Mode 7 demo for Genesis/MD

[Tor Landeel]

Amazing achievement. The sad thing is, that demo is smoother than the MEGA-CD version. Sonic Team obviously did not know how to use the MCD's graphics chip, it was a disgrace. They should have hired CORE to do it, lol. At least the special stage would have had full scalling on everything and not simply a lame (in comparison to the MCD's chip) Mode 7 effect on the floor and no object scalling.

I always wished SEGA had made a MCD version of SONIC DRIFT after SONIC CD was released. But they were too stupid to do that, naturally! Your game may finally give me what I wanted back then

Except Sonic Team didn't have a major part in the development of Sonic CD
I would have loved a Sonic Drift, even more a Genesis version.

[maxi]

Sonic CD has a bug that makes the bonus stage not run on full speed. Sonic Megamix fixed it on its last update.

[stu]

Except Sonic Team didn't have a major part in the development of Sonic CD
I would have loved a Sonic Drift, even more a Genesis version.

IIRC Sonic CD was developed by the Japanese Sonic Team and was headed up by Naoto Ohshima. Yuji Naka moved to the US and developed Megadrive/Genesis Sonic sequels with the Sega Technical Institute (along with a couple of other members from the Japanese Sonic Team, notably Hirokazu Yasuhara) . So really Sonic Team still developed Sonic CD, just without Naka.

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_CD

[negative chill]

This is sort of related, but what do you guys think of F1 World Championship Edition and Street Racer being able to pull off Mode 7 fairly flawlessly?

[Robotwo]

Pretty sure neither of those are doing the same thing as Mode7 on the SNES.
While the mode7 performs an actual rotation of a tilemap and tiles, the first one of those seems to be a form of polygonal rendering approach and the second one seems just like a per scanline "skew" like many other racing games of the time did, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sufxfAZRghw&t=2m53s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH_KFUD9wXc&t=0m40s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ngD3ZC1z8&t=0m35s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSdsgONO6HU&t=0m54s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAJsVAPMd8s&t=0m46s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbfTsGuPhzU&t=0m36s

[saturndual32]

F1WCE is very impressive for its use of polygons on the MD at a nice frame rate. But that aint mode7, what F1 does is cooler in my opinion.

[BladeJunker]

Very cool demo, just got wind of it a week ago, actually saw the YT video before realizing who made it lol. Curious to see what becomes of it, a kart racer would be nice but an F-zero type game would be cool too if the frame rate is higher.
Certainly a big response but I guess Mode 7 was a big part of 16-bit gaming, was one of the reasons to get a Sega CD so it is all the more impressive to see it on the Genesis alone. I always liked the organic shapes and tracks made possible through the tilemap, far less limited than line scrolling engines which had trouble with forks in the road.

[EPSYLON EAGLE]

I know all these technical achievements are largely due to the impressive Gasega skills, but there was no possibility of programmers who have the ability to put work scaling and rotations effects when the Mega Drive was commercially viable?

[matteus]

I know all these technical achievements are largely due to the impressive Gasega skills, but there was no possibility of programmers who have the ability to put work scaling and rotations effects when the Mega Drive was commercially viable?

I think this uses the 265 colour hack via DMA that was first used in his Wolf3D port. I don't think anyone had discovered this method up until now.

[ZXDev]

This is awsome, but how advanced could a sonic drift game be with the extra features built in to the 32x and Sega CD hardware?

Sincerely,
ZXDev

[JumpingRyle]

I know all these technical achievements are largely due to the impressive Gasega skills, but there was no possibility of programmers who have the ability to put work scaling and rotations effects when the Mega Drive was commercially viable?

Yuji Naka, the programmer of Sonic, said that when F-Zero came out he had already been toying with the idea of a similar game on the Genesis. If anybody could have done it, it's him. He also claims to have made a partially functional NES emulator on the Genesis back in the day that played Mario. And he developed a 3D graphics engine on the Master System (but he never went anywhere with it because he had to reduce the screen size so much).

[Mask of Destiny]

I think this uses the 265 colour hack via DMA that was first used in his Wolf3D port. I don't think anyone had discovered this method up until now.

Neither this demo nor the Wolf3D port use the direct color DMA technique. He did turn off the display early to free up extra DMA bandwidth though. Not sure if any commercial games did that, but it's more likely than with the direct color DMA technique at least.

[Black_Tiger]

I think this uses the 265 colour hack via DMA that was first used in his Wolf3D port. I don't think anyone had discovered this method up until now.

I believe that that technique only allows a single layer of graphics and no sprites.

[EPSYLON EAGLE]

I think this uses the 265 colour hack via DMA that was first used in his Wolf3D port. I don't think anyone had discovered this method up until now.

256 colors it's surreal no?

[matteus]

256 colors it's surreal no?

yes I did a typo 256