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Long line demo


Thomas Jentzsch

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Attached you find a simple tech demo, which resulted from discussing with @johnnywc about his newest project Qix.

 

All it does is drawing a single (Qix) line on the screen. The line data is created on-the-fly using the Bresenham line algorithm. The clue is, that this line is quite long (up to 44 pixel), using just one sprite an no flicker. To achieve this length, I combined several tricks:

  • depending of the width (and angle) of the line, the sprite is double or quad sized
  • the sprite position is updated every line
  • the sprite bits forming the line are shifted to allow larger line segments (> 7 pixel)

 

When you start the demo, you only see a line rotating. You can use the switches to change that.

  • Color/B&W = B&W: The Qix line color reflects the sprite size (blue = single, green = double, red = quad sized)
  • Left Difficulty = A: The Qix line independently changes it horizontal and vertical size
  • Right Difficulty = A: The Qix line moves around the screen (this is a demo, so just for the show :))

 

Maybe I will further enhance the demo. Not sure yet.

 

BTW: When using Stella, for a nice Qix like effect, try to set the phosphor blend to ~90. 

QixDemo_V1_39.thumb.png.342e47f190b4e800fc490522146173de.png

 

QixDemo_V1.bin QixDemo_V1.asm Sine_12_05.h

Edited by Thomas Jentzsch
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It'd be amusing to have Stella conduct a savestate, then load a demo (like this one) after a pre-determined time. And as soon as the user does something like moving the joystick or toggling a switch, Stella would re-load the original ROM and its savestate.

 

Thereby simulating a Windows-like screensaver.

Edited by Keatah
spelling mistake
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A little update which mainly improves the trailing Qix lines. I also increased the speed, which was way too low before. PAL60 version added too.

 

Switches:

  • Color/B&W = B&W: The Qix line color reflects the sprite size (blue = single, green = double, red = quad sized)
  • Left difficulty: A = Qix moves faster and more erratic

QixDemo_V3 (NTSC).bin QixDemo_V3 (PAL60).bin

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2 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

Masterful. Can't wait to see it implemented in a Qix!

Probably not like this. The HMOVE blanks further reduce the horizontal resolution.

 

But I have an idea how to avoid these by doing a well timed RESP each line.

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