Pac-Man - Hi-Res Graphics

[+MrFish]

13 minutes ago, invisible kid said:

If this was playable with the same ghost personality attributes that allow the use of patterns...

I'm afraid that won't be the case. The vertical height of the screen needed to be brought into the 8-bits' available resolution. So, several areas were cut down. It's a little hard to notice unless you start comparing the two, as it was done with the least amount of impact as possible. End result, it's going to throw the timing off for any patterns.

 

[+MrFish]

Dark on light version.

 

 

 

 

 

[+MrFish]

Micro 😄

 

 

 

[invisible kid]

lol the ghosts are cute

[+MrFish]

2 hours ago, invisible kid said:

lol the ghosts are cute

The cool thing about it is: patterns would work, because the full maze fits on screen.

 

Another benefit, fruit can be colored, but only on the bottom of the screen, not on the play area (unless it was multiplexed).

 

I'm only showing 4 fruit per row, but 5 could be shown per row, colored like this.

 

 

 

[R0ger]

The artifacting is IMHO not worth  pursuing. Few reasons why:

1) doesn't work the same on PAL and NTSC

2) doesn't work at all with s-video cable, or with VBXE or other modern image systems

3) is not well supported in emulators (besides Altirra, of course)

4) colors themselves vary between computers, possibly even between resets.

5) you can't combine white outlines with colored fills. The tint is averaged over several pixels, and it's actually hard to do pure white anyway. You could use it to create colored fills, with not much detail in and around them.

 

As for how it works on PAL, here are some main points:

1) there is basically always some tint .. but odd and even lines have the opposite hue phase, so if you use the same pattern on odd and even lines, the effect will cancel. If you want to experiment, I suggest using one line with pattern, then another line black or white, that will bring the colors out.

2) Blue and yellow are exceptions, those will show up even if you repeat the pattern on every line, as they correspond to 0 and 180 degrees in color space, and if you make them 'opposite', ie use negative angle .. they will end up being the same color.

3) The ratio of chroma vs pixels is exactly 5/8, which means that whatever color effect you get, it will be exactly the same if you repeat it each 8 pixels. Yes, that means you can use character mode for that. Good example of this is checkerboard pattern. It generates strong red tint in one half of the character and strong green tint in the other half .. but it repeats in the next character.

 

There is also NTSC artifacting, which is way more predictable, but I have zero experience with it, and AFAIK, it's usually better to simply go with multicolor mode.

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by R0ger

[_The Doctor__]

by the same token, why are so many things using PAL blending, since it's not NTSC maybe they are all not worth pursuing... just saying.

If a person used L C or S-Vid. It will look just like the non Artifacted version so there is no loss by doing so, and in fact it some things that are made for mono do artifact in a bad way because it isn't taken into consideration when made, so taking it into consideration ahead of time leads to a happy experience for all users. It will artifact so why not make sure it artifacts nicely.

Edited September 10, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[+MrFish]

1 hour ago, R0ger said:

The artifacting is IMHO not worth  pursuing. Few reasons why:

53 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

so taking it into consideration ahead of time leads to a happy experience for all users.

It's mainly a consideration for the bulk of NTSC users who still employ composite (and RF to a much lesser degree) as their main type of connection for real hardware. It's less of a consideration for PAL, but I'm interested in learning how to use it for those systems (I already understand using it for NTSC).

 

The NTSC maze is pretty much done. Including it and some redesign for the fruit/items as a basic accommodation isn't that big of a deal at this point. 

 

1 hour ago, R0ger said:

As for how it works on PAL, here are some main points:

Thanks for the info.

 

[zzip]

On 9/10/2023 at 1:05 PM, R0ger said:

The artifacting is IMHO not worth  pursuing. Few reasons why:

1) doesn't work the same on PAL and NTSC

2) doesn't work at all with s-video cable, or with VBXE or other modern image systems

3) is not well supported in emulators (besides Altirra, of course)

4) colors themselves vary between computers, possibly even between resets.

5) you can't combine white outlines with colored fills. The tint is averaged over several pixels, and it's actually hard to do pure white anyway. You could use it to create colored fills, with not much detail in and around them.

if it got turned into a real game, I'd love the ability to choose between the artifacting version, white-on-black and black-on-white versions on the title screen.    Something for everyone.

[Goochman]

I love MrFIsh mockups but this one Im just not digging.  Pac Man is a pretty colorful game so a white maze makes it look like a cheap knockoff.  Of course having it work with the original patterns and such would be good, it wouldnt be a version Id go back to.

[_The Doctor__]

Skins are nice, and with aspect ratio Maze alike version allowing for arcade timing patterns to be used again is a nice

[+MrFish]

1 hour ago, Goochman said:

Pac Man is a pretty colorful game so a white maze makes it look like a cheap knockoff.

 

Haha... ok. I'll call it the "Cheap Knockoff" theme, or maybe just "El Cheapo".

 

[Goochman]

Cheapo Man - I like it!   

[+MrFish]

2 hours ago, zzip said:

I'd love the ability to choose between the artifacting version, white-on-black and black-on-white versions on the title screen.

I think it would be good to have too: a theme selection option, with some example graphics while you're selecting.

 

[+MrFish]

Black & white and grayscale, for completeness.

 

 

 

[+Stephen]

I have to agree.  Wonderful pixel skills.  But - as a game, not at all what I would like to see.

[+MrFish]

4 hours ago, Stephen said:

But - as a game, not at all what I would like to see.

Which is that?

 

[+MrFish]

Here's the neon style a little more pronounced.

 

 

 

[+Stephen]

4 hours ago, MrFish said:

Which is that?

 

Sorry - the monochrome version.  I'm digging the look of the neon version.

[+MrFish]

16 hours ago, Stephen said:

But - as a game, not at all what I would like to see.

12 hours ago, MrFish said:

Which is that?

7 hours ago, Stephen said:

Sorry - the monochrome version.

 

Oh, ok. Yeah, I wasn't expecting anyone to be too exited about that. It was more just to let people have a look at the bitmap by itself. TBH, though, from a coding standpoint, that's exactly what the first version would end up looking like, before the PMG's would be added. It'd make a fine beta.

 

The grayscale was just something I was curious to see; but, you can be sure the focus of the subject here is combining hi-res with PMG's for color.

 

[+MrFish]

Inadvertently, my characters ended up looking like those in some of the Championship editions.

 

I like the "evil eye" ghosts in the DX+ version for the PC (bottom image). Unfortunately, using PMG's as I am, this is not easily replicated. Ironically, it can work in the Black & White and Grayscale versions.

 

 

 

 

[+MrFish]

1 hour ago, MrFish said:

I like the "evil eye" ghosts in the DX+ version for the PC (bottom image). Unfortunately, using PMG's as I am, this is not easily replicated.

 

I got it to work decently. It's subtle, so I just needed to darken all their colors to bring it out a little more.

 

 

And here's one more shade darker than that.

 

 

And one shade more (except for red).

 

 

[Peruchi]

On 9/8/2023 at 1:12 PM, MrFish said:

Here's the maze, and the ghost/fruit points, with artifacting adjustments.

 

 

 

This one would be my favorite! But it's just a matter of (strict) personal preference. Any other version would be as nice as that!

[ClausB]

On 9/8/2023 at 6:35 PM, MrFish said:

The vertical height of the screen needed to be brought into the 8-bits' available resolution. So, several areas were cut down.

Would the whole maze fit using a vertical dot pitch of 6 pixels?

[+MrFish]

3 minutes ago, ClausB said:

Would the whole maze fit using a vertical dot pitch of 6 pixels?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Are you talking about scaling to 6/8, 3/4?