Possible collab for 2D platformer on Falcon or Jaguar...(artwork here)

[Mindthreat]

I've never been very good on the programming side of things but I have a very fast computer and can render the literal daylights out of some scenes. 14MB on the Falcon seems like plenty enough space to get things loaded into some animation frame-like scenes for 3D movement but I'm unsure how quickly the machine can cycle through 320x200 images in 16-bit, maybe someone can shed potential on the subject.

The Jaguar is a favorite of mine but with only 2MB of RAM, would require some serious CD streaming voodoo to get the subseqeunt frame animation streams pumped into its replacement image very quickly and would limit the gameplay into 1 direction only. I guess my idea is some sort of Conan/Contra like game. May involve some dragon slayers... may involve some alien killing, maybe some wild animals or a mixture of the bunch. No concrete idea.

While my images are static and animated, it should prove to serve a nice 3D-movement like environment and then just add a main character on top and some oncoming baddies per level to slash your way through. Start out in a warehouse and then leave into the jungle.... who knows where it could end up. Imagine it requiring to be a CD game, regardless which platform it makes it on, if any.

Working on splicing some of the images I've worked on so far and a widescreen pan of the area and maybe a quick video to demo how it could look in case anyone is interested in joining up and doing something like this for one of the Atari machines. Will post soon...

[Mindthreat]

Here's a short video example running on Virtual Jag - had to limit the size down from 320x200 to 192x120 due to some weird Rb+ bug, but you kind of get the idea:

https://youtu.be/ldeC6s_mH5o

Here's a pano of the warehouse/room:

sidescroll.jpg

Full 320x240 res demo:

https://youtu.be/caUBTpzYSPg

Some more screen stills along the way:

a17.png

a88.png

a96.png

The idea with an animated character overlay:

b1.png

b2.png

b3.png

Full side scroll of warehouse for in-game:

https://youtu.be/Sssaja-MO_w

[marss]

looks good

[AtariZoll]

It looks very promising, but please, can you do videos without that shaky camera ? That's too blurry too, so absolute no sense of actual resolution in which it works. There is plenty of SW for free, with which you can record some window or full screen under Windows, Linux.

[mikro]

Interesting idea, how much data is the last video? What FPS you're aiming with that background scroll? (the video looks quite jerky)

[calimero]

Looking great! Remind me on Legends of Grimsrock (Dungeon Master inspired game):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frtKkJPRP0g

You will be able to move only by square? righT?

[wongck]

Looks great !!!
Well done,

[Orion_]

too much data to stream for the Jaguar, when you make a game for retro platform you must think about the hardware limitation of the system you create the game for, you can't just say "I'm will make a PC looking game on my gameboy"

[simonsunnyboy]

Orion_ is absolutely right.

Another note, on a unacclerated Falcon, you will be happy to get some small sprites with 25fps on 320x200 Truecolor running. Don't expect the Falcon to deliver 320x200 fullscreen videos at 50fps for full frame updates.

Bus bandwidth, not system RAM is the limitation.

[calimero]

Orion_ is absolutely right.

Another note, on a unacclerated Falcon, you will be happy to get some small sprites with 25fps on 320x200 Truecolor running. Don't expect the Falcon to deliver 320x200 fullscreen videos at 50fps for full frame updates.

Bus bandwidth, not system RAM is the limitation.

Standard Falcon can write around 6.6MB/s from CPU to RAM.
One image of 320x200px in 16bit color is 128KB so if you have everything in CPU (?!? ) you can write 51 frame per sec.
but you also need to read all this images from... IDE disk?

although I just search: wongck measure: 6.190; (Mo/sec) on standard IDE drive (is it stock Falcon or with CT60?)!?!
http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.ph ... 25#p316250

So maybe it is possible to get 25FPS of video streaming?

[Cyprian]

too much data to stream for the Jaguar

Standard Falcon can write around 6.6MB/s from CPU to RAM.

Jaguar has much more efficient bus system - 106.4 MB/s



Mindthreat, cool project

[calimero]

^
But Jaguar can not stream (read) data efficient as Falcon from IDE disk... :/

Jaguar CD rom is double speed? - 300KB/s ?

[Cyprian]

true, would be cool to have a cartridge with e.g. SD card

[AtariZoll]

What the Hell ?This is about game, not about video playback folks.

[calimero]

^
true! ...but game concept is to playback 3D rendering animation...

btw AtariZoll, maybe you could make some MAGIC with Jaguar like you did with ST to enable 25/50fps video playback: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5EbCT0W_Ds (I watch it million times and I always stay speechless!)

[AtariZoll]

OK. Mindthreat: you need to give more details here, and maybe rename thread a bit - because pseudo 3D background - even isometric platformers are called often 3D. What color depth is in question ? I really can not judge it by those blurry shots.
But let's assume it is 256 colors. Then we have 320x240 bytes per background = 76800 bytes. For 25 fps it would be: 1920000 bytes/sec. Falcon IDE can about 3.2 MB/sec, so only background draw would eat 60% CPU time. But maybe 10 fps would be enough for background draw, while sprites with more fps (some game have different rates for background and sprites too).
I made some tricky solution for achieving about 3.6 MB/sec on STE machines, so in theory that would be 2x more on Falcon. But question is would it work with 68030 CPU. Plus, it needs some wire cutting in machine, so not an option.
Let's calculate how much MB takes 1 room: It seems about 1500 px width. If we use 2px step while "scrolling" - or panning is the right word ? Then we need 750 frames, so 750x75KB=some 60MB . Clearly, it can't fit in RAM.
So, yes original idea of CD is the solution, but now we use rather Flash cards, of course. It reminds me on laserdisc games - like Firefox. However, that was pretty much different, because we had analogue signal from laserdisc, and then mixed into it computer generated sprites, some text ... Special HW needed.
I'm not sure how CD Amiga worked, but I assume that CD was only for data storage, and not doing video - correct me if I'm wrong.
So, back to topic: solution would be using CF cards - on Falcon it is simple, it has IDE port. Then need to decide concrete details about resolution, color depth, fps for background - keeping in mind to leave enough CPU time for other things.
I don't know about Jaguar. It is faster for sure. Question is how hard is to add IDE port to it ? Probably possible relative easy on it's game cartridge port.

[Cyprian]

Fifteen or more years ago I heard about a cartridge with IDE port. But it seems nothing happened so far in this matter.

Fortunately there is a new project: "Upcoming Jaguar SD Cartridge". I have Lynx SD card produced by him.