Pretty interesting video. In 5-parts. Thought someone might be interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzN2pgL ... LnjP865X1f
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzN2pgL ... LnjP865X1f
Very interesting. If only it didn't mention the so-called "blast processing" of the Mega Drive.
It's fun to see which graphics techniques aged well and which one didn't. It's also a bit fun (and sad) to see that all recent games since the 2000 are exclusively focused about firearm violence.
It's fun to see which graphics techniques aged well and which one didn't. It's also a bit fun (and sad) to see that all recent games since the 2000 are exclusively focused about firearm violence.
Bregalad wrote:
If only it didn't mention the so-called "blast processing" of the Mega Drive.
It's funny you mention that, when I heard him say that it mildly annoyed me as well. 
Bregalad wrote:
Very interesting. If only it didn't mention the so-called "blast processing" of the Mega Drive.
But I think I could detect the subtlest sneer in his voice when he said it...
Blastprocessing makes it possible to move a ton of sprites in straight lines at once with speeds up to 16 PIXELS PER FRAME!!! THAT'S FAST!!! It could even perform real time sprite rotation in 22.5 degree angles, and it could scale sprites almost as smoothly as the foot soldiers in TMNT4:TIT. It can make bosses out of several different independently moving sprites by copy-pasting a bunch of predefined coordinate tables into oam.
psycopathicteen wrote:
It could even perform real time sprite rotation in 22.5 degree angles
*ahem* (and that's one of the techniques in Overdrive that could be feasibly used in a game, at that)Although seriously, why the hell do people insist on making fun of blast processing specifically? I have never heard anybody making fun of all the other slogans which are just as stupid in my opinion. Playing with super power, anyone? What kind of super power does the SNES have, seriously?
Sik wrote:
psycopathicteen wrote:
It could even perform real time sprite rotation in 22.5 degree angles
*ahem* (and that's one of the techniques in Overdrive that could be feasibly used in a game, at that)How is this done? Is it done with the vertical and horizontal scroll registers, analogous to my sprite shearing technique?
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Although seriously, why the hell do people insist on making fun of blast processing specifically?
Because the commercials that mentioned "Blast Processing" compared straightforward-looking Genesis games to Super Mario Kart, which used a texture-mapped floor.
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Playing with super power, anyone? What kind of super power does the SNES have, seriously?
You heard me: Texture. Mapped. Floor.
Super Power is so AWSOME! It can display 128 64x64 rotating scaling sprites at 512x448, and other cool things that account for nothing since none of games did anything close to that anyway. It could pull off mode-7 and fx-chips!!!
On a more serious note, I think the rotation effect uses a small amount of key frame rotation steps, and tile-per-offset mode to do inbetweeners.
The scaling square patterns I think is actually done with scanline palette changes.
On a more serious note, I think the rotation effect uses a small amount of key frame rotation steps, and tile-per-offset mode to do inbetweeners.
The scaling square patterns I think is actually done with scanline palette changes.
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Although seriously, why the hell do people insist on making fun of blast processing specifically?
I can't say for the others but personally I wasn't making fun. On the other side I was complaining, because it annoys me when all the SEGA fans says the MD is so awesome thanks to its Blast Processing, while this refers to nothing concrete. The thing is that for SEGA fan, the MD is supperior to the SNES just because it had Blast Processing, which is a nonsense. This has been argued to death so I don't want to start yet another SEGA vs Nintendo argument, but rather just point out this extremely weak "blast processing" argument in favour to SEGA.
I'm not talking about now, this has been going on for years. It's like blast processing is the only ad ever made in video game history if we were to go by what people talk about. It's just plain absurd. And yes, this goes on both sides, in fact even moreso on the Sega side.
Except for the part that vertical scroll can only be set every 16 pixels (this is why the shearing tricks in the Mega Drive rarely go beyond a bit of tilting). This uses DMA and autoincrement to overwrite vertical strips of the graphic giving more resolution in that direction. This is also why it'd be reliable in a game, the worst part comes in vblank.
As for what it could be used, well, I guess this boss could be feasible, at least the spinning planet part.
Nope, software rendered. True that only a few scanlines are rendered and then swapped as needed (mind you, this is what Lawnmower Man does for its 3D stages as well), but no palette changes as that'd be too expensive. The bulk of CPU time gets spent rendering the text instead (because kabuto decided that the text had to be rendered in 3D at run time, that's why it spins...)
psycopathicteen wrote:
On a more serious note, I think the rotation effect uses a small amount of key frame rotation steps, and tile-per-offset mode to do inbetweeners.
Except for the part that vertical scroll can only be set every 16 pixels (this is why the shearing tricks in the Mega Drive rarely go beyond a bit of tilting). This uses DMA and autoincrement to overwrite vertical strips of the graphic giving more resolution in that direction. This is also why it'd be reliable in a game, the worst part comes in vblank.
As for what it could be used, well, I guess this boss could be feasible, at least the spinning planet part.
psycopathicteen wrote:
The scaling square patterns I think is actually done with scanline palette changes.
Nope, software rendered. True that only a few scanlines are rendered and then swapped as needed (mind you, this is what Lawnmower Man does for its 3D stages as well), but no palette changes as that'd be too expensive. The bulk of CPU time gets spent rendering the text instead (because kabuto decided that the text had to be rendered in 3D at run time, that's why it spins...)
I'm talking about the effect at 4:00.
I'm talking about that effect too =P It just renders every possible combination and then shows the appropriate lines. The palette is only used to allow overlapping the squares by just ORing (which simplifies the algorithm), it's fixed for the entire duration of the screen. (EDIT: explained better)
...and the part with the polygons used the XOR filling trick mentioned here on some thread back in 2008?