So, Direct Colour . . .

[roots.genoa]

8 hours ago, Wayler said:

at an Eastern European buffet

I was wondering if, in ten years, when we'll be commenting Kirk's 84654th topic about SNES' background modes, we will still use that phrase without remembering where it originated from. 😔

[jeffythedragonslayer]

5 hours ago, Biff Burgertime said:

I don't see how that's at all comparable since Kirk initiates the fights that he gets into

well that at least indicates to me that he can take it.  So I appreciate your concern both of you - it sounds like I shouldn't be worried about the worse case scenario.

[Kirk_Johnston]

So, via the power of the SNES' Colour Blasting (in this case the use of direct colour on Mode 3 along with the extra RGB bits used for the expanded BG1 palette(s)), you can display a total of 2040+120+1 colours on-screen for the backgrounds alone on SNES. That's a total of 2161 colours on-screen for the backgrounds alone before any colour math and HDMA backdrop gradients and the like--during actual full gameplay.

 

There's still the other 120 visible colours for sprites too, lest we forget about those. So, a grand total of 2281 colours on-screen across both the backgrounds and sprites before any colour math and HDMA backdrop gradients and the like--during actual full gameplay.

 

And, while the Colour Blasted background uses 8-bit colour with eight 255-visible-colour palettes to choose from, the 120 visible colours for BG2 are 8 16-colour 4bpp palettes chosen from the 15-bit 32,768 master palette, and the 120 visible colours for the sprites are also are 8 16-colour 4bpp palettes chosen from the 15-bit 32,768 master palette.

 

Edit 1: Now we just have to see some cool examples of it in use and decide what we'd like to write/display on the back of the box to really advertise this awesome Colour Blasting power of the SNES.

Edited January 2 by Kirk_Johnston

[jerseystyle]

7 hours ago, jeffythedragonslayer said:

I do not want another Kiwi Farms brewing.

 

Is that a good enough answer for you?

This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read on this site. To compare the interactions here with the place you mentioned is offensive to not only the people who post here but Albert himself. There is no malicious intent here, and never has been. Kirk has alienated pretty much everyone here by his communications (and why you think it’s funny to troll for him I’ll never know).  If you are in any way sincere in your concern then help him learn how to interact with people in a productive, positive way. You DON’T do that by pretending to fawn over his every word for the sake of trolling.

[+Biff Burgertime]

Key difference:

Kiwi Farms goes out of their way to find, harass & make fools out of people.

Here at AtariAge, people come to us and make fools out of themselves.

[jeffythedragonslayer]

1 hour ago, Biff Burgertime said:

Key difference:

Kiwi Farms goes out of their way to find, harass & make fools out of people.

Here at AtariAge, people come to us and make fools out of themselves.

Yes I think that is a critical distinction, I'll give you that one.

[Tanooki]

So KiwiFarms is a larger catch all version of the shit show of on site and stalk you to other sides douchebags at the neo geo forum, you're either part of the clique(ie: the problem) or you're a victim if you can't just take it.  I find it pretty vile saying this place in relation to whatever is going wrong in that head has any parallel.

 

And biff is right, he torched it all to the ground one person at a time being rude, belligerent, taking a tunnel vision approach, talking over people, around people, ignoring requests light or serious(like taking Kulor's work to parrot his deluded agenda) and the list goes on.  Each of us one by one over a years time tried, were nice, plenty helpful up front, and enjoyed talking to the dude.  As he slipped more and more into what people have dug up are his now banned patterns at numerous web forums to social media chat/sites it was clear it's a long going years long pattern of self flagellation and abuse coupled with extreme narcissism.

[+Biff Burgertime]

14 hours ago, WavyGravy said:

SERIOUS POST

I have a Psych degree. ^{(Let's all pretend for a moment that's very impressive and not just a useless, expensive piece of paper. Thanks.)}

 

Society has trained people to respond to all forms of abnormal behavior with pleas to "get help." But here's the issue... what is "help," and what's the problem being helped?

• From Kirk's point of view, what's the problem?
  • SNES Homebrew Devs not being as brilliant as him. ("I can't even code the SNES and I thought up all these cool ways to use Mode #!")
  • SNES Homebrew Devs being lazy.
  • TurboGrafx-16 & Genesis "fanboys" who only talk down his ideas in forums because it threatens their beloved TG16/Genesis - not because his ideas wouldn't work / make zero sense.
  • Thinking he's above reading documentation. First time I ever encountered him, he asked a question at SNESdev, and quickly got  a reply linking to this page (which answered his question!) plus the commenter was nice enough to supply some extra info along with that link. Kirk's response? He quoted the part that said "Read This: [Link]" and replied "No thanks." This was one of his first posts there... dude comes along asking a question, gets an immediate answer, and basically replies "No, I refuse to read documentation." Then why are you here? Fuck all the way off... the community was far too patient with him.
• In other words... from his point of view, he doesn't have a problem- the problem is other people.
• He thinks he knows best no matter what, even when it comes to technical subjects relating to what seems to upset him most, programming the SNES. Yet he'll ask SNES programming questions, only to get upset if you give him a programmer-centric reply.
•  

The word "narcissist" has been overused so much on the internet by pop psychologists that I refuse to use it anymore. Besides, it's unethical to try and diagnose someone you've never met in person before (especially if you're underqualified). That's why I hate this fucking Dr. Todd Grande guy that people love to quote like he's some sort of expert. Not only does he break ethics by diagnosing people he's never met, but his PhD isn't even legitimate - it's not in Psychology, it's in Counseling, and he got it from one of those weird religious schools that teach everything through the lens of JEEZUS, allowing him to get a PhD in half the time a legitimate person would.

 

All that preamble aside: some people are simply assholes - no diagnosis needed, they're assholes. Kirk's simply an asshole, and a fool.

He may be mentally ill, but no mental health treatment could be possible because HE don't have the problem. It's YOU that have the problem with HIM. (I will at least say this sort problem is common in personality disorders).

So best course of action? Do what YOU can control. Keep your distance and preserve your own sanity (or in cases like this, break out the popcorn).

 

Like Jerry Springer said: take care of yourselves and each other!

 

Sorry btw @WavyGravy didn't mean to throw you under the bus, just had to get my 2 cents in. ^{(which is about what my degree is worth)}

[WavyGravy]

No offense taken, @Biff Burgertime! The closest thing I have to any psych training is bartending for about a decade! I have friends who have found a lot of peace and help using similar resources, so I was recommending them based on that, and on the basis that going to any kind of therapy would probably be better than just letting him spiral here and giving him a gold star for it.

 

But I totally agree, he probably is just an asshole who has created most of the problems he has himself. I mean, we've seen him do it!

[+Biff Burgertime]

Yup, best thing to do with cases like his is to think selfishly & protect yourself. If you find you're going mad from arguing back and forth, or wasting far too much of your day to do so, you gotta take a step back and preserve your own sanity. On the other hand, if you're entertained by the clown show then by all means grab some popcorn and enjoy the ride.

 

Either way - you must think selfishly in cases like this. It's one of those things in life where you're faced with something you can't change, so you must focus on the things you can.

 

To get back on a slightly more positive track - while I haven't enjoyed the circular arguments and general bullshit, what I have loved is when guys like @turboxray, @KulorXL, @TrekkiesUnite118, and others (sorry whomever I left out) have stepped into say "Okay that's bullshit, and here's why-" It's given me an excellent look into the technical side of these gaming machines that I wouldn't have had otherwise. Thankfully I've got just enough knowledge in the subjects involved to understand & appreciate what it is I've been reading. So a big thanks to all of you that have stepped up to private actual, legitimate explanations of these things!

 

I grew up with a NES and later SNES, so it's been fun learning about it in a way I never bothered to look into before.

[turboxray]

@Biff Burgertime Thanks! I wasn't sure if people were like, "I sick of this crap already" or whatever. Though I think I'm getting sucked too much into this and should really be working on personal coding projects haha (which cpuwiz has already dropped the hint a few times now haha). I do agree with Trekkies though.. SonicRetro is responsible for some pure bullshit that people who don't really understand, assume it's a good source of truth and just parrot the info on that site - I've seen a lot of it. Kirk is basically the one-man-SNES show of that. But honestly, I do love the tech talk. I do like the ingenuity homebrew (and commercial) devs come up with to solve problems for retro dev projects. Definitely want to try my hand at some videos explaining some of the tricks and limitations.

[Kirk_Johnston]

On 12/31/2023 at 1:54 AM, jeffythedragonslayer said:

do you have a link? 

I've not seen every post, so just want to check if you eventually got the link to that new image conversion tool that was mentioned? Or was there some reason it's not available quite yet or something?

 

I'm really looking forward to trying out some of the specific SNES conversion stuff that's in there, and particularly wanna do some Colour Blasting using the direct colour settings. I'm gagging to see what a properly converted [up to] 2040-colour SNES image looks like using [up to] all eight palette variations as optimally as possible to get the best results there. A tool like this that goes even beyond the brilliant Tiled Palette Quantization tool developed by Rilden, which is honestly already great for SNES image conversion (but sadly missing that final SNES direct colour option), would benefit the whole SNES development community imo.

 

Give me a shout if you get it.

[+Biff Burgertime]

1 hour ago, turboxray said:

@Biff Burgertime Thanks! I wasn't sure if people were like, "I sick of this crap already" or whatever.

Nah man I've really appreciated your posts throughout this whole ordeal. Thank you for the in-depth analysis of the many things Kirk got wrong.

[jeffythedragonslayer]

22 minutes ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

I've not seen every post, so just want to check if you eventually got the link to that new image conversion tool that was mentioned? Or was there some reason it's not available quite yet or something?

 

I'm really looking forward to trying out some of the specific SNES conversion stuff that's in there, and particularly wanna do some Colour Blasting using the direct colour settings. I'm gagging to see what a properly converted [up to] 2040-colour SNES image looks like using [up to] all eight palette variations as optimally as possible to get the best results there. A tool like this that goes even beyond the brilliant Tiled Palette Quantization tool developed by Rilden, which is honestly already great for SNES image conversion (but sadly missing that final SNES direct colour option), would benefit the whole SNES development community imo.

 

Give me a shout if you get it.

Not yet, you'd have to ask turboxray.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

1 hour ago, Kirk_Johnston said:

I've not seen every post, so just want to check if you eventually got the link to that new image conversion tool that was mentioned? Or was there some reason it's not available quite yet or something?

 

I'm really looking forward to trying out some of the specific SNES conversion stuff that's in there, and particularly wanna do some Colour Blasting using the direct colour settings. I'm gagging to see what a properly converted [up to] 2040-colour SNES image looks like using [up to] all eight palette variations as optimally as possible to get the best results there. A tool like this that goes even beyond the brilliant Tiled Palette Quantization tool developed by Rilden, which is honestly already great for SNES image conversion (but sadly missing that final SNES direct colour option), would benefit the whole SNES development community imo.

 

Give me a shout if you get it.

Rilden's tool is open source. You clearly know how to work in basic code and scripting languages for Game Maker, so why not give it a shot and add it yourself? You clearly have a complete understanding of how Direct Color mode works and it's limitations, so adding it should be trivial for you.

 

https://github.com/rilden/tiledpalettequant

Edited January 3 by TrekkiesUnite118

[jeffythedragonslayer]

1 hour ago, TrekkiesUnite118 said:

basic

a fine language

[Tanooki]

Maybe Kirk could end up being a benefit here.  Go back over the last year, look at every falsehood he has pounded into people as he's right and we're all wrong as your episode list of a potential video series @turboxray.  You seem vested in having an interest in the SNES, have an interest in doing a video series, and want to work on special tricks and limitations of the hardware that aren't evident/obvious even to all that many who are familiar with the hardware.

 

It could be a very educational series, and as a bonus, anytime a line of BS is re-run, it can be simply linked to showing how things works verses delusionally imagined.

[jeffythedragonslayer]

4 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Maybe Kirk could end up being a benefit here.  Go back over the last year, look at every falsehood he has pounded into people as he's right and we're all wrong as your episode list of a potential video series @turboxray.  You seem vested in having an interest in the SNES, have an interest in doing a video series, and want to work on special tricks and limitations of the hardware that aren't evident/obvious even to all that many who are familiar with the hardware.

 

It could be a very educational series, and as a bonus, anytime a line of BS is re-run, it can be simply linked to showing how things works verses delusionally imagined.

One of the earliest misunderstandings about the SNES was that the mosaic filter is Mode 7.  There is an old Y0shi document that says if your friend calls it that to punch them in the nose.

[Tanooki]

I remember that.  Y0shi and I ran in similar circles in the 90s.  I just was on one side of the scale of what people did and him on the other when it came to documentation, emulation, discovery, hacking headers, releasing roms, etc.  The mid into end of the 90s of efnet was just another fantastic time.

[jeffythedragonslayer]

7 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I remember that.  Y0shi and I ran in similar circles in the 90s.  I just was on one side of the scale of what people did and him on the other when it came to documentation, emulation, discovery, hacking headers, releasing roms, etc.  The mid into end of the 90s of efnet was just another fantastic time.

Honestly, it's amazing anything at all got accomplished in the scene before that official manual leaked.

[turboxray]

3 minutes ago, jeffythedragonslayer said:

Honestly, it's amazing anything at all got accomplished in the scene before that official manual leaked.

That's an exaggeration. Plenty of complex systems are RE'd without any official manuals. I mean, just look at all the MAME systems we have. None of those official manuals were ever leaked. I would 95% of the time the official manuals don't help other than official terms for things, because stuff was already figured out.

Edited January 3 by turboxray

[jeffythedragonslayer]

Just now, turboxray said:

Plenty of complex systems are RE'd without any official manuals. I mean, just look at all the MAME systems we have.

that's what I think is amazing

[Kirk_Johnston]

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention when I was thinking about the options for working with the SNES-specific direct colour feature in whatever image conversion tools is that I think it would be cool if there was a way to choose to use any number of 1-8 of the eight palette variations in the conversion process, which would allow for simple conversions using any one of the eight 256-colour palettes individually (and you could then potentially do seven other single-palette conversions using the other palettes each and manually take tile sections from each to mix and match as you like for some cool effect. Think drawing a smiley face on the full image by simply using the tiles from different palette conversions for example), or you could use any number of combined palettes during the conversion process, up to eight at once, just to see what difference it makes with the overall quality when trying to simply get the best direct colour representation of the original image as possible. Ideally, it's about keeping things simple and intuitive to actually use while still allowing the artists and creators to experiment in various ways with the various modes and features.

Edited January 3 by Kirk_Johnston

[Tanooki]

Eh he's right it is amazing, but back then when people started having an interest in such things, it was still the era of PCs out dating themselves for usefulness to really game on every 2-3 years about.  Those who worked on it were largely teens who grew up with it into early 20s who had a coding background, somewhat if not largely around that old love.  You could dig up documentation on the primary chips of these consoles or arcades, and well the ROMS were slowly but surely dumped.  It came down to reverse engineering, hex editing, and just fiddling around to figure out what nuances were different, custom as it is, for the consoles vs the stock chip paperwork published.  Some dedicated souls were at it for years where you'd have a range of them stuck on a wicked hump holding back quality like iNES had with its retched audio, or you'd have someone who figured out how to take a sitting in silence SNES and added rudimentary audio poking away at guessing itout with the SPC700.  The first time behind the walls of beta hearing the not right but not bad audio out of Final Fantasy II was truly epic before SNES96 w/sound dropped.  A friend of mine from Taiwan at the time, FanWen, he found documentation on how the Famicom Disk System worked, we browsed it, he coded it, and I was handed some private at the time FDS rom sets and tested this stuff dilligently.  He created the .FDS format that still is in use for that accessory, it was a trip seeing and hearing what more it could do, stuff people still marvel over hearing Metroid for the first time or Zelda's title screen.

 

The thing is I can't code, I tried, it just was never going to happen, so I got into hex editing things, translating a few programs, dug into and figured out the .NES header format and went that route.  I never like some demanded help or speculated like it was fact something will happen and happen this way.  The reason I don't engage in the technical side of this stuff anymore, especially in these topics, is that I've forgotten more than a certain someone has claimed to understand and I really am too out of the loop or time vs interest to re-educate myself just to get push back.   That's why I go with the cranky, snarky, this has got to stop angle instead of writing up pages (over time) of answers, with visual evidence such as turbo has been doing so much for this thread and others.  It's no longer second nature to me.  1995-2005 or so yeah it sure was.  But my rom hacking and releasing, translating into english and patching (paso fami, etc), and the rest days are in the rear view mirror.

 

I'm fed up with the bs, but the evidence put forward here is refreshing, useful, educational really.  It needs to be said, it needs to be done, it has to happen, or the reich mininster of the super nintendo party will craft a narrative that'll unfortunately stick for many.

[JurassicDope]

@Tanooki thanks for sharing that awesome experience of the 90s homebrew. With how much you actually surrounded yourself in the technical side of things (like hex editing, rom hacking, etc), it sounds like you had to have a lot of skill and knowledge even if you weren't a coder to be in those ranks. I've always wanted to make video games, but at that time I wouldn't even know where to start. It wasn't till a few years ago I started playing catch-up learning a little here and there (currently slowed down again but I will be back). The most homebrew I ever done till now-a-days was following instructions on how to burn games for the Dreamcast... including my masterpiece, I followed instructions on how to edit the OST for Marvel vs Capcom 2 🤩

 

-----

 

@Kirk_Johnston I read in another thread that you plan to make some genres of games and that sounded like fun-talk 😀

I'll skip the details for now, however there is a good chance I'll be moving on to developing for Nintendo's 16-bit juggernaut 🙀 

 

There's a lot of inspirations I have for projects, maybe something a bit simple but polished for a first entry. Definitely nothing limit pushing with demoscene-level visual fx, lol. Those days may eventually come, but I'm wayyy too much of a novice right now.

 

What kinds of games / features you had in mind?

 

-----

 

@Biff Burgertime as you mentioned, the great amounts of technical knowledge @turboxray , @KulorXL, and @TrekkiesUnite118 and any others shared with the forum is highly appreciated. Always love hearing about the capabilities and discussion on possibilities and ideas. It would be crazy if a Snes project was made with an all-star lineup like this, heck maybe even with Kirk doing the gfx, lol.