Best technical and artistic tricks on the PCE

[Tatsujin]

Not to blow my own horn, but I made some pretty neat effects for Xymati that are completely doable on the PCE...

DAMN, we need that game NOW, and on the PCE!!

[Arkhan]

Well now, didn't Gunboat and some air combat game use simple polygons? If you can do simple polygons you should be able to do simple wireframes.

Youll notice both Falcon and Gunboat have an AVOID stamp on pcengine.co.uk

They suck.

Balls.

Lots of them.

[nodtveidt]

I took a look at frag's first image in particular as it looks like it can be done with tiles alone. Looks like it would require 40 tile updates per frame, but split across three or perhaps four individual copies, depending on how much memory you're putting aside for unique pattern combinations. Even HuC can pull this off with ease if planned well enough. Shooters rarely require a ton of copies for sprites, so you can use that saved time to do stuff like this.

The second one looks like it's a palette cycle... but I can't be 100% sure without looking at the individual frames.

[shubibiman]

Not to blow my own horn, but I made some pretty neat effects for Xymati that are completely doable on the PCE...

DAMN, we need that game NOW, and on the PCE!!

Ditto

[Digi.k]

I love these.. would be even better with some sprites bouncing around there too

[TheClash603]

I always thought the effect acheived in stage 3 of Metamor Jupiter was absolutely amazing!  The video doesn't do it justice, but in person it really makes you feel like you're in a rotating space ship or something.

I never even heard of this game before, and it looks damn good!

I don't notice the technical side of games very much, I am more concerned with having fun, but I do have to admit this thread was very interesting with what has been mentioned.

[SignOfZeta]

Has anyone ever explained, or even come up with a name for, the weird BG effect that is present in Vasteel's battle scenes? Its also used a lot in the backgrounds of the cinemas in one of the Ranma games.

It's still just line scrolling / raster effects, with a simple sine wave horizontally, and stretching / compression vertically.

OK, I was wrong. It isn't used in Vasteel, but it is used in the one Ranma 1/2 game and...something else.

To see what I'm talking about watch this video:


...and skip to 0:32. Its a short use of the effect. Its used much more extensively in the ending (where Ranma gets his crazy dragon punch technique). Watching the Youtube video you'd almost think it was an interlacing artifact or something, but its even more intense in person. Whenever its used in this game (and in whatever the other game is I'm forgetting) the color choice is the same so...maybe there isn't any "special" effect here at all, programming-wise, but it does have a sort of 3D/blurring effect going on, at least to my eyes.

[sunteam_paul]

Ah, the red/blue 3D Glasses effect. Surprised that more games didn't use that.

[Arkhan]

I took a look at frag's first image in particular as it looks like it can be done with tiles alone. Looks like it would require 40 tile updates per frame, but split across three or perhaps four individual copies, depending on how much memory you're putting aside for unique pattern combinations. Even HuC can pull this off with ease if planned well enough. Shooters rarely require a ton of copies for sprites, so you can use that saved time to do stuff like this.

The second one looks like it's a palette cycle... but I can't be 100% sure without looking at the individual frames.

theres a rom floating around of the first pic, with different tiles, but its the same exact shit.  Charles made it.

and the second one, I accidentallied stuff like that when messing with the Insanity title screen.  Its rasterloleffects, with a palette cycle behind it.

the trick is getting the right wigglejiggle.

[awack]

This isn't a trick, but a strength, the pce seems to be very good at putting allot of unique, well animated sprites on screen at once....when comparing ports , the snes version typically reduces or subtracts and the genesis just doesn't have the number of Palettes needed...some of the combined attacks have a total of 30 colors alone.

[Arkhan]

Its because the PCE has 16 16 color palettes just for sprites.

Thats alot of color possibilities you can spew on screen at once!

well, 15 colors each (transparency ) so 16*15 colors is alot of f*ckyes going on.

and, your screenshots show that perfectly.

[Tatsujin]

Yeah, drac x is always a nice power horse to show off some ubergreat animations and colors. It's a pure graphical fest and beats the shit out of almost every game ever done on it's 16Bit rival plattforms.

[spenoza]

Well now, didn't Gunboat and some air combat game use simple polygons? If you can do simple polygons you should be able to do simple wireframes.

Youll notice both Falcon and Gunboat have an AVOID stamp on pcengine.co.uk

They suck.

Balls.

Lots of them.

OK, so they suck mechanically. How's the polygon action?

[nat]

Not very impressive, I have to say.

[awack]

Damn, i dont even remember posting those screenshots

Faceball is fun for a second if your looking for some 3D action.