artrag Posted July 7, 2022 Author Share Posted July 7, 2022 (edited) I've fixed the bugs in the fighter directions and added fixed rate for bullets. I've made the yellow layer of the fighter "transparent". Do you find it less distracting ? Still the sky moves only in 8 directions, but I want to add some enemy movemnts before improving it demo.cfg demo.bin Edited July 7, 2022 by artrag 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 7, 2022 Author Share Posted July 7, 2022 Inverting the layers, the trasparent effect is less evident demo.cfg demo.bin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted July 7, 2022 Share Posted July 7, 2022 42 minutes ago, artrag said: I've fixed the bugs in the fighter directions and added fixed rate for bullets. Works great now. ? 42 minutes ago, artrag said: I've made the yellow layer of the fighter "transparent". Do you find it less distracting ? A little less distracting, yes. I don't think it can get much better, so I think it can work. 42 minutes ago, artrag said: Still the sky moves only in 8 directions, but I want to add some enemy movemnts before improving it demo.cfg 80 B · 3 downloads demo.bin 15.65 kB · 3 downloads 35 minutes ago, artrag said: Inverting the layers, the trasparent effect is less evident demo.cfg 80 B · 2 downloads demo.bin 15.65 kB · 2 downloads Looks better. :) -dZ. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 9, 2022 Author Share Posted July 9, 2022 Multiple scrolling directions implemented demo.bin demo.cfg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted July 9, 2022 Share Posted July 9, 2022 (edited) 4 hours ago, artrag said: Multiple scrolling directions implemented demo.bin 15.67 kB · 1 download demo.cfg 80 B · 1 download Wow! It looks very nice, and seems to work rather well -- at least after a quick test. ? Regarding the player's sprite ... In reviewing the previous versions, it seems to me that the first "transparent" one you posted looked better when passing over a cloud. The only issue in that one, I would say, was that it flickered when outside the cloud (empty air). Would it be possible to combine both techniques? I mean, having it be as the original "transparent" demo when on top of a cloud, but invert the layers as you have it now when not. Alternatively, would it be at all possible to use two actual hardware MOBs for the player rather than software sprites? I know that the technical limitations of the platform are brutal, but I think it is important to make sure that the player's sprite does not distract too much from the main game to ensure player immersion. Personally, in my design philosophy, I consider the player's avatar to be the most important element in the game: the player will obviously be focusing 100% on it as he plays, while everything else will be relegated to his peripheral vision. It is therefore my opinion (and subjective experience) that players will tend to forgive a lack of detail, even some jerkiness and other imperfections on everything else (and generally have a positive impression of the overall game), as long as his avatar looks good and moves smoothly. Just to be absolutely clear about my opinion here, I think the entire thing so far looks great, and that you have achieved a very impressive technological feat that will make this game stand out. If the current way it looks is as good as it can get, it will still be all those things. -dZ. Edited July 9, 2022 by DZ-Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 9, 2022 Author Share Posted July 9, 2022 We will see. Some sprites are needed for bombs and missiles too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 10, 2022 Author Share Posted July 10, 2022 Initial draft for enemies No AI and no respawning for now demo.bin demo.cfg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted July 10, 2022 Share Posted July 10, 2022 Looks good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 10, 2022 Author Share Posted July 10, 2022 (edited) Still no respawning and no hunting, but you get the idea of the final result demo.bin demo.cfg Edited July 10, 2022 by artrag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceHunter Posted July 10, 2022 Share Posted July 10, 2022 This is pretty impressive! I sure could use an assembly routine called from IntyBasic to render multiple software sprites. Maybe there is some resources available that I'm not aware of that could help me to visualize this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted July 10, 2022 Share Posted July 10, 2022 (edited) 12 minutes ago, SpaceHunter said: This is pretty impressive! I sure could use an assembly routine called from IntyBasic to render multiple software sprites. Maybe there is some resources available that I'm not aware of that could help me to visualize this? I don't think there are any ready-made resources to provide guidance -- I'm sure this demo is 100% conceptualized and developed by @artrag, who already has a history of devising impressive technological solutions based on mathematics. However, you could always ask questions in the forum and I'm sure someone will come along to assist. Personally, I'm pretty handy with Assembly Language, especially for the CP-1610, but I'm rather stupid with maths and advanced functional algorithms (I tend to brute-force most of my solutions, then optimize the heck out of them and hope for the best. I also tend to not wish to spend my time in doing the whole thing from scratch unless I personally have a need for it for my own projects.). So, if you have an algorithm or specific routine that you wish to implement in Assembly, I could help. Maybe @artrag would consider releasing his software-sprite library and framework for others to use in the future -- he's done it before. -dZ. Edited July 10, 2022 by DZ-Jay 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 10, 2022 Author Share Posted July 10, 2022 @SpaceHunter sorry my code isn't suitable for libraries. Software bullets are heavily optimized, so other shapes aren't allowed, and their removal relies on the scrolling code. So there is nothing be reused as a general tool. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 10, 2022 Author Share Posted July 10, 2022 (edited) fligth in random direction, no despawn, no respawn demo.cfg demo.bin Edited July 10, 2022 by artrag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted July 10, 2022 Share Posted July 10, 2022 1 hour ago, artrag said: fligth in random direction, no despawn, no respawn demo.cfg 80 B · 1 download demo.bin 16.4 kB · 1 download Wow! It looks very, very good! ? -dZ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 11, 2022 Author Share Posted July 11, 2022 Don't you get glitches or frame drops (on NTSC machines)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 3 hours ago, artrag said: Don't you get glitches or frame drops (on NTSC machines)? I did a quick run to see how it looks and didn't see any glitches right away. I'll do a longer test. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 11, 2022 Author Share Posted July 11, 2022 I've added a dummy title screen TimePilotTest.bin TimePilotTest.cfg 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 (edited) 4 hours ago, artrag said: Don't you get glitches or frame drops (on NTSC machines)? 33 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said: I did a quick run to see how it looks and didn't see any glitches right away. I'll do a longer test. I just tried again and I do not see any glitches on either PAL or NTSC. The only "glitch" I see is upon the initial start-up screen rendition, which shows a few diagonal white lines scatter about the screen for a frame or so; but this goes away immediately and I do not see any other issue. There is a slight jerkiness when scrolling at certain shallow angles, but it seems to be consistent, and appears to be caused merely by the slope error accumulation, so I take it to be a normal visual artefact. This effect is more pronounced when there are more enemies in the screen, but again, this looks to me like an illusion due to their free movement (as opposed to the more static clouds, which can become normalized with persistence of vision). In other words, it does not appear to be a problem but a mere artefact of the scrolling at certain angles. I also do not see any dropped frames or BACKTAB tearing. I enabled a "watch" on dropped GRAM writes in the debugger and none occurred. It looks rather stable to me ... (Good job!!!) Is there something in particular I should be looking for? -dZ. Edited July 11, 2022 by DZ-Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 11, 2022 Author Share Posted July 11, 2022 After adding the title screen I has strange glitches. I think the problem was related to the ISR (where all the work is done during gameplay) that was executed during the title screen leaving variables in unknown stata. The problems seems to be gone now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 4 minutes ago, artrag said: I've added a dummy title screen TimePilotTest.bin 17.5 kB · 1 download TimePilotTest.cfg 80 B · 1 download Looking good. If you have a few MOBs available, you could probably smooth the curves of of those letters a bit. -dZ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 Just now, artrag said: After adding the title screen I has strange glitches. I think the problem was related to the ISR (where all the work is done during gameplay) that was executed during the title screen leaving variables in unknown stata. The problems seems to be gone now. If you mean those random diagonal lines and such that appeared briefly when the game started, yes, I noticed those. I just assumed it was a screen initialization issue. I was mostly focusing on the scrolling of the screen and movement of the enemies, which seem rather stable. By the way, in the recent title screen binary, there is still a bit of a start-up glitch when the screen is drawn: The player sprite appears like some block -- I think it looks like a reverse-video image of its card. This happens for a frame or so and is quickly corrected. Still, you may want to look into that. -dZ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 11, 2022 Author Share Posted July 11, 2022 (edited) I have seen some frame miss, where the clouds were glitching for a frame in the wrong position during the gameplay. The diagonal lines you see are due to the initialization of the scrolling and can be removed easily. They appear for a frame, the first frame, at game start. Edited July 11, 2022 by artrag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 11, 2022 Author Share Posted July 11, 2022 (edited) About the jerkiness when scrolling at certain angles, it is due to the fact pixels are very big and rounding at pixel integers can cause visible jumps. Anyway, the inner position of the screen (and of enemies and bullets) is is accurate, all positions are computed as Fixed Point 8:8 Edited July 11, 2022 by artrag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 (edited) 50 minutes ago, artrag said: I have seen some frame miss, where the clouds were glitching for a frame in the wrong position during the gameplay. Strange. I have not seen that. I'll try to do some more in-depth tests. Quote The diagonal lines you see are due to the initialization of the scrolling and can be removed easily. They appear for a frame, the first frame, at game start. I agree. One thing that I do during initialization is to disable active display. When active display is disabled, the VBLANK period constraint is no longer applicable, and the CPU has free, persistent access to the graphics bus. You can take as many frames as necessary to compose the initial screen, and when done, just enable active display once more and WAIT for the next interrupt. The player won't see the interim stages of screen composition it until it is fully ready and enabled. Something like: SCREEN DISABLE WAIT ' Initialize the screen. ' You can access GRAM and STIC for as long as ' the screen remains disabled, in as many ' video frames as necessary. ' code, code, code SCREEN ENABLE WAIT ' Start game loop here ... 44 minutes ago, artrag said: About the jerkiness when scrolling at certain angles, it is due to the fact pixels are very big and rounding at pixel integers can cause visible jumps. I know, that's why I didn't think that was a problem (that was what I meant by "slope error accumulation"). The scrolling looks good and the jerkiness can be ignored because everything works rather smoothly and consistently. Quote Anyway, the inner position of the screen (and of enemies and bullets) is is accurate, all positions are computed as Fixed Point 8:8 Yes, it works rather well. I'll try some more tests later on to try to reproduce the glitches you mention. I haven't really noticed them -- which tells you something about the effectiveness of the full visual effect, since that's kind of what I tend to point out first. -dZ. Edited July 11, 2022 by DZ-Jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artrag Posted July 11, 2022 Author Share Posted July 11, 2022 Spawning and despawing for enemies is in place TimePilotTest.cfg TimePilotTest.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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