Heaven/TQA Posted December 30, 2001 Share Posted December 30, 2001 from the designers "We decided to shoot for a consistent three-dimensional environment," he concludes. "We wanted one general dalgorithm that creates an image in any direction." Their research produced an application of fractile geometry that was fast enough to use in the game. Fortunately, suggests Fox and Carpenter, they were working on Atari hardware. "A slower machine would have been impossible," Carpenter admits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted December 30, 2001 Share Posted December 30, 2001 Where did you find this? I'd love to hear more form the ROF guys, their work was awesome! Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted December 30, 2001 Author Share Posted December 30, 2001 http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/atari/art...m-premiers.html it is amazing... read it... there is also facts about ballblazer in there and f.e. the used anti-aliasing effect..and about the music... and... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Destructo Posted January 1, 2002 Share Posted January 1, 2002 Another article, this one from Antic magazine in August 1984: LucasFilm and Atari: Creative Partners This issue also features a Game Of The Month by a certain AtariAge message poster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted January 1, 2002 Author Share Posted January 1, 2002 http://groups.google.de/groups?hl=de&threa...Dde%26rnum%3D2% 26selm%3D9c0At%2523dG8GA.162%2540andromeda.ndirect.co.uk and the best is... there is a post back in feb 1997 by me...("nadkar") which makes me scary... ;=) i should search for everything i wrote on usenet... just for surance... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted January 1, 2002 Author Share Posted January 1, 2002 google rocks: directly from the programmer of rescue on fractalus: The following is a transcript of a letter from Loren Carpenter dated April 18, 1989. It details the use of fractals for real-time graphics rendering. I thought it might prove interesting to those who are also working on their own implementations of these algorithms. I have Loren Carpenter's acknowledgement of this posting. Relative to the fractal game algorithms... Neither I nor anyone at Lucasfilm ever published anything, as far as I can remember. I did the one for Rescue and the folks at LFL adapted it for Eidolon and Koronis later. Ballblazer doesn't use any fractal code. The algorithm is the simplest possible midpoint subdivision, subject to the constraint that the landscape be consistent from frame to frame. The random displacement is derived from 2 bits (sign & overflow) of the 8-bit sum of the tags on the ends of an edge. if overflow then displacement = 0 /* bisect the line */ else if negative displacement = -edge_length/4 else displacement = edge_length/4 The landscape is a 16x16 mesh of edges, repeating forever over the plane. There is a lot more detail, especially about perspective, but I'm not sure LFL wants me talking about it yet. Loren Carpenter Post Scriptum: For an in-depth treatment of fractals for graphics rendering, see Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, Volume 25, Number 6, pages 371-84. The "...constraint that the landscape be consistent from frame to frame..." may refer to the idea of pixel replication as seen in games like Afterburner and Outrun. Note that as an object gets larger, it also gets blockier. Fractal code can appear to create detail very efficiently, making the object appear more complex than is otherwise possible. This can also be seen in the player vehicles in Ballblazer. Regarding perspective, two main techniques have been used in the past that I have noted. One is to use different shades of grey for mountains of different distance, and gradually change colours as the player moves closer or farther away. The other is most noticeable in Rescue on Fractalus, where there is a mesh that converges in the distance on a vanishing point. $anjay "lock-on" $ingh ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu "A modern-day warrior, mean mean stride, today's Tom Sawyer, mean mean pride." -- $anjay "lock-on" $ingh ssingh@watserv1.waterloo.edu "A modern-day warrior, mean mean stride, today's Tom Sawyer, mean mean pride." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted January 1, 2002 Author Share Posted January 1, 2002 my last post on this topic... (if someone has a real description of the RoF algorithms...that would be great...) here is the website of the main guy behind RoF David Fox: http://www.eeggplnt.com/more_info.html http://www.qlam.com/atari/s_rescue.html there is nothing what you can not find on the net... "welcome to the real world... do you want the blue or the red pill?" ;=) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted January 1, 2002 Author Share Posted January 1, 2002 ok... the very last post.... http://www.eeggplnt.com/images/rescue.gif check it out... you will remember that... ;=) found in the vitae of d. fox... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Destructo Posted January 10, 2002 Share Posted January 10, 2002 I've never seen this published anywhere, so maybe it's an AtariAge exclusive: The authors of Rescue on Fractalus hid credits in the game. Well, not hidden really, they pop up right in front of you! Speaking of popping up, here's our friend. Sometimes he jumps *really* high and gives you a good look. His (her?) suit markings look like alien gibberish...unless you know the developers' names. Now, look sideways! There you have it: the initials of Loren Carpenter, David Fox, Charlie Kellner and Peter Langston. I can't take credit for noticing this, though. I interviewed Peter Langston a long time ago, and he told me where to look. -El D. [ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: El Destructo ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 10, 2002 Share Posted January 10, 2002 Wow! I never would have noticed that. I'm always too busy jumping out of my chair when he pops up. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted January 11, 2002 Share Posted January 11, 2002 AGHH! HIT THE SHIELDS! HITS THE SHIELDS!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted January 11, 2002 Share Posted January 11, 2002 I always thought that said something like 'Cafe Java' or something, at least it you look at it the normal way it looks like the bottom word is Java, I figured the top one just used letters that you couldn't quite make out in the resolution...I figured the aliens (and programmers) were big coffee freaks like me and Cafe Man...by the way Cafe man, antother reletively good, cheap, canned coffee like chock full o' nuts is YUBAN. but yeah, Starbucks still rules with Seattle's Best coming in a close second. A trick I use, from working at a coffe house once, is to regrind the ground coffe in cans finer to bring out the robust flavor. If you notice, Starbucks and other top brands are finely ground. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Destructo Posted January 11, 2002 Share Posted January 11, 2002 step step step step step step . .. ... .... (!!!) ah-woooOOOO!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted January 12, 2002 Share Posted January 12, 2002 Sorry about my Brother... You have to realize this takes place several years back. That war was sure nasty. BTW...for the record...the Jaggies didn't like Fractalus anymore than you Humans did. It didn't melt away our skin or anything...but it sure had that thick air effect. You know...I believe you guys would compare it to a really smoky bar? Anyway, at least in the end...we all learned how to get along...hehe...right?....uh...hmm... Umm..Tempest...why are you moving your finger towards the #3 key on that 5200 controller?...uh..Temp....Matt.... Dude? .... ZAAAPPP!!!!!.................................................................... ..........................(Static....)........................................... ................... ............... BTW: El Destructo...your welcome for the Screenshot...hehe [ 01-11-2002: Message edited by: -^Cro§Bow^- ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted January 12, 2002 Share Posted January 12, 2002 That is SOOO cool to watch that animation!!! Very cool of you El Destructo!!! I never really had time to see the full range of animations that green dude could do because I was always too worried about punching the old sheilds button on my XE keyboard so he wouldn't crack my windshield and make me suck poison gasious atmosphere...game over... I have just sat there before and let it happen, but you still don't get time to let the animation sink in and see how cool it was before the game ends...Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted January 12, 2002 Share Posted January 12, 2002 By the way, that's what I look like if I don't get my morning cup of JAVA! I also make that 'ah-woooOOO' sound too... Of course the same thing happens if I've drunk to much too... [ 01-12-2002: Message edited by: Gunstar ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariNerd Posted July 16, 2014 Share Posted July 16, 2014 my last post on this topic... (if someone has a real description of the RoF algorithms...that would be great...) here is the website of the main guy behind RoF David Fox: http://www.eeggplnt.com/more_info.html http://www.qlam.com/atari/s_rescue.html there is nothing what you can not find on the net... "welcome to the real world... do you want the blue or the red pill?" ;=) Necrobump of necrobumps, but you seem to have made some progress, all of these years later. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twIGEPCtioo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JAC! Posted July 16, 2014 Share Posted July 16, 2014 Hmm, are the green party players? Or is this just awesome game detail design reusing the sky color because in the landing mode, you never see the sky? ... one day why I see this guy again, I'll check that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted July 16, 2014 Author Share Posted July 16, 2014 12 years... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted July 17, 2014 Author Share Posted July 17, 2014 Hmm, are the green party players? Or is this just awesome game detail design reusing the sky color because in the landing mode, you never see the sky? ... one day why I see this guy again, I'll check that. Jac... as far as I remember, no... games uses 4 colors... green is one of them... (shoots of basis are green, too). you have dark brown, light brown, most light brown and green. and one colors changes so I think you could be right that one color will be changed when Jaggie appears as the sky is pink. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted July 17, 2014 Share Posted July 17, 2014 Sky can appear while alien or pilot is present. I'd never much thought about it, looks like only 2 colours are used for terrain which allows some flexibility. Alien green skin is PF2, eye and suit colour is same as the sky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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