Lawn Mower (screen animation)

[rsiddall]

Another AD screensaver module in the works!

 

Two WIP versions to choose from.

Only mows the first 4 rows currently.

Sound not implemented.

 

EDIT: Titlescreen/Last version can be found in first post (here.)

Sound should be sufficiently annoying. ?

 

FTP_Lawn2021.bin

Edited September 26, 2021 by rsiddall

[KevKelley]

I love the animation. I had always wanted to make a lawn mowing game in the vein of Dig Dug. Lol

[rsiddall]

15 minutes ago, KevKelley said:

I love the animation. I had always wanted to make a lawn mowing game in the vein of Dig Dug. Lol

LOL...thanks! Here are the updated versions (attached).

Love your idea. Mowing over lawn/yard items for points maybe avoiding things that would wreck the mower...you should totally do it!!!

lawnmowerRev1-1.bin lawnmowerRev2-1.bin

[+sramirez2008]

44 minutes ago, rsiddall said:

LOL...thanks! Here are the updated versions (attached).

Love your idea. Mowing over lawn/yard items for points maybe avoiding things that would wreck the mower...you should totally do it!!!

lawnmowerRev1-1.bin 4 kB · 1 download lawnmowerRev2-1.bin 4 kB · 1 download

Cool.  I like them both, but prefer the Rev2-1 bin.

[rsiddall]

1 minute ago, sramirez2008 said:

Cool.  I like them both, but prefer the Rev2-1 bin.

Thanks for weighing in! I like the detail in Rev2-1 better, myself (but prefer the lawn mower from Rev1-1).

I've got to find a pleasant sounding lawn mover noise...heh. Rev1-1 only has 39kb left, so will probably be an option for Rev2-1 only.

[+sramirez2008]

3 minutes ago, rsiddall said:

I like the detail in Rev2-1 better, myself (but prefer the lawn mower from Rev1-1).

Lol!  I actually prefer the mower from Rev1-1 too.?

[rsiddall]

Just now, sramirez2008 said:

Lol!  I actually prefer the mower from Rev1-1 too.?

Nothing but trade-offs and trying to find something that looks good in this medium. ?

 

[KevKelley]

4 hours ago, rsiddall said:

LOL...thanks! Here are the updated versions (attached).

Love your idea. Mowing over lawn/yard items for points maybe avoiding things that would wreck the mower...you should totally do it!!!

lawnmowerRev1-1.bin 4 kB · 5 downloads lawnmowerRev2-1.bin 4 kB · 5 downloads

That's all I need. Another project. Lol. Now the more I think about it the more it sounds like a good idea. 

 

And looking at you animation of the lawnmower again it really is awesome. 

[+SpiceWare]

Nice! I like the grass texture in 2, but prefer the detailed mower in 1.  You might be able to merge the 2 by doing this:

• Change the background to green
• Change the playfield to black - so you'd turn on playfield pixels for mowed section instead of turning it off
• Use the ball for the grass texture instead of missile 0

 

 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

I like this one the best out of all of the screensavers so far! Have you thought about single bit sized mowing of the playfield for smoother grass cutting?

 

- James

[rsiddall]

3 hours ago, KevKelley said:

That's all I need. Another project. Lol. Now the more I think about it the more it sounds like a good idea. 

 

And looking at you animation of the lawnmower again it really is awesome. 

Appreciate it! I enjoy your Bag Boy game (the guy getting zapped by lightning is hilarious)! 

 

In fact, now that I think about it, you've already got a guy pushing a buggy/cart - turn that into a lawn mower and you're almost there. ?

 

Edited September 17, 2021 by rsiddall

[rsiddall]

13 hours ago, SpiceWare said:

Nice! I like the grass texture in 2, but prefer the detailed mower in 1.  You might be able to merge the 2 by doing this:

• Change the background to green
• Change the playfield to black - so you'd turn on playfield pixels for mowed section instead of turning it off
• Use the ball for the grass texture instead of missile 0

 

 

I definitely like the suggestion...I might give it a try and see if I can make it work. I had a version where the dandelion was yellow at one point. Part of my goal/challenge was to keep these screensavers at 4K each but finding that is getting harder to do. 

 

Maybe take the tune from your Sparks video and put it in the Rev2-1 version. I've never seen/heard it before.

Was thinking of something like Utopia's Feet Don't Fail Me Now after watching it. ?

 

 

Edited September 17, 2021 by rsiddall

[rsiddall]

12 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

I like this one the best out of all of the screensavers so far! Have you thought about single bit sized mowing of the playfield for smoother grass cutting?

 

- James

Awww...my fave is still the flying toasters!

 

I did start out with single row and playfield mowing but it was eating up all of the memory. Switched to 2 rows and "chunks" to keep it under 4K (less animations). In fact, on Rev1-1, I had to sacrifice mowing the last strip of grass to keep it under 4K. Maybe I can do your version and include SpiceWare's suggestions.

 

I have found the prep work and graphics are more enjoyable than following through with the actual programming. My dilemma is I feel compelled to finish it once I've committed. ?

 

I should add that the 4K size allows me to do what I want (more or less) in a shorter amount of time so that it never gets too tedious.

Edited September 17, 2021 by rsiddall

[+sramirez2008]

7 minutes ago, rsiddall said:

Maybe I can do your version and include SpiceWare's suggestions.

Do it…do it…do it! ?

[rsiddall]

Heh...we'll see.

Was fiddling around with this earlier:

 

Edited September 17, 2021 by rsiddall

[+SpiceWare]

1 hour ago, rsiddall said:

Was thinking of something like Utopia's Feet Don't Fail Me Now after watching it. ?

catchy!  Sparks did a bug video too!

 

 

[rsiddall]

12 minutes ago, SpiceWare said:

catchy!  Sparks did a bug video too!

 

 

Video has a Cuphead vibe to it. Good song and vid...I like!

 

Had to look them up as I feel I've heard their music before. Realized it's a song called Cool Places (with Jane Weidlin) that I remembered.

[rsiddall]

16 hours ago, rsiddall said:

Heh...we'll see.

Was fiddling around with this earlier:

 

Added a .bin file. NYAN apparently has had several takes in this forum..this would be my version of a screensaver.

Just a quick animation and the ability to move the cat up and down (haven't disabled up/down movement).

Nyan_working.bin

Edited September 17, 2021 by rsiddall

[rsiddall]

8 hours ago, rsiddall said:

Added a .bin file. NYAN apparently has had several takes in this forum..this would be my version of a screensaver.

Just a quick animation and the ability to move the cat up and down (haven't disabled up/down movement).

Nyan_working.bin 4 kB · 5 downloads

I'll move this over to here as to not hijack this thread: 

 

 

[rsiddall]

Was watching ZeroPage Homebrew's live show yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to see James trying to convince Darcy that my screensaver stuff was worth a look.

 

Sorry to disappoint with the lawn mover module!

 

I haven't tested any of these on real hardware and much to my dismay, it was apparent that $D0 (dark green) is not a color that one should choose for grass. That and the jitter probably caused by the playfield (assuming my code is taking too long to run) was a shock. I've gotten used to just running it on Stella and assuming it works.

 

I'll take a look and see if I can at least get those issues corrected. Thanks for the continued interest James and my sincere apologies. ?

Edited September 18, 2021 by rsiddall

[rsiddall]

Okay, apologies to everyone on the lax coding...

I'm attaching revised versions for both lawn mowers here.

 

Jitter and colors should now be correct. Tested on my 7800 with a Harmony cart...anyone want to confirm?

lawnmowerRev2-2.bin

lawnmowerRev1-2.bin

Edited September 19, 2021 by rsiddall

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

25 minutes ago, rsiddall said:

Was watching ZeroPage Homebrew's live show yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to see James trying to convince Darcy that my screensaver stuff was worth a look.

It was a blast checking out all the screensavers you've made so far and comparing them to the ones in After Dark! Happy to have test them out on real hardware and see how they work.

 

Looks like Lawn Mower sticks to 262 lines most of the time but also jumps to 264, 265 and 272. Just press ALT-L (Win) in Stella to see the line counts and where it jumps, more info here.

 

Coverage starts around the 9:15 mark in the video below for those of you who missed it:

 

 

- James

 

 

EDIT: Looks like you posted an update to the binary while I was typing this, hahah. Looks like all the linecount jumps are gone in Stella but haven't tried it on a real console yet. Grass looks nice and bright green and healthy now! ?

[rsiddall]

10 minutes ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

It was a blast checking out all the screensavers you've made so far and comparing them to the ones in After Dark! Happy to have test them out on real hardware and see how they work.

 

Looks like Lawn Mower sticks to 262 lines most of the time but also jumps to 264, 265 and 272. Just press ALT-L (Win) in Stella to see the line counts and where it jumps, more info here.

 

Coverage starts around the 9:15 mark in the video below:

 

 

- James

Much appreciated! I think I've got them fixed and reposted. 

 

Also wanted to let you know 'Starry Night' (original version) looks like this:

I have taken some liberties in my version, obviously. 

 

[rsiddall]

On 9/16/2021 at 6:18 PM, SpiceWare said:

Nice! I like the grass texture in 2, but prefer the detailed mower in 1.  You might be able to merge the 2 by doing this:

• Change the background to green
• Change the playfield to black - so you'd turn on playfield pixels for mowed section instead of turning it off
• Use the ball for the grass texture instead of missile 0

 

 

Pretty close!! Here's what I have following your suggestions to merge the two versions:

 

Because of the reversal, I have topmost grass that can't be mowed so I've tried to balance the yard for what I think, looks most pleasing. We've also lost the weeds/dandelion because I can't seem to use the missile (long gray bar on right side) like I had previously. With the set of kernel options I have, I technically lose missile1 and missile0.

 

But you end up with the better lawnmower and grass.

lawnmowerRev3-1.bin

Edited September 19, 2021 by rsiddall

[+SpiceWare]

Nicely done!

 

2600 coding lends to creavite usage of objects. We came up with a similar reversing of expected usage for the 2 color-48 pixel kernel that I use in my menus.

 

 

At first glance you'd think the players are colored blue and the green for the menu options.  However, there's not enough time to both draw the 48 pixels and change the color of the players so the players are actually black, while the background is blue and the playfield is green.

 

 

The players are used as stencils, the 0 bits let the color thru:

 

 

While the missiles (also black) are drawn on either side of the menu to hide the background's color transition from black to blue and back to black.  If I turn them off using Stella you can see the color gets extended on either side of the menu:

 

 

 

As discussed in The Story of Stay Frosty 2, Part 13 we came up with the 48-pixel 2 color kernel in 2010 for the game title in Stay Frosty 2.  Do note the formatting in the blog post, especially the code snippets, was messed up during a forum upgrade.