Carnivac's CPC pixels

[arnoldemu]

Well, I don't see a need to connect the hardware features to tile size. For example my 16x16 tiles get moved into the visible screen (right or left) in four steps. So I have four extra routines for that (not that extra though, since using self modifying code). Smaller tiles would only need one such routine, but the gain of memory is probably not that much... However, pleasure to talk about it 

4 steps??? Why?

I have hardware scrolling code that uses large tiles. I have 1 function to draw the tiles. I store an offset into the tile, and the offset for the next line. I draw a small column of the tile.

So why so many functions?

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

4096 was the high in pixels in fact.RD uses 512 tiles but for each room is limited to 256 tiles , the high bit acts as a tileset selector and is given in the room definition, that allows to keep 8bits patterns (that you call supertiles).I can not remember how collisions with tiles are managed.
Yes , 32bytes patterns is a bit big but when you paid this "entry ticket", you can make a lot of rooms for a few bytes.
Actually , we choose 4*2 patterns in 16 bits because that fit well with our maps.The main advantage of using 16 bits is you can store directly address in pattern cell and the 4 lower bits are free for flags because tiles are 16 bytes and are 16 bytes aligned.
btw another advantage of using small tiles is for slopes calculation on a non flat landscape, this is a thing difficult to do with bigger tiles.

Very clever! just goes to show how many different ways of doing something there is, and how picking the best solution will be very dependent on the game itself.

[TFM]

4 steps??? Why?

I have hardware scrolling code that uses large tiles. I have 1 function to draw the tiles. I store an offset into the tile, and the offset for the next line. I draw a small column of the tile.

So why so many functions?

Speed ;-)

[MacDeath]

is this true if no scrollings are needed ?

It's why I said, for Arcade games.

Arkanoid was an Arcade game, like you know, those coin operated machine displayed in "Arcades"

Also poor Carnivac, you spill a lot of technical stuff here... not sure he will appreciate.

[TotO]

OK. An Arcade game with a scrolling, like 90% of the arcade games.
(In mind Renegade, Gryzor, Rygar, Double Dragon, Track & Field, ...)

[TotO]

Also poor Carnivac, you spill a lot of technical stuff here... not sure he will appreciate.

Why he will not appreciate to know why, like this, it's picture can't be used on a real 464 game ?
For a time, some peoples take a moment to explain their points of view, give examples, and share technical stuff to do it.
On the contrary, I'm sure that was been befefical for everybody here.

[Carnivius]

Jeez there's a lot of techy stuff in here I have to sort through when I have time.   But first...

Turrican II on CPC is just a joke.
You Robocop GFx is better than this whole game.

Sorry you feel that way.  Turrican II on CPC is the biggest reason I enjoy CPC gaming and CPC graphics.  It's by far the best looking 8 bit version of the excellent game (I find the C64 version incredibly ugly with the most puke-like palette I've ever seen) and it's my number one favorite action game on CPC bar none.  Heck, I even wore out the Amstrad Action covertape of the level 1 demo of it when I was a kid.  It's been a massive influence on my entire time as a graphics artist.   It's fine if you don't like it but to call it a joke when I find it to the be among the benchmarks for what I feel the 464 is really capable of is something I find actually quite offensive.  My Cosmic Prison Commando project is pretty much a 'love-letter' of sorts to the CPC version of Turrican II and how it inspired me and kept me entertained all those years ago.

[Carnivius]

This is what's left of my collection. Still kicking myself for selling the like of Jetfire years ago...

[attach=2]

In Oxfam in Ely on Friday I spotted something good and oddly timely given my comment about your collection there.  Yup, I found a DINOBOT for £1.99 in extremely good condition.  Good ol' Sludge the Brontosaurus.  Joints all tight (hands so tight I had to prise them out with a knife when transforming to robot).  Chrome all intact.   Stickers a little worn (and I think the feet ones are in wrong place) but they're easily replaced thanks to Reprolabels.  I let Oxfam keep the change from the £5 note I gave them for it cos it's worth more.  Yeah I don't really collect G1 figures anymore but I couldn't pass that up.  Gonna get his weapons from eBay to complete him and then if I want to sell him at a later date he'll be worth a lot more than I paid (heck he's probably worth more than I paid even without weapons but a 100% complete figure always attracts the rich collectors more).

[TotO]

Turrican II on CPC is the biggest reason I enjoy CPC gaming and CPC graphics.  It's by far the best looking 8 bit version of the excellent game (I find the C64 version incredibly ugly with the most puke-like palette I've ever seen) and it's my number one favorite action game on CPC bar none.

Turrican II is first a great Amiga game. The ST version is a great port, the best ST port of all time for me.
Because gameplay, sound and graphics are really close to the original. An amazing job.

The palette don't make a game.
The C64 version is close too, but you can see that you are on a 8-bit computer.

But... The CPC version is not a nice port (instead of Prince of Persia or Andre Panza Kick Boxing as exemple).
It's not better than the first Turrican port on CPC... Loosing too much of the original...
Where are the graphics style ? musics ? the gameplay ?

OK, I understand that you like this game, probably because you don't know the Amiga version first, else you may understand that you don't really play the same game.

I have to be objective and not get in mind that I love a computer to make me an opinion.
That was just a ridiculous situation. and sure, I will prefer that you comment the others posts.

[Carnivius]

Turrican II is first a great Amiga game. The ST version is a great port, the best ST port of all time for me.
Because gameplay, sound and graphics are really close to the original. An amazing job.

Sound?  Please.  The Atari ST version has awful sounding music for what's supposed to be a 16 bit computer.  It doesn't stand a chance against it's main rival version on the Amiga.

Where are the graphics style ? musics ? the gameplay ?

Music's not there except on the title screen, fine but the graphic style is great and the gameplay is excellent and still entertains me to this day.

OK, I understand that you like this game, probably because you don't know the Amiga version first, else you may understand that you don't really play the same game.

Oh don't bloody well presume I'd suddenly hate the CPC version cos I supposedly haven't played the Amiga version.  I've already mentioned that I love the Amiga version (in fact I played the Amiga version FIRST and OWNED it for the last 20 years) and that the CPC version has it's own beautiful charm and appeal for me and is a hell of of a great conversion despite the differences between an Amiga and a CPC 464 and if you can't see that then I really can't relate to you at all. 

But... The CPC version is not a nice port (instead of Prince of Persia or Andre Panza Kick Boxing as exemple).

To hell with Prince of Persia.  It was a tedious, sluggish, unresponsive, boring game on all formats.  The animation is smooth, yes but the gameplay was frustratingly awful because of it and was graphically very basic otherwise.    And I couldn't care less about a Kick Boxing game.   

Jeez...

[TotO]

Sound?  Please.  The Atari ST version has awful sounding music for what's supposed to be a 16 bit computer.  It doesn't stand a chance against it's main rival version on the Amiga.

Please, listen again this Jochen Hippel conversion on youtube for exemple.
Never an Atari ST game has sounded like that. It's an impressive technical work.
If you though that if awful, so understand that the CPC version is just a joke...

[Carnivius]

Please, listen again this Stéphane Picq conversion on youtube for exemple.
Never an Atari ST game has sounded like that. It's an impressive technical work.
If you though that if awful, so understand that the CPC version is just a joke...

Oh I'm sure it would sound great if that was running on an 8 bit but compared to the Amiga version which was the ST's main rival at the time it doesn't even come remotely close while yes the graphics do look comparable to the Amiga game if not quite as good in some areas...  The Amiga version has probably my most favorite soundtrack of all time.

The technical stuff from the positive folks here made me feel quite motivated to get back into wanting to actually make a CPC game but people like you and a few others on here and your pretentious atitudes who seem almost dead set against even considering coming up with ideas about getting the most out of a 464 and appreciating the fine work done on it at the time are really killing any interest I had.   We're not all obsessed with 128k machines or the failed Plus range or anything like that... Some of us just wanna get the most out of the good ol' 464. 

Think I'll take another break from here then.  Was looking forward to coming back here after the play (which I'm really depressed about now it's all over and the last 6 months of joyous times rehearsing with that cast has come to an end and I have no damn idea what to do now) but nah, this whole thing's wound me up too much and I need some space to calm down and think if this is all worth the effort.

[ralferoo]

The technical stuff from the positive folks here made me feel quite motivated to get back into wanting to actually make a CPC game

Do it! 

but people like you and a few others on here and your pretentious atitudes who seem almost dead set against even considering coming up with ideas about getting the most out of a 464 and appreciating the fine work done on it at the time are really killing any interest I had.   We're not all obsessed with 128k machines or the failed Plus range or anything like that... Some of us just wanna get the most out of the good ol' 464. 

Just do it! It'll be all the more satisfying when you make something awesome for the 464!

Seriously, just do whatever you want to do, make whatever you want to make. The whole point of retro for me is making something awesome with a technical restriction - who cares if 128KB would make something better, if you want to code for a 464 rather than a 6128, an Amiga, an XT, whatever, just do it!

It's a hobby, it's supposed to be fun! And you don't have to do whatever anyone else wants...

[Gryzor]

 Guys, guys, why not take it down a notch? Is it really worth fighting over details on a topic we all love? Before pressing "Post" please do re-read what you wrote. There's definitely no reason to be so absolute about stuff someone else might like, be it Turrican or PoP[nb]I love Prince of Persia btw, gameplay is superb, totally not sluggish, totally responsive, and far from the least boring, while I never understood Turrican. But this dosn't mean I'll lash out against it or other titles like that...[/nb]. It's not politics!


Do calm down guys... please?

[MacDeath]

We're not all obsessed with 128k machines or the failed Plus range or anything like that... Some of us just wanna get the most out of the good ol' 464. 

well, just geting a good old CPC game is good too.

It's just that getting also even better games thx to those "better specs" machines is good too.


If you want to get your graphix into a real CPC production, you will find that the coder involved will fastly tone you down, invoking RAM problems or whatever... so all the Graphics you imaginated actually can't be used as they are.

PLUS is of course basically a way to have more freedom (see my composition for ReSet#8 on PLUS, many greys and browns/Reds...)

But even for good old "CPC" palette (which is still/yet a great palette/graphical stuff... we all grew up with this here and liked it !), still having/using 128K is simply a  practical way to have just more graphic content at the same time.

means more tiles, more sprites frames, and so on... not just "double buffering" and techniques to get even more playable games.


Seriously we wouldn't even complain with the 64K only configsd had Alan Sugar enabled the "464" to be just "480". Really.
just +16K of RAM would be quite enough to get those "speccy48" ports actually well enough ported.




Concerning Turrican2...
Actually I didn't played it at the time.
when I looked at the picture, to me the graphics weren't that well "ported" (re-created) yet not bad... just could be better.
The main player sprite is not as good as in the first opus : looks blockier in the 2nd opus, only a few pixels here and there and a few better ink selection could have done far betterly IMO. yeay, easier to tell this 20 years after.

Success from a 1st opus can get you lazy for the second opus because you simply cash out from the franchise... not Programmer's nor Graphician's fault : just  corporate's fault (they could want get them enough time to do it betterly).

But playability is not that bad at all, and graphics are not that bad too after all. This remains a (very) good games after all.
Just slightly not as well adapted than the first opus (but it had a few more gameplay features too perhaps).

Its a bit similar to Stromlord 2 (deliverance) where the sprites are less well ported (graphically) from C64 than in the 1st opus...
Games remains good, but graphically, is inferior.

Rick dangerous on the other hand, the 1st opus is inferiorly ported : sprites looks too much C64ish, no music, no menu...
while Rick Dangerous2 is "almost perfect"...
yet some palette screw up occured (a dark blue turned into a Green instead... in order to match the "Vegetalia" level palette...).

Such things often happened during those dark age era of home computer video games.

I'm fine with CPC464... but i know CPC6128 or even 6128PLUS can offer a bit more, and CPC464 can easily be upgraded into "6128" specifications nowadays.

To me 464 and 6128 are both CPCs, not really different machines, it's just the 464 is not at best hardware setting available...
Disc is better than Tapes, 128K is better than 64K yet CPC is good to begin with.
Especially as a graphical machine from 1984.

If you feel Robocop could have used better graphic than what we had, it's not that the graphic artist didn't do their job, it's because they were actually limited to the 64K limitation so such graphics as yours (awesome) couldn't be implemented in a real game.

It's like if your modern PC could use +2 gigabytes RAM but hey... don't want to get the extra RAM module for your computer.
Then don't complain becaue you can't you use the last Battlefield franchise game version. (or whatever modern game)

[ivarf]

I never liked Turrican 2 on the CPC either, but still I would have very much loved to see your graphics in a CPC game. It is some of the best I have seen on my favorite computer. My 464 was my first and will always be closest to my heart.

[beaker]

In Oxfam in Ely on Friday I spotted something good and oddly timely given my comment about your collection there.  Yup, I found a DINOBOT for £1.99 in extremely good condition.  Good ol' Sludge the Brontosaurus.  Joints all tight (hands so tight I had to prise them out with a knife when transforming to robot).  Chrome all intact.   Stickers a little worn (and I think the feet ones are in wrong place) but they're easily replaced thanks to Reprolabels.  I let Oxfam keep the change from the £5 note I gave them for it cos it's worth more.  Yeah I don't really collect G1 figures anymore but I couldn't pass that up.  Gonna get his weapons from eBay to complete him and then if I want to sell him at a later date he'll be worth a lot more than I paid (heck he's probably worth more than I paid even without weapons but a 100% complete figure always attracts the rich collectors more).

Great find!!!    My friend in the UK keeps telling me how he picks up all these bargains in charity shops but I never seem to have any luck lol.

I take it your play went well?

I hope you stick in there with the CPC as your screens look awsome. I am going to be a complete hypocrite here; I agree that neglecting the CPC 464 in favour of 128k is a shame, and it would be wrong to force people down that route (my first Amstrad machine was a CPC 464 with colour monitor which was my main computer until 1993/4) but back in the day I saved my pocket money and bought the DK Tronics 64k RAM pack as software houses started releasing some 128k only games on tape (I think Addams Family and Final Fight on release but I am probably wrong again  ).

In regards to the Easter Egg R-Type remake, rather than make a game that would run on any CPC, the whole point seemed to be to push the CPC to the limits to show what it could have looked like and restricting it to 64k would have meant compromises. They haven't released a 3 inch disk version so even with 2 128k machines (6128 and 6128 plus) I need additional hardware in the form of the HxC floppy emulator to play it at the moment so it's not like they only have it in for 64k users...    but what they produced is awsome 

[TFM]

Well, I did take a look at Turrican II again - and I found out why I never liked it! It's -just- the single color grey-like background. On Amiga there are mixed colors, like in Stryker or Switchblade (on Plus IIRC).
If the background would be not single colored OR just black, it would totally change the ambiente ehm. atmosphere.
However it's amazing that it runs on a CPC464 with 48 KB RAM (disregarding 16 KB V-RAM).

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

Maybe there's a small project there - making a quick Plus version of Turrican II with a subtle background gradient, and some palette tweaks. Otherwise I think the CPC version looks great - especially compared to the C64 and especially the Spectrum versions.


Anyway Carnivac, I've been enjoying the What If screenshots, and I personally believe that it is achievable. I'm not with the nay-sayers here who can be very depressing and persistent. I hope that you continue with the graphics work as I find it inspiring too.


I know that back in the day when I had the 6128 I wanted more 128KB games, but these days I think it is all about getting the most from the standard hardware configurations, including the 464. An enhanced 6128 version is nice to have on top, and an enhanced Plus version beyond that, but I think it's pretty cool to write something that runs on a 28 year old computer out of the box.

[TotO]

I know that back in the day when I had the 6128 I wanted more 128KB games, but these days I think it is all about getting the most from the standard hardware configurations, including the 464. An enhanced 6128 version is nice to have on top, and an enhanced Plus version beyond that, but I think it's pretty cool to write something that runs on a 28 year old computer out of the box.

Enhanced versions for 6128 ? And why not degraded versions for 464 instead ? 
Making a game is not like cooking a cake... You can't add a cherry on it at the end.

[ralferoo]

Enhanced versions for 6128 ? And why not degraded versions for 464 instead ? 
Making a game is not like cooking a cake... You can't add a cherry on it at the end.

Actually, it's generally much easier to move from limited resources to more resources than the other way round, as that way you have the challenges earlier rather than later.

[rexbeng]

Uhm, so, first place a cherry and then try to bake the cake under it?



rb

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

Enhanced versions for 6128 ? And why not degraded versions for 464 instead ? 
Making a game is not like cooking a cake... You can't add a cherry on it at the end.

Because I, or whoever, wants to work to the limits set by the original CPC? Which means trying your best in 64KB and then improving things when there is more memory available (more music, more levels, better title screen, more varied graphics).


It's a choice that anyone doing retro projects makes, and the decision should be respected.

[arnoldemu]

Enhanced versions for 6128 ? And why not degraded versions for 464 instead ? 
Making a game is not like cooking a cake... You can't add a cherry on it at the end.

this 64k vs 128k discussion will never end it seems.
better to just get on and make games/demos than moaning?

[Gryzor]

this 64k vs 128k discussion will never end it seems.
better to just get on and make games/demos than moaning?

Precisely my thinking; while it's an interesting topic in and of itself, it doesn't have much meaning in the real world.


To explain myself: personally I think that even programming for the 128K machines already means working under lots of constraints. It's not as if the 6128 is a super computer that has no relation whatsoever with the 464. And yes, I'd prefer to see 128k releases myself.


On the other hand, who's to say what a programmer should enjoy? If someone wants to do it in 64k, then who are we to *argue* it *should* be done in 128k? Sure, it may be my opinion, but the programmer is not my employee, so it's not like I've got a say in what he's doing.


Just my 2drs.