what hapenned with devega's site?

[maxxfarras]

Hi,
Im been thinking and ask to myself what happen with the devega' s site?
I can not find it in non place in the internet... Someone could tell me where can find it? Or in case that devega´s site there is not exists anymore, Someone could send me the info which was cointained in that site? I mean, if someone saved it in some file of course... That site looked great to begin to learn to program for the sega genesis...

Thanks.

[TmEE]

It died quite a few years ago, over 3 years by now I think....

http://gendev.spritesmind.net/forum/index.php this is all you need now, and talking to people like me who do MD dev :P

[maxxfarras]

Thanks TmEE for give me directions, and for be available for teach.
What a pity that devega dissapear it. It looks as a harder work to seek in the forum for a newbie as me.

I cant find a sega genesis programming tutorial which looks as an equivalent to the great maxim´s tutorial to begin to program for the sega master system.

Years ago I found devega site and pityfull never gave me some time for study it, instead I was focused in try some sega master system programming.

So I suposse that WLA DX dont works with sega genesis programming right?
because it is the only one assembler which I know

I will try that forums that you give me in any case ^.^

[TmEE]

There's no lovely MD dev doc for n00bs.... I started writing one once, but it never got anywhere

For my MD dev, I use SNASM68K assembler, its what MD devs used back in the days too :P

[The Coop]

While we're on the subject of Genesis/MegaDrive devving, is there someplace that has an accurate color palette for the system? I've found some for systems like the NES and SMS, but not the Genesis.

[TmEE]

Click for full size


These are the RGB color values you use...

for normal stuff, I just go with step of 36 on the RGB values - 0, 36, 72, 108, 144, 180, 216, 252/255

[maxxfarras]

wow! are that the acurate values for shadow /highlight mode? I thought that nobody was sure about that values...

[TmEE]

They cannot be anything else, at least not from mathematical standpoint... you also have to take couple of VDP bugs/features/limitations into consideration when doing S/HL stuff... lot of headache around it, especially for sprites.

[maxxfarras]

MMMM..looks as the sega master system´s palette it is not totally contained in the 512 color palette of the sega genesis. I use the RGB values 0, 85, 170, 255 for the sega master system and it looks acurate in real hardware, so the SMS palette is stored in other place when the genesis VDP is switched to SMS mode?
Or is the sega genesis using an aproximatte palette in SMS mode?

Also, I use paint shop pro for store my palettes and paint shop pro dont have support for store 512 colors. which "image editor" do you uses for the sega genesis?


If in some distant future (I wish that not so distant ) I get started to learn sega MD development I wish to focus my efforts for learn assembler instead of C.

(I suppose that my more or less reasonable knowledge of other assembler as WLADX could it help me for understand a new assembler for sega genesis dev. Even more if I used WLADX for sega master system development )


So, SNASM68k assembler could it be the "easiest" assembler for a newbie as me? Its SNASM68k assembler used as the standard this days for sega MD development?


Thanks Tiido

[TmEE]

This palette things is something one should not crack heads about, just use those values you use (which are right) and don't worry how it will look, the differences will be so minor that its not worth mentioning. I actually don't know what is happening regarding MD vs SMS palette, I doubt there's 2 sets of DACs but from the SMS stuff I've tried, there's no notable color inaccuracies.

My image editor is MS-Paint, yes, that :P I Make a 16 color BMP, I create a palette to use inside the BMP with lovely IrfanView and start drawing...
If you just want to store the palette, you have no choice to either use a 16bit file or 2x 8bit ones (splitting up the 512 colors between them).

SNASM68K is a bug free setup for MS-DOS and windows (at least I know of no bugs), there are "better" assemblers available too, like the ASMX, but there can be fun included with them (a friend of mine had to manually HEX edit his assembled file everytime after it was ASMX'ed since there was some weird bug causing misplacement of data.....).
...and MD devs used SNASM68K so its reason enough for me :P
The assembler uses same 68K syntax as all other's do, so there won't really be any differences... 68K is some of the most easy CPUs to mess with, it took me only a day or 2 to learn most stuff about it (I previously knew x86 so it helped a bit).

[tomaitheous]

MMMM..looks as the sega master system´s palette it is not totally contained in the 512 color palette of the sega genesis. I use the RGB values 0, 85, 170, 255 for the sega master system and it looks acurate in real hardware, so the SMS palette is stored in other place when the genesis VDP is switched to SMS mode?
Or is the sega genesis using an aproximatte palette in SMS mode?

No, it's not stored anywhere else. Unless you're running your SMS in RGB out - the appropriate RGB steps won't really match to RF/composite/etc anyway. The DAC can't output any finer resolution (finer steps) than what it is already capable of.

Like TmEE said, just use steps of 36 for the conversion. It's a little bit brighter than the native steps of 32, but it's close enough. As it is, Fusion and some other emulators don't use *fixed* step values for whatever reason. The steps tend to increase as you get higher up and yet no tests that I'm aware of reflect this (probably just some image enhancement they author(s) decide to do). It makes the colors a little bit brighter/richer than on the real system.

Also, I use paint shop pro for store my palettes and paint shop pro dont have support for store 512 colors. which "image editor" do you uses for the sega genesis?

If paint shop pro has support for "posterize" then use than with steps of 8. That will convert any colors in a pic to steps of 36 for RGB. Perfect for what you need. I'll post some color maps if you're interested.

If in some distant future (I wish that not so distant ) I get started to learn sega MD development I wish to focus my efforts for learn assembler instead of C.

Good choice. But honestly, C is pretty optimized for 68k nowadays. It's not a huge disadvantage to use C and later learn 68k ASM. But learning ASM first, IMO, for a system helps in also understanding the interfacing hardware. It's the video and sound hardware that's more difficult to learn for newbies. 68k ASM by itself is pretty easy to learn and use.

So, SNASM68k assembler could it be the "easiest" assembler for a newbie as me? Its SNASM68k assembler used as the standard this days for sega MD development?

Quite a few of us use snasm68k. I recommend it just for that fact. It basically does everything you need. Custom counters, labels, local labels, rom defines, ram defines, includes of text and binary, etc. It's all there. Even has macro support.

[maxxfarras]

If you just want to store the palette, you have no choice to either use a 16bit file or 2x 8bit ones (splitting up the 512 colors between them).

Are you speaking about MS paint in the case that you uses a 16 bit file for store the palette right? because with paint shop pro I cant find the way for store the palette in that way.

If paint shop pro has support for "posterize" then use than with steps of 8. That will convert any colors in a pic to steps of 36 for RGB. Perfect for what you need.

Very nice info! I never before noticed that "posterize" does that precisely. So for the sms I only need steps of 4. In that way I can "load" the sega genesis palette or sms palette in a given picture. Very helpful. However I could like have even more control over the palette, so I need to save the complete palette in some file and I have no idea yet how can be done. Could someone explain me if is possible and how can I manage that?

That is because for the sms I developed some simple "techniques" for optimize the colour useage. (Mostly developed using trial and error with paint shop pro , nothing else). Could it be nice for me to use that techniques for the sega genesis also but I need the complete palette stored.

Oh! And thanks to you, In some way I confirmed for myself that effectively (just as you said me) the sega genesis palette it contains the sms palette. I just applied posterize with 8 steps to some images of the sega master system and the images looks practically identical ^.^

I'll post some color maps if you're interested.

What do you mean for color maps? In any case, yes Im interested

But honestly, C is pretty optimized for 68k nowadays. It's not a huge disadvantage to use C and later learn 68k ASM

Very interesting, Im honestly suprised for this fact. In any case I know very little about C so I will try to go for the assembler

68k ASM by itself is pretty easy to learn and use.

That sounds very nice...

Quite a few of us use snasm68k. I recommend it just for that fact

So I will go for it then. At least now I have some general info for get started!


By the way, I enjoy to much read your old posts and TmEE posts also.
Even if I dont understand them totally many times

[tomaitheous]

Color maps are just the master palette arranged into different logical layouts. One being HSL in RGB format and the others are just basically color wheels/cubes. It doesn't show ALL the colors. You'd have to do a larger map with more redundant entries to get the additional colors.





If you plot a line between to colors/shades, all the colors that fall within that lines should be gradient compliant, etc. It's just a useful tool. I need to make some more. Earth tones, skin tones, metal tones, green tones, etc. 3bit RGB doesn't give a lot of shades between tones other than primary colors, saidly. Most of the time you're limited to about 5 shades/tones total.

If you got the drive/motivation, then go with ASM. Actually, learning C after ASM is easier since you understanding the underlying arch. But learning C is also good for ASM. There are higher level structures you learn in C that apply for ASM, but might not be so apparent if all you use is ASM. And by C, I mean real C. Pointers and reference usage out the wazzoo

And I can't say enough about coding for the 68k. Really nice powerful instructions (less convoluted code to write) and best of all - complete linear address range. Haha - it's sooo easy. I just which I could assign names to registers, to make code more readable (like equates to An and Dn).

[maxxfarras]

Thanks so much for the info dude, there are give too much facts that motivate for start to learning to program for the sega genesis. I hope give me the time for get satrted...