette 2 and assign that sprite to use that palette. Therefore, no color get left behind.

 

There's 1 background layer for Intellivision, so a 2nd layer isn't needed and can be left blank, so the transparent color can be use by the paper color(border color), which can be left using color black or another Intellivision color. If you need that 2nd layer for menu or something, I think you can set that as a priority over the 1st layer.

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Per tile - but is there any actual reason to exclude a color from your selections entirely? Just use one palette with one color missing, and a second with a different one missing (IIRC the Genesis requires 0 to always be transparent).

 

Disclaimer - it's been EONS since I've looked at how the more advanced systems work. So I could be very much not making sense with my conjecture. :dunce: Does it just make things easier to stick with one palette?

 

It really does simplify things to use 15 colors since color 0 is always transparency. If I could avoid using one color in my Inty games porting the assets over becomes VERY, very easy. Layering is a pain on the genesis and complicates the game engine.

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"New to game programming" programmers at Mattel Electronics (i.e. most of us at that time ) often tried to put as many colors on the screen as possible, since we wanted our games to be "colorful" and "there were only 16 colors total anyway."

 

But the artists advised us to pick a small set of colors as the "main colors" of the game - they said that doing so would set the proper mood or atmosphere of the game.

Other colors could be used sparingly - to spice up the game - or as "icing on the cake".

 

So maybe there is really no need to map every single Intellivision color to a Genesis color.

 

Just a thought,

 

Catsfolly

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I had another use all color idea. Since there's only 8 MOBs maximum using 1 color each. There's 30 programmable colors, and you only need 1 palette per sprite, so you'll be taking up 8 palette, leaving 7 of them weeping in tears, for 8 sprites. That way you can write in new color information, like if your character just grabbed a start and now is invincible, you can reprogram that sprite palette to change different color every frame. Like Sonic spindashing into Dr.Robotic, causing the colors for his sprite and the HUD to flash.

 

Only down side you'll may need 8 copies of the object to use that specific palette.

 

I think you shouldn't drop any color, if you really absolutely have to to drop a color, I would pick 8. You may be able to dither color 4 and D to make color 8.

Edited by Kiwi
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I don't see why you have to lose any. The MegaDrive has two backgrounds.

 

To emulate foreground/background mode:

- Put Inty palette colours 0 to 7 in palette 0.

- Put Inty palette colours 8 to 16 in palette 1.

- Put 8 Inty sprite colours in palette 2.

- If you want a background tile in the primary colours draw it in background 0 using palette 0.

- If you want a background tile in the pastel colours draw it in background 1 using palette 1.

- Draw the sprites required by the game in the colours in palette 2.

 

To emulate colour stack mode:

- Put the 4 colours of the stack in palette 0.

- Put Inty colours 0 to 7 in palette 1.

- Put Inty colours 8 to 15 in palette 2.

- Put the 8 Inty sprite colours the game requires in palette 3.

- Draw colour stack changes in background 0.

- Draw the equivalent BACKTAB cards in background 1 using palettes 1 or 2 to get the full 16 colours.

- Draw sprites required by the game in palette 3.

 

Thus if you need to colour cycle a sprite you can just adjust its palette entry in either faked mode.

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"New to game programming" programmers at Mattel Electronics (i.e. most of us at that time ) often tried to put as many colors on the screen as possible, since we wanted our games to be "colorful" and "there were only 16 colors total anyway."

 

But the artists advised us to pick a small set of colors as the "main colors" of the game - they said that doing so would set the proper mood or atmosphere of the game.

Other colors could be used sparingly - to spice up the game - or as "icing on the cake".

 

 

That's actually very much what happens even today. Soon enough, however, you realize that with only 16 colors you're never going to make anything with much detail.

 

I spent a lot of hours trying to see just how close I could get to something like a dithering effect, by using as much of the palette as possible... only to realize that it's a fool's errand. The system just isn't designed for high-resolution Activision rainbows and such - and that's OK.

 

Amusing to see that this has been the case for decades. :lol:

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That's actually very much what happens even today. Soon enough, however, you realize that with only 16 colors you're never probably not going to make anything with much detail some specific technique or style that is not supported in that resolution.

 

TFTFY.

 

I think it's disingenuous to say "never ... with much detail," when very stylized screens with lots of details have been created by talented artists. Depending on the style employed, dithering effects can be very effective; though admittedly perhaps not in the same way that you are expecting from higher-resolutions. For instance, you won't get "photo-realism," but you can get "highly stylized" art. One is not better than the other, unless your aim is indeed a fool's errand of exacting photo-realism.

 

-dZ.

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