Space Harrier floor effect

[Bonknuts]

Obviously it's missing the checker board floor from the arcade version (which the MD "version" also has). Can the PCE do it?

 I would say yes, and with less vram memory than what was required on the MD. How? Simple compression. While the PCE lacks tile flipping (horizontal in this case), the PCE does have an advantage; planar tiles. The checkered floor is essentially 1bit graphics with a h-interrupt changing one color to produce the movement effect. On the PCE, you can store four sets of 1bit tiles in a single tile and use four sub palettes to display each one as its own graphics (you won't see the other overlaid tiles). And with the PCE having 16 background palettes, this is no sweat.

 So now begs the question.. who's going to hack this into the game? Haha. I don't have time ( serious C programming class this semester is going to dominate my time. It's the last "elimination" class for the major). I nominate elmer 

[Arkhan]

lol, that facebook thread got to you, didn't it.

[Black Tiger]

Were retro experts saying that the PCE couldn't do the checkerboard floor because it's only 8-bit? If so, did anyone point out that it seems to be based on the X68k version which was uses an "8-bit" floor effect. Or that the Genesis version moves the sprites at like 4 - 10 fps?


Would it be possible to use the described technique to animate the 4-color floor pattern of the arcade version?

[fragmare]

It always bothered me how choppy and non-checkered the floor looked in the TG16 version of SH.  That shit should have been smooth as butter, like the Genesis SH2... except, you know, SH1 instead

[sunteam_paul]

Master System did it with colour cycling.

[Black Tiger]

I don't remember the floor in PCE Space Harrier being choppy. Didn't the lines move and stretch based on 60fps?

[elmer]

Obviously it's missing the checker board floor from the arcade version (which the MD "version" also has). Can the PCE do it?

Huh??? Unless I'm missing something ... of course it can. 

Didn't ccovell already do the effect in HuZero?

It's just that he's using a "road" texture instead of a "checkerboard" texture.

Isn't Space Harrier just doing the same basic setting of the X and Y scroll registers every hblank, and changing a couple of palette entries?

I nominate elmer 

No way! I hated all of those fake-3d games back-in-the-day, and wouldn't waste my time on one now.

Excellent-quality pixel-art is where it's at ... not crummy nearest-neighbor scaled sprites (which only started to look good in the PS2-era when you actually got hardware bilinear filtering).

[Digi.k]

NES

[Arkhan]

I don't remember the floor in PCE Space Harrier being choppy. Didn't the lines move and stretch based on 60fps?

Its not choppy.  It's actually quite smooth.

I also suspect that if the original wasn't a checkerboard, and was also alternating bars, nobody would give a shit.

[Bonknuts]

lol, that facebook thread got to you, didn't it.

 Haha yeah.. that checker board floor though

[fragmare]

I don't remember the floor in PCE Space Harrier being choppy. Didn't the lines move and stretch based on 60fps?

Its not choppy.  It's actually quite smooth.

I also suspect that if the original wasn't a checkerboard, and was also alternating bars, nobody would give a shit.

Maybe I'm just thinking of the game, in general... could have used more sprite scaling frames, i suspect.  But, yea, it *needed* that checkerboard floor.  Just one more excuse for the Genesis kids to say "It can't even do a checkered floor on Space Harrier!" as they pull out their copy of Space Harrier II haha

TBH, though, I've always chalked that particular part of it up to just being rushed/botched.  Not any kind of hardware limitation

[Arkhan]

I went and played both again.

The checkerboard/shit on Megadrive is whatever.   I think the PC Engine one plays better, and I also think I like the colorbar floors more than the checkerboard, lol.

The checkboard is kind of nonsense.  What the hell kind of place are you at that you're on a checkboard

rasterbars gogogo.

lol


Also, Burning Force is better anyways.  Too bad that wasn't on PCE.

[Punch]

Turbo Space Harrier is far better than the MD version, even if it doesn't have the checkerboard. "Choppy"? Someone needs to play the md Space Harrier II.

Checkered floor would be nice but the bars aren't bad at all, in fact they're pretty good at conveying depth.

[Arkhan]

It feels better with the raster bars IMO.   The checkboard makes me feel like im at a bowling alley, now that I think about it more and actually pay attention to it.

[spenoza]

Naw, man, it just means you're flying over some rich dude's fancy lawn. They cut them kinda checkerboard these days, sometimes.