Yes it has two layers. One H-syncs for its entire vertical space, from horizon to the bottom of the screen. The bottom layer H-syncs from the horizon to about the middle or so of that particular layer and then just scrolls flatly.
Yes it has two layers. One H-syncs for its entire vertical space, from horizon to the bottom of the screen. The bottom layer H-syncs from the horizon to about the middle or so of that particular layer and then just scrolls flatly.
I hated the "fog" at the "end" of the playfield in "Axelay", which reminded me of similar "fog" in "F-Zero", which is what led me to believe that Axelay was being done on Mode 7. Still, the game it is the most impressive use of that technique I've seen, especially in Level 3. The bonus rounds in 3D Blast weren't even animated like Level 5 from Axelay was.
Anyone know how that fog effect was done? Its also in the SuperGrafx demo. I'm guessing that the tiles maybe animate?Quote:
Originally Posted by Aarzak
Its pretty cool in FFIV when you get more than just a screen worth of bg warping like that. Especially since I was expecting a flat background after FFI & FFII.
I always figured it was transparency, but I imagine it could be done in a way that similar to shadow/highlight.
Snes transparency works by having a mainscreen and a subscreen. The colors on the main screen and the subscreen are added together to produce the final output picture. Transparency has two modes: the first allows you to select mainscreen or subscreen for each of the background layers. The second puts all background layers on the mainscreen and a constant solid color on the subscreen. The fog in the distance effect uses the latter mode, but with changing the transparent color durring H-Blank.
Other systems can do this also but in a different way. If you change the entire color pallette durring H-Blank you can do the same.
The fog effect for Axelay is hardware transparency. The snes 3 BG layers can be used for the different transparency modes. The PCE can replicate the effect but in a different manner (using all 16 palettes for alt copies of the BG and hsyncs updates to position the different alt BG scanlines). Not sure how you'd do it on the Genesis since there isn't enough palettes and shadow/highlight takes a BG layer (or sprite layer but that would give you instance flicker) - plus that'd only give you 2 shades and one BG layer.
Are you saying that the tiles around the transparent section are being palette cycled?Quote:
Originally Posted by tomaitheous
Wait. "are being palette cycled"? You mean in Chris' demo? He did a palette update on just BG color 0 - iirc. No transparency. For the Genesis and the PCE, there's not enough time to update even a small section of the palette in a single hsync. That's why I referred to additional sections of the tilemap reserved for rows of tiles with alt palette #'s. It's dynamic and would have to be calculated on every frame changed, but nothing resouce intensive. BTW - no PCE demo or game does this ;) It's something I came up with for a future 'mega demo' - among other things/tricks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Black_Tiger
Chris' demo has a white to greyish gradient with some detail poking through. I still don't fully understand it (that's okay. :p), but it certainly makes an impressive effect if someone were to make an RPG for Genesis or TG-16 with an airship map like FFIV - VI.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomaitheous
Of course, this only makes me all the more interested to see your upcoming 'mega demos'. :)
Ignoring priority layers, the PCE has 3 gfx layers: sprites, back ground, and color #0. The SGX has 5 layers. Nothing can appear behind color zero plane. The only thing you can do with CZ plane is change its solid color on a scanline by scanline basis. That's what Chris does to get a grey scale gradient underneath both BG layers of the SGX. Here's a doc I've been working one that visually shows what I'm talking about. The VDC intro part.
You can do the same trick pretty effectively on MD too. You can change the background color anytime, and any color (from current 64).
http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q...2EADCE-005.png http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q...2EADCE-006.png
This is the closest effect (Axelay transparency) on the pc engine i have seen, the tunnel section in Metamor Jupiter, the background images move thru about eight static colors as you can see from the pictures above, look at the rectangle shapes, this effect is simular to super castlevania IV tunnel which uses true transparency,
That is a nice nice nice idea for possible use in my game :D
I was aware of that effect, but I've only ever played through the first stage or so of Metamor Jupitor. It looked neat in videos, but I never realized that the shading/shadowed area was staying consistant. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by awack
Thats pretty cool. You did a good job describing and visualizing the 4 PC Engine planes. Its no wondering PCE games can have such layered backgrounds with only a single tile layer. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by tomaitheous
Does the Genesis also have the equivalent of the color zero plane? Can it's sprites appear on either side of each of the two(?) bg layers?
MD has color #0 (well, any color from current palettes) that is showed where Background layer A or B or Sprites are not shown. Also there's is a Window layer that acts as replacement for layer A (very useful for status bars). Then there are priorities... all layers and sprites can overlap themselves in numerous ways... only thing that stays at its place is the background color.