Discussion: Rygar AGA Edition

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Well i'm afraid that this could slow down the amiga..... let's give the speech back to McGeezer on that matter.

what do you think of this, can it be done without slowing done the computer ?

Definitely up to Graeme... but if it will slow things down then drop the idea.

[mcgeezer]

It's do-able without slow-down, the horizontal disk armour does 4 16x16 blits per frame, where the circular motion uses only three.

But the danger is what Rygar would look like... You'd have to draw Rygar moving from Right to Left and vice versa along with the chain angles...

I would stay clear of it to be honest... at least until I have the full engine up and running and then can look at experimenting.

[van_dammesque]

Do you forsee at this early stage the limitations of the Amiga AGA version compared to the arcade?

Let me know closer to the engine completion for testing, stone positions, and bonus behaviour (if you do not know already ).

[mcgeezer]

Small update here over and above my previous one.

Here I've included placing the destructible stones but also showing the disk armour fully working.

The stones or items are appearing at specific frame times but only if there is an available platform to the right of the play area away from Rygar.

I'm very tired... gonna have a night off tomorrow and spend time with family and watch the boxing.

Youtube.

[ Show youtube player ]

Direct from WinUAE.... (nice)

http://109.228.4.199/rygar19.mp4

Next up will be animating and removing the stones/items from the map and then getting the collision in place.

Geezer

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by van_dammesque

Do you forsee at this early stage the limitations of the Amiga AGA version compared to the arcade?

Yes but difficult to tell at this stage... there are loads of optimisations I can make in the sprite engine which I will need to put in (blitter queuing for one).... lots of other things too.

I think either way, we'll get a game of Rygar, I've now invested too much time in it for it not to get produced... it will just take focus, time, energy, determination and inspiration.

Having been through it with Bomb Jack helps a lot though so I know I can do it.

[mcgeezer]

This update nearly turned my brain into a cabbage, I had to re-write the routine 3 times however, third time lucky as they say because now the disk armor can interact with objects in the rounds.

Very simple now to get the items and power ups working.

There's still the odd bug to iron out here and there but this is a huge milestone for the development of the game.

When I get the items coded in this weekend Rygar will be able to receive power ups and we'll see the disk armor upgrades working.

I need a rest now for a few days... that did nearly kill me.

[ Show youtube player ]

http://109.228.4.199/rygar_21.mp4

Enjoy, Geezer

Just to add technical detail.... this was difficult mainly for performance reasons, the stones that appear are only sprites while they are animating. Once they've finished animating they become part of the third buffer used for restoring... so before a stone animates I have to make a copy of the background into chip ram and restore it after it has left the scene.

Complex (for me to code) but performance is very good as I'm using simple bound boxing too for collision with the disk armor.

[LeCaravage]

Shapes good. The end of the video reveals an enjoyable sunset parallax. Nice progress -I wish I could go as fast-.

[DamienD]

Nice progress as per Graeme; getting there step-by-step my friend

[mcgeezer]

A short update here showing progress of trying to get the tomb stones working properly.

I have some "off by one" bugs going on somewhere due to some of my calculations of 16x16 blocks.

I managed to get most of the functionality working though which is nice. Gonna take a week long break now as I need to go away with work.

Youtube update here [ Show youtube player ]

and what I see... http://109.228.4.199/rygar_22.mp4

Geezer

@Everyone in the thread.... thankyou all for your support, it really does keep me motivated!

[mcgeezer]

In this update I added the collectibles (items/powerups etc).

Unfortunately I've introduced a bug in the stones code somewhere which I wasn't able to track down quickly... it'll have to wait until Saturday.

It's important I get this part of the game right as it's really a core part of it. One really big pain in the arse is aligning the 16x16 collectibles centrally... you wouldn't believe how much of a pain this is as there's no easy options.

The problem isn't so much plotting them centrally on screen, it's when they scroll off-screen and come back on screen... half the item will be missing because the 16x16 scrolling routine overwrites half of the sprite that has been shifted into the centre.

There's a couple of options.... none of them easy though.

When I get all this right and bug free, I'll work on the enemies and then it will become a working game - not long now.

Youtube...
[ Show youtube player ]


Geezer

[roondar]

I’m guessing here, but I suppose you currently blit the power ups onto the background once and then leave them there? That might explain the bug.

Only solution I’ve found for a similar issue in my own projects is to see such static items as if they are regular bobs and blit them in every frame. Maybe it can be done in a better way, but that’s my two cents anyway.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by roondar

Only solution I’ve found for a similar issue in my own projects is to see such static items as if they are regular bobs and blit them in every frame. Maybe it can be done in a better way, but that’s my two cents anyway.

Every blit I do per frame means I have less enemies onscreen so I really have to fix what I have and work on a "blit and leave" basis

There's a good chance I'll solve it by simply making the 16x16 power up tiles into 32x16 and shifting the graphic into the centre, that way I don't lose performance on the scrolling and there is no time penalty for shifting the sprite 8 pixels to the right to get it central.

This has kinda got me thinking if I can blit ($09f0 mode) into an odd address (probably not but I'll look later).

[roondar]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Every blit I do per frame means I have less enemies onscreen so I really have to fix what I have and work on a "blit and leave" basis

There's a good chance I'll solve it by simply making the 16x16 power up tiles into 32x16 and shifting the graphic into the centre, that way I don't lose performance on the scrolling and there is no time penalty for shifting the sprite 8 pixels to the right to get it central.

This has kinda got me thinking if I can blit ($09f0 mode) into an odd address (probably not but I'll look later).

Sadly, you can't blit to an odd address

Would've been very useful for some situations if the Blitter had allowed for odd addresses or had an '8 bit' mode. Ah well, there's always something left to want

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by roondar

Ah well, there's always something left to want

Yeah, some small tweaks to the OCS and AGA chipsets would have done wonders...

[mcgeezer]

So I spent a good few hours today rewriting parts of the stone animation code and management of them - they are still broken though but the code is better and cleaner.

There isn't a great deal of extra stuff from the previous video but I'll post it anyway for completeness.

The video is showing I have a bug with the stones that come up from the ground when Rygar jumps, it's an ordering bug because of performance. When the round starts I take a copy of the 4 16x16 tiles behind where the stone would appear and combine them to a 32x32 background. This means that all the objects are managed in the round and not just the ones that are onscreen - so Rygar can basically cause a stone to appear, not touch it and run from one end of the round and back and still destroy the stone with his disk armor.

Things have to be right here or the game will not be right, it is taking time but I'm making steady progress.

http://109.228.4.199/rygar_24.mp4

[ Show youtube player ]

Geezer

[mcgeezer]

A fair amount of time coding again today - but when things are going good its better to keep going as I was on a roll.

After a bit of overnight thinking in my subconscious I came up with a good idea on how to fix the stones ordering, a very simple and fast solution was just to keep an order list of where each stone was are on the X axis, this way I can tag which stone belongs to which background to restore.

Not only that, but as I had previously put all the collision routines into place I was very quickly able to put the weapon power ups into place.

Now one slight issue I had was with the Crown power up sprite in the disk armor. In the Arcade version you'll see the disk armor weapon gets a little bigger when you collect it... a little bigger is actually 22x22 pixels.... ughh, not exactly great for blitting. To get around it I've simply reduced the size of it to 16x16, in the demo you can just about see it is different (pause the video).

Next up I think I'll be working on memory management, then after that I'll work on the presentation (title/hiscore). Then onto the fun bits of enemies.

The three main weapons are working though so good progress!

http://109.228.4.199/rygar_25.mp4

[ Show youtube player ]

Geezer

[roondar]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

In the Arcade version you'll see the disk armor weapon gets a little bigger when you collect it... a little bigger is actually 22x22 pixels.... ughh, not exactly great for blitting.

Seriously? That's a pretty silly size indeed

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by roondar

Seriously? That's a pretty silly size indeed

I know, It really pissed me off!

[DamienD]

Nice progress indeed Graeme, well done!!!

Only today I was playing the arcade version (via MAME); one slight difference is that when you smash a tombstone, the item within is centred. Also, sometimes weapon power-ups just appear i.e. not within a tombstone.

Anyway, can't wait to see enemies on screen!!!

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

I know, It really pissed me off!

Can you show me the exact sprite it is ?