NeoGeo Metal Slug conversion to Amiga 500 - madman task ;-)

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by Trachu

To start thinking about this I converted the graphics to unfied 16colour OCS palette and they look really good
http://download.abime.net/.........

You should update your first post.

In the EAB rules there is:

Please don't direct link to files in The Zone when creating a 'new thread' or 'replying to a post'

[Master484]

What I don't get with sprite sheets as these, how are you supposed to use them on the Amiga?

I mean, shouldn't all graphics at least being aligned on a 16*n wide grid in these sheets?

Indeed, the graphics that Trachu posted can't be used directly.

I think they were copied from some sprite resource website out there, and re-colored with a 16 color palette ( which looks a lot like the famous "dawnbringers 16 color palette" ) , using some paint program that can automatically map images to any palette.

Also they have a problem with transparency, because a 16 color palette is always actually 15 + 1 transparent color. And the transparent colors used are different in many of the image files.

And also in many images the transparent color is also used in the "solid" image pixels as well. For example in the Player GFX sheet the background transparent color is black, but black is also used in the player graphics. This means that each frame has to be manually fixed, but still all black pixels that happen to be located in the outline of the player image will be lost, because they get "eaten" by the same transparent color.

So anyone wanting to use these assets has to fix all of these issues first, and then build the actual frame sheets.

This is OK for a small gfx demo that only needs 5 images or so, but for a longer gameplay demo I would rather find the original Neo Geo assets from the net, and then recolor them myself.

I concur that dual playfield is the most interesting and creative mode on the Amiga, but you need to put in LOT of work to make it look any good, and it certainly doesn't work on your run of the mill aracde game.

And especially not on something as colourful as Metal Slug.

Remember, this mode isn't even 8+8 colours, but more like 8 colours for the background, and 7 for the foreground, since one colour in fg is used for transparency..

And with only 7 for all the moving objects colours, you will lose a lot of what makes Metal Slug the game it is.

I don't think you can do a good version of this game on the A500.

On the 1200 you could start thinking about it, since you could run 4 bitplanes for the foreground and background, and have some extra oomph for drawing all the small stuff with CPU as well.

True, 8+8 is hard and needs a lot of extra work, and even with the best palette set up some graphics quality would be lost in the conversion process. But this is still the mode that I would use for the A500 conversion. Making the A500 version is a hopeless task, no matter which color mode you choose. But personally I think that 8+8 offers the best balance in RAM use and drawing speed, while still keeping the GFX quality "acceptable". Although I could be wrong of course, but my Blitz programmer instinct simply tells me to choose 8+8.

Likewise on the A1200 I would go for the 16+16, and of course the whole project would work much better on the A1200. An A500 version is almost impossible, but as a "technical challenge" it's much more interesting than the relatively straightforward A1200 port... a decent A1200 version wouldn't really surprise anyone; because in all likelyhood it would just be "good, but not as good as the arcade". But a decent A500 version would have much more impact, because it's widely considered impossible.

---

I wonder how this theoretical Metal Slug A500 conversion would have looked back in the day, if given to some of the best Amiga programming teams? Surely companies like Factor 5, Team 17 or Bitmap Brothers could have produced a decent conversion for the A500?

[coder76]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I concur that dual playfield is the most interesting and creative mode on the Amiga, but you need to put in LOT of work to make it look any good, and this certainly doesn't work for your run of the mill arcade game.

And especially not on something as colourful as Metal Slug.

Remember, this mode isn't even 8+8 colours, but more like 8 colours for the background, and 7 for the foreground, since one colour in fg is used for transparency..

And with only 7 for all the moving objects colours, you will lose a lot of what makes Metal Slug the game it is.

I don't think you can do a good version of this game on the A500.
On the 1200 you could start thinking about it, since you could run 4 bitplanes for the foreground and background, and have some extra oomph for drawing all the small stuff with CPU as well.

Yes, I think we all agree that an A1200 is needed to get a decent Metal Slug port. And also an accelerator board with lots of fast ram.

With 16 color dualplayfield you can actually get something called dynamic hires (or dynamic lores in this case), swapping the 16 color palette on each scanline with copper in one of the two layers. Then the background could be drawn freely and decomposed into smaller 16x16 or 32x32 pixel tiles that are scrolled into screen. If CPU does drawing, then all background graphics can be stored in fast ram.

It should be noted that Neo Geo needed to use sprites also for background, so two parallax layers eat up a substantial amount of sprites, while Amiga can do it in hardware with bitmap scrolling.. the only thing that costs here is to put out a thin layer of tiles which are scrolled in.

[Amigajay]

There are loads of great effects going on that you miss the first few times you play Metal Slug, even the NeoGeo CD version had some cuts because they couldn’t fit it in to 7MB, they removed a background layer, the heat effect coming from the desert and extra sound samples to save space among other minor things that you don’t really notice that much, but as soon as they aren’t there it stops becoming as good, and as such any port ever since hasn’t been as good because of things missing.
Of course a cut down version is possible, people can’t deny it’s not, it’s how cut down and is that cut down version worth having that’s the question.

[alpine9000]

I think one thing everyone is underestimating is how complex the game logic would be to implement and how much CPU it would burn. Even if you just watch 3 minutes of gameplay and count the number of “special” things that happen in both the foreground and background.

It really is a great game. But even if there was an Amiga that could do this justice, the coding would be such a massive undertaking. I think it might be easier to do resident evil

[Tigerskunk]

I think for Dual Playfield, you would need to redraw the sprites into a different style for this game to look any good.

Watch SFA on the Gameboy Color for this:

They managed to get an actually great port of the game running on the GBC by restyling all the fighters into something much more simple.

[ Show youtube player ]

[LongLifeA1200]

Originally Posted by Master484

So anyone wanting to use these assets has to fix all of these issues first, and then build the actual frame sheets.

I'm glad this was brought up. If Trachu doesn't have the originals (and the sound & midi files) anymore, I will assume Trachu has lost interest in the project.

Originally Posted by Amigajay

... it’s how cut down and is that cut down version worth having that’s the question.

That's why I think it would make a great tutorial.

Originally Posted by alpine9000

I think one thing everyone is underestimating is how complex the game logic would be to implement and how much CPU it would burn.
...
But even if there was an Amiga that could do this justice, the coding would be such a massive undertaking.

That's the fun part Isn't it?

Originally Posted by Master484

An A500 version is almost impossible, but as a "technical challenge" it's much more interesting than the relatively straightforward A1200 port... a decent A1200 version wouldn't really surprise anyone; because in all likelyhood it would just be "good, but not as good as the arcade". But a decent A500 version would have much more impact, because it's widely considered impossible.

And here I thought it was because DamienD promised to eat a pair of shorts. Probably for the best that no one succeed. It's bad for the digestion.

[OmegaMax]

Metal Slug also had six programmers working on it full time,a project this size for a single programmer is not going to happen in my opinion.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

I think one thing everyone is underestimating is how complex the game logic would be to implement and how much CPU it would burn.

There are far more than just one underestimation here, or rather, a lot of overestimations of what the Amiga (and people) can do.

As said before you could have a game that has a similar feeling of action and it'd be damn good. If only people weren't too focused on the technicalities and "it must look 1:1 or near", this wouldn't just be another "what if"/fan-fiction Amiga game thread on EAB, threads that unfortunately get quickly invaded by those who don't even understand how the Amiga works and, therefore, overstate its capabilities and are unable to think of solutions to work around its limitations (and exploit its powers) and add noise to the conversation.

There's also as OmegaMax mentions the manpower problem. Not even a team of three people that I will assume cannot dedicate themselves fulltime to this, can partake in a task this size unless they are willing to spend a decade developing it. This is not belittling anyone, this is just reality, nobody here that has the coding, graphic or music skills to make anything like this, will do so full-time as if it was their job. It just cannot happen.

[britelite]

Originally Posted by Akira

This is not belittling anyone, this is just reality, nobody here that has the coding, graphic or music skills to make anything like this, will do so full-time as if it was their job. It just cannot happen.

Indeed, and as the Amiga is pretty much only a hobby for all of us, the active developers usually prefer spending their spare time on something that is actually feasible and interesting.

I mean, I'd be happy to work full time on less interesting Amiga-projects if someone would be willing to pay me a decent salary, but that's not happening anytime soon

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by britelite

I mean, I'd be happy to work full time on less interesting Amiga-projects if someone would be willing to pay me a decent salary, but that's not happening anytime soon

You're not alone here

[Tigerskunk]

I think it's on Atari Age, where there is some kind of rule, that non programmers are not allowed to post threads in the Coders sub forum that are in the vein of "please port Quake 4 to the Atari VCS" or something .

I think this kind of falls into this category.

This thread, like the Rygar one, is interesting in a kind of how could certain technical walls being sidelined.

But compared to Rygar, Metal Slug is really a completely different magnitude of complexity.

And not offense to Trachu here, but stating"Did you notice i already converted the graphics. You can eat half of your shorts already ;-)" like doing some color conversion and not even putting sprites into a 16*n grid is half of the work here is kind of laughable.

I know, you meant it in a funny way, but still..

[Dunny]

Of course it's not going to happen, these things rarely do. Resident Evil (ported from PS1) won't happen. That Outrun re-work probably won't happen either - everyone gets hung up on how the graphics can be converted and that's as far as they get.

How many times have we seen these types of threads pop up now?

[OmegaMax]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I think it's on Atari Age, where there is some kind of rule, that non programmers are not allowed to post threads in the Coders sub forum that are in the vein of "please port Quake 4 to the Atari VCS" or something .

They have there own sub forum,Idea peddlers or something along those lines.

[LongLifeA1200]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I think it's on Atari Age, where there is some kind of rule, that non programmers are not allowed to post threads in the Coders sub forum that are in the vein of "please port Quake 4 to the Atari VCS" or something .

I think this kind of falls into this category.

Originally Posted by OmegaMax

They have there own sub forum,Idea peddlers or something along those lines.

There seems to be a home here on EAB for projects like these in the category of Other Projects > Amiga Game Factory

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by LongLifeA1200

There seems to be a home here on EAB for projects like these in the category of Other Projects > Amiga Game Factory

No, look, it even has a website:
http://agf.abime.net/

It's not for people who have no idea to come and say "hey make X game on Amiga I AM SURE it is possible".

I think that Atari Age rule makes sense, it's really been a while now that lots of heated arguments start and continue via the stubbornness of those who do not understand a platform yet -demand- something to be made for them because they -know- (without knowing! ) it is possible.

The "I converted this screenshot to X number of colors so a port is possible" kinda thread and idea pops up quite frequently in these forums, it's amazing it still happens after many very knowledgeable people here have explained that's just not it.
Another "favorite" is "this demo has this kind of effect so a full game full of these effects is possible!" :P

[saimon69]

When i want to test the feasibility of an idea i usually start a thread with a [brainstorm] tag, so that does not involve asking for someone to do it; however am convinced that what come out from the thread - if involves data, performances, graphic, sound and some code, would help someone to build stuff - even if is not what was brainstormed.

[idrougge]

When I want something ported, I just ask Emufan.

[Retro1234]

Emufan new project for you ;p

But seriously I think when AnimaInCorpore does his ports he starts with just numbers flashing across the screen to show the logic working maybe someone could ask very nicely if it would be possible on Amiga.

[sandruzzo]

Someone would love to see metal slug series on Amiga Aga? Would be possible to have them on this machines?