• Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact 5 2
Currently:  

Author Topic: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact  (Read 51130 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline JamesV

  • LV5 Advanced (Next: 300)
  • *****
  • Posts: 276
  • Rating: +77/-0
    • View Profile
    • James V's TI-Calculator page
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #45 on: February 24, 2016, 11:45:01 pm »
That does look a bit small, i think 12x12 would look nice, but honestly the original scaled 8x8 sprites looked fine to me.
I'll give 12x12 scaled up x2 a go sometime in the next few days hopefully, and we'll see how that looks. Otherwise 8x8 scaled up x3 will be my fallback position :)

Offline chickendude

  • LV8 Addict (Next: 1000)
  • ********
  • Posts: 817
  • Rating: +90/-1
  • Pro-Riot Squad
    • View Profile
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #46 on: February 25, 2016, 09:07:32 am »
Cool, i'm sure you're getting tired of converting all these sprites, but it's definitely looking really nice. Once i get some cash saved up i'd love to pick up a CE, too. I almost bought one when they first came out, but couldn't bring myself to fork over the import fees the resellers were charging here in China. It seems like a really fun machine to program for, though. I must admit i'm a bit jealous of the byte-aligned pixels and memory-mapped LCD :P

Offline JamesV

  • LV5 Advanced (Next: 300)
  • *****
  • Posts: 276
  • Rating: +77/-0
    • View Profile
    • James V's TI-Calculator page
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #47 on: February 25, 2016, 10:17:13 pm »
Cool, i'm sure you're getting tired of converting all these sprites, but it's definitely looking really nice. Once i get some cash saved up i'd love to pick up a CE, too. I almost bought one when they first came out, but couldn't bring myself to fork over the import fees the resellers were charging here in China. It seems like a really fun machine to program for, though. I must admit i'm a bit jealous of the byte-aligned pixels and memory-mapped LCD :P
To be honest, I've currently only converted 3 tiles for the purpose of testing/experimenting. But yeah I'm not exactly looking forward to converting all 150+ tiles, and then all the sprites as well, although I will find it rewarding once I get it done :)

I'm finding the CE a lot of fun to code on. For anyone who enjoyed the 83/83+/84+ series, it's essentially the colour version that we've always wanted!

Offline chickendude

  • LV8 Addict (Next: 1000)
  • ********
  • Posts: 817
  • Rating: +90/-1
  • Pro-Riot Squad
    • View Profile
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #48 on: February 26, 2016, 07:45:44 am »
Did you ever do any coding for the 85/86? Despite the odd screen size i've always thought programming for that would be a lot of fun, too, in particular with the memory-mapped LCD. I know one of these days i'll pick up a CE, as it is as you say the color calc we z80 programmers always wanted!

Offline TIfanx1999

  • ಠ_ಠ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *
  • Posts: 6173
  • Rating: +191/-9
    • View Profile
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #49 on: February 27, 2016, 07:48:46 am »
That does look a bit small, i think 12x12 would look nice, but honestly the original scaled 8x8 sprites looked fine to me.
I'll give 12x12 scaled up x2 a go sometime in the next few days hopefully, and we'll see how that looks. Otherwise 8x8 scaled up x3 will be my fallback position :)

@JamesV What size are the original sprites? Have you considered doing non-scaled 24x24 or just using the original sprites? (if applicable)?

Offline JamesV

  • LV5 Advanced (Next: 300)
  • *****
  • Posts: 276
  • Rating: +77/-0
    • View Profile
    • James V's TI-Calculator page
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #50 on: February 28, 2016, 07:55:10 pm »
Did you ever do any coding for the 85/86? Despite the odd screen size i've always thought programming for that would be a lot of fun, too, in particular with the memory-mapped LCD. I know one of these days i'll pick up a CE, as it is as you say the color calc we z80 programmers always wanted!
I did back in the day, released an RPG called Banchor: The Hellspawn back in 2006. It was a lot of fun, even though it laboured through roughly 5 years of development hell over various incarnations! :P


@JamesV What size are the original sprites? Have you considered doing non-scaled 24x24 or just using the original sprites? (if applicable)?
The original game sprites are 16x16, which is what I used in that last test. I have considered using non-scaled 24x24, but with 150+ tiles and many sprites as well, this will add up (even using 4bpp). I'll be trying 12x12 scaled x2 shortly, so we'll see how that looks :)

Offline Dudeman313

  • LV4 Regular (Next: 200)
  • ****
  • Posts: 106
  • Rating: +2/-0
  • I am the embodiment of honorificabilitudinity.
    • View Profile
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #51 on: February 28, 2016, 07:58:01 pm »
Is porting that RPG on your CE dev list?
Does this qualify as a signature?
The answer is "Sure."

Offline JamesV

  • LV5 Advanced (Next: 300)
  • *****
  • Posts: 276
  • Rating: +77/-0
    • View Profile
    • James V's TI-Calculator page
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #52 on: February 29, 2016, 05:33:26 am »

Here's another test using 12x12 tile sprites, scaled up x2. I think this is my favourite so far. It scrolls 3 pixels per frame, so 1 tile every 8 frames, making it the same as the non-colour version (which is what I want, to maintain gameplay compatibility).





Don't mind the messy screen edges, as I still haven't implemented any clipping.

Offline TIfanx1999

  • ಠ_ಠ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *
  • Posts: 6173
  • Rating: +191/-9
    • View Profile
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #53 on: February 29, 2016, 08:41:45 pm »
Yea, I see. 16x16 looks too small. What about 16x16 double sized? With the 12x12 you have to rework 150 odd sprites right? That's a lot of work. :/

Offline JamesV

  • LV5 Advanced (Next: 300)
  • *****
  • Posts: 276
  • Rating: +77/-0
    • View Profile
    • James V's TI-Calculator page
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #54 on: February 29, 2016, 09:52:51 pm »
Yea, I see. 16x16 looks too small. What about 16x16 double sized? With the 12x12 you have to rework 150 odd sprites right? That's a lot of work. :/
Unfortunately 16x16 scaled up x2 would mean that I couldn't fit 12x8 tiles on screen at once, which is one of my requirements so that playability is essentially identical between the colour & non-colour versions. The sprite reworking will take a little while, but it should be worth it for the end result. I'm not 100% set yet on 12x12 though, as I'll only do that if I can limit tiles to 16-colours. If I decide to go with 256 colours, I'll revert back to 8x8 tiles scaled up x3.

Offline TIfanx1999

  • ಠ_ಠ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
  • CoT Emeritus
  • LV13 Extreme Addict (Next: 9001)
  • *
  • Posts: 6173
  • Rating: +191/-9
    • View Profile
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #55 on: February 29, 2016, 10:05:36 pm »
Yea, I thought that might be the case since it wouldn't fit in the same amount of tiles on screen as the non color version. All things said though, I think 12x12 scaled up looks the best. If you do 8x8 though, you should be able to put it out quicker since you won't have to deal with two different sprite sets.

Offline JamesV

  • LV5 Advanced (Next: 300)
  • *****
  • Posts: 276
  • Rating: +77/-0
    • View Profile
    • James V's TI-Calculator page
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #56 on: March 02, 2016, 02:19:36 am »
Ok so for the time being, I'm going to stick with 8x8 scaled x3, because I want to use 256 colours & also it will likely be easier to work with.

I've updated the 8x8 sprite version by adding in some more colour texture and implementing clipping and VRAM flipping.


Offline chickendude

  • LV8 Addict (Next: 1000)
  • ********
  • Posts: 817
  • Rating: +90/-1
  • Pro-Riot Squad
    • View Profile
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #57 on: March 02, 2016, 04:26:32 am »
I think the 8x8 sprites look good. The scrolling is fast and looks really smooth, are you redrawing the entire screen each frame or shifting and filling in? Adding an HUD will fill out the rest of the space nicely. Are the artifacts on screen emulator/screenshot glitches?

Offline Dudeman313

  • LV4 Regular (Next: 200)
  • ****
  • Posts: 106
  • Rating: +2/-0
  • I am the embodiment of honorificabilitudinity.
    • View Profile
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #58 on: March 02, 2016, 02:44:37 pm »
Adding an HUD will fill out the rest of the space nicely. Are the artifacts on screen emulator/screenshot glitches?
He does plan on adding a HUD, like the original. I also think he said somewhere that the artifacts are not in the program, but are screenshot glitches. Then again, I'm not exactly sure. :-\
Does this qualify as a signature?
The answer is "Sure."

Offline JamesV

  • LV5 Advanced (Next: 300)
  • *****
  • Posts: 276
  • Rating: +77/-0
    • View Profile
    • James V's TI-Calculator page
Re: Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact
« Reply #59 on: March 02, 2016, 08:21:22 pm »
Adding an HUD will fill out the rest of the space nicely. Are the artifacts on screen emulator/screenshot glitches?
He does plan on adding a HUD, like the original. I also think he said somewhere that the artifacts are not in the program, but are screenshot glitches. Then again, I'm not exactly sure. :/
Correct, I'll be adding some HUD elements at the top and bottom, and the artifacts are just GIF glitches. I guess I could post this test program here if anyone wanted to download it just to see how it looks on their calculator? :)