A few quick (stupid?) questions

[sunteam_paul]

JEEBUS! how big would your character sprites be?

I think you'd need to scale everything down a bit, Master System style.

[soop]

JEEBUS! how big would your character sprites be?

They would be 2 32x32 sprites for the character, since the top moves independantly from the legs, for aiming.  With the horses as well, I guess we're looking at 2 more of the same 32x32 sprites, but they do look bloody big.

Paul, I think you're right, that probably is the only way to do it, although if that top layer is sprites (and it's still adding a lot of sprites), we might be able away with a more faithful look with fewer sprites.

I am intrigued though - did  you just knock that up?  I don't recognise it as an existing version, and the colour palette does look very PC Enginey.  How did you do it?

*edit* plus, if we do get away with fewer sprites along the top layer, we might even have enough left for some rudimentary foreground cacti - if we're not horrendously over-budget already.

JEEBUS! how big would your character sprites be?

I think you'd need to scale everything down a bit, Master System style.

Damn.  I just checked, and for the SNES version, which I was assuming I could just rip, the sizes are really non-standard.  The sprites are probably 32px high, but they're about 22 long, and the horse is well over 64 px long, and I'm guessing in some frames, over 64 px high.  I'm using paint in zoom, but here's the SNES sprites for Billy: http://www.spriters-resource.com/snes/sunsetriders/sheet/15665

And FYI, the Genesis sprites look like shit.

[sunteam_paul]

JEEBUS! how big would your character sprites be?

They would be 2 32x32 sprites for the character, since the top moves independantly from the legs, for aiming.  With the horses as well, I guess we're looking at 2 more of the same 32x32 sprites, but they do look bloody big.

Paul, I think you're right, that probably is the only way to do it, although if that top layer is sprites (and it's still adding a lot of sprites), we might be able away with a more faithful look with fewer sprites.

I am intrigued though - did  you just knock that up?  I don't recognise it as an existing version, and the colour palette does look very PC Enginey.  How did you do it?

*edit* plus, if we do get away with fewer sprites along the top layer, we might even have enough left for some rudimentary foreground cacti - if we're not horrendously over-budget already.

The top (mountains) would be a BG layer. You just have to make sure the train never overlaps it. You'd never get away with a complete horizontal layer of sprites.

The pic was an arcade shot I found on Google images. I just painted some stuff out and stuck the mountains from the Mega Drive version on it.

[soop]

JEEBUS! how big would your character sprites be?

They would be 2 32x32 sprites for the character, since the top moves independantly from the legs, for aiming.  With the horses as well, I guess we're looking at 2 more of the same 32x32 sprites, but they do look bloody big.

Paul, I think you're right, that probably is the only way to do it, although if that top layer is sprites (and it's still adding a lot of sprites), we might be able away with a more faithful look with fewer sprites.

I am intrigued though - did  you just knock that up?  I don't recognise it as an existing version, and the colour palette does look very PC Enginey.  How did you do it?

*edit* plus, if we do get away with fewer sprites along the top layer, we might even have enough left for some rudimentary foreground cacti - if we're not horrendously over-budget already.

The top (mountains) would be a BG layer. You just have to make sure the train never overlaps it. You'd never get away with a complete horizontal layer of sprites.

The pic was an arcade shot I found on Google images. I just painted some stuff out and stuck the mountains from the Mega Drive version on it.

That would actually work.  Really well.  I was considering straight sky, and a few sprites dotted around going slowly, but like I say, I don't know anything about layering on the PCE.

Although, if you would never get away with a complete  horizontal layer of sprites...  What about the red layer?

[sunteam_paul]

Ignore the red layer. It should be part of the foreground layer marked green. It contains all the ground and the first rail on the track. The train would sit above it on another layer.

[soop]

Ignore the red layer. It should be part of the foreground layer marked green. It contains all the ground and the first rail on the track. The train would sit above it on another layer.

That makes sense...  But do we get 2 background layers?  I thought we only had one.  I was thinking the red layer was a sprite layer running right to left at speed, while the whole level, including the train as the background layer scrolls slowly left to right?

[sunteam_paul]

When I say layer, I just mean horizontal scrolling layer. There would be 3 for this level: The ground (including the foreground part of the track), the train and the mountains in the background. No sprites needed.

[soop]

When I say layer, I just mean horizontal scrolling layer. There would be 3 for this level: The ground (including the foreground part of the track), the train and the mountains in the background. No sprites needed.

Ok, this is going to sound really stupid, but - the PCE can handle paralax scrolling?!

[Nando]

JEEBUS! how big would your character sprites be?

I think you'd need to scale everything down a bit, Master System style.

Not sure how the MS does it. So the sprite is created bigger and then scaled via hardware/software?

[Necromancer]

Ok, this is going to sound really stupid, but - the PCE can handle paralax scrolling?!

* giant facepalm *

[spenoza]

No, to get the sprites smaller you simply redraw them at a smaller size. This is pretty common practice in ports.

Also, the PC Engine cannot support more than a single background layer, meaning it can't do parallax that way. It can use hsync tricks to make different non-overlapping parts of the background scroll at different speeds and use sprites to aid in the trickery.

[Arkhan]

Watch the atlantean video at www.youtube.com/aetherbyte

theres some paralulz

its better than that now, though. 


Parallax is simply the process of scrolling parts at different speeds

This is not to be confused with layering which is often combined with parallax.

Layers != parallax.

Layers w/ Parallax = better parallax.

[Nando]

No, to get the sprites smaller you simply redraw them at a smaller size. This is pretty common practice in ports.

AH, I was just over complicating shit in my head.

[sunteam_paul]

When I say layer, I just mean horizontal scrolling layer. There would be 3 for this level: The ground (including the foreground part of the track), the train and the mountains in the background. No sprites needed.

Ok, this is going to sound really stupid, but - the PCE can handle paralax scrolling?!

[nodtveidt]

Tons of PCE games have parallax... layers just make it easier to do. Whether you use h-int trickery, dynamic tiles, sprite overlays/underlays, or a combination of any of the three... ultimately, it's pretty easy to do, but just not as easy as on a layered system. Complex, multi-directional backgrounds are difficult with only a single layer, but that too doesn't mean that it can't be done... Frozen Utopia's Jungle Bros' later scenes feature semi-complex multi-directional parallax pulled off via a combined strategy of dynamic tiles and sprites.