How'd they do that? Explaining PC Engine tricks.

[nat]

So does Star Parodia just use animations like that, too? There is some scaling in that game so smooth you'd swear the hardware was doing it.

[Joe Redifer]

So the Super CD Screen flying away is just animated tiles?  I'm sure the TG could scale small things if the software had a scaling routine written in. 

[Keranu]

Here's one for 'ya!



This screenshot is taken from Hyaku Monogatari with Magic Engine with only the sprite layer showing. There are over 100 sprites on that screen, since there are one hundred candles. From what I know, the PCE can only display 64 sprites on screen at max, so how are so many sprites on the screen in this image? My guess is that each candle isn't it's own sprite, but multiple candles grouped in one sprite box of whatever size. I should menton though that after viewing the story for each candle, the candle is blown out, which makes me wonder how they grouped the blown out candles with the lit ones.

Also this game uses a lot of wavy effects and there is one in particular I'd like to know more about where it shows the flame of a candle up close shifting left and right with invisible horizontal lines through it. I'll have to capture a video of that or something later, it looks really good on a TV.

[ccovell]

So does Star Parodia just use animations like that, too? There is some scaling in that game so smooth you'd swear the hardware was doing it.

Can you specify or post a pic of the parts you're referring to?

Yes, the Super CD screen is a large animation.  The PCE can do scaling in software (well, any system can), but it's very slow -- take a look at Metamor Jupiter.

Keranu most likely answered his own questions about Hyaku Monogatari.  A 160x160 area of sprites on-screen isn't impossible by any means.

[malducci]

So the Super CD Screen flying away is just animated tiles?  I'm sure the TG could scale small things if the software had a scaling routine written in. 

 The system card has quite a few math routines, but a developer is better off using their own (faster code or with LUT aids). Either way, it's not realistic to try to scale image data in real time. One of the biggest reasons is that console systems don't use linear bitmap style displays, so you have even more overhead of converting the scaled or rotated image into a planer tile format. I know two really fast scaling and rotation methods (no cos/sin or multiplication or add/subs used), too bad the format conversion to planar tile negates the process.

 One method is to pre-scale all the frames in realtime (during a break or low cpu resource part) and then store them in memory for later use. This saves  memory, if you think of it as a form of compression (just more CPU intensive than most compression methods), and can cut down on loading times.  The other method of course is just to have them already prep'd as frames, stored on the CD.

 Funny thing about the PCE; it would have benefited more from the scaling/rotation chip like in the SegaCD, than the SegaCD did, since the PCE is free to write to VRAM during active display unlike the Genesis (or SNES). They could very easily added such a chip to the system card.

[Joe Redifer]

About the converting to a planer tile format, does the Genesis work like this as well?  I ask because of the MASAYA logo at the beginning of Target Earth.  The game allows the user to stretch and rotate the logo in real time.  I can't imagine them creating tiles for all of that in advance, it would be unreasonable for such a thing with memory what it was back in those days.  When the logo gets bigger, the adjustments get slower.  It must have a scaling/rotation routine in the software which then converts it to tiles.

I agree about the possibility of a scaling chip for the PCE system card.  That would have rocked!

[malducci]

About the converting to a planer tile format, does the Genesis work like this as well?  I ask because of the MASAYA logo at the beginning of Target Earth.

 No, the Genesis uses 4bit linear (packed) format for both tile and sprites - which is easier (and faster!) for doing "pixel plotting" on a tile based system. Yeah, that's real time in Target Earth, you can tell when it slows to a crawl as it gets bigger than normal (in the test) and other rotated angles.

 There was talk of doing another system card (4.0?). It'd be possible to add a coprocessor to it. Maybe an NEC 32bit RISC chip (to keep in the spirit of things)   ..one can dream

[Kitsunexus]

About the converting to a planer tile format, does the Genesis work like this as well?  I ask because of the MASAYA logo at the beginning of Target Earth.  The game allows the user to stretch and rotate the logo in real time.

So does the Rocko's Modern Life game for SNES.

[Black Tiger]

I assumed that the 4-in-1 intro was animation, but just for the hell of it, I ran it using the PC Engine System 3 card as soon as I got one.

[Joe Redifer]

Yeah, it has to be animation for the 4-in1 since the words "PC Engine" go away when I use the mighty arcade card.

[Keranu]

The PCE hardware can't scale any sprites or backgrounds, but by changing the scrolling at each scanline, vertical scaling of backgrounds can be achieved -- a common trick on many game systems.

So is this how they did the scailing in the Arcade Card port of Art of Fighting? I was examining the game recently and I noticed when it scales in, the width seems to remain the same and just the height increases.

[Black Tiger]

The PCE hardware can't scale any sprites or backgrounds, but by changing the scrolling at each scanline, vertical scaling of backgrounds can be achieved -- a common trick on many game systems.

So is this how they did the scailing in the Arcade Card port of Art of Fighting? I was examining the game recently and I noticed when it scales in, the width seems to remain the same and just the height increases.

From what I understand, AoF actually switches resolutions, I'm guessing from 256 x 240 to 336 x 240.

The vertical scaling trick would be more like the Lords of Thunder intro when the hero takes off.

[Keranu]

The PCE hardware can't scale any sprites or backgrounds, but by changing the scrolling at each scanline, vertical scaling of backgrounds can be achieved -- a common trick on many game systems.

So is this how they did the scailing in the Arcade Card port of Art of Fighting? I was examining the game recently and I noticed when it scales in, the width seems to remain the same and just the height increases.

From what I understand, AoF actually switches resolutions, I'm guessing from 256 x 240 to 336 x 240.

Actually when I checked, the resolution remained at 256x224. Maybe it changes in the actual playing area, but I'm not sure.

The vertical scaling trick would be more like the Lords of Thunder intro when the hero takes off.

Or my favorite, the opening of Spriggan Mark 2 .

[Joe Redifer]

Check again.  Art of Fighting changes resolutions.  Count the pixels one by one on your TV screen.   Don't make me post screenshots (in order to do so I think I'd need an Arcade Card image for Magic Engine).

[Keranu]

I took screenshots in Magic Engine and the resolution appeared the same, and the screen didn't change while I was playing it either. Probably just a problem with ME then. By the way Joe, you can just use the Super System Card 3.0 ROM to play Arcade Card games in ME.