Compileable version of Alien Breed 3D II - The Killing Grounds

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

my guess is that you would have to force this option in the config.txt of the Pi

there seems to be a plethora of options and I would not have a clue where to start

over to you @Dunny

The thing about PiStorm (and apologies for topic drift here) is that aside from providing a super-fast JIT 68040-alike, is that all the Pi hardware is available to the Amiga - as long as you have a driver on the Amiga side to access it.

Hence why wifi is being developed atm, and accelerated 3D graphics are in the pipeline as we speak - someone is working on the drivers for both. Audio could be similar, but it's not gonna be Paula as that's not part of the Pi - an AHI driver to allow access to the Pi audio hardware would be the order of the day.

Similar to how the Pi provides RTG modes (but not native chipset modes), the Pi would provide an audio card but not native sound.

The Framethrower currently sucks up the video signal and Claude was hoping for a pin to be free for audio too, but it seems that sadly that was not to be. It's still gonna be RCA out for the time being.

That said, I'm very much looking forward to ditching the daisy chain I have right now - RGB to VGA to OSSC to HDMI Switch (which provides automatic RGB/RTG mode switching) to TV is a hell of a signal propagation.

[Angus]

Just posted a couple of RTG clips to Youtube.

My somewhat considered take is that, while things are much better visually than I thought, there is still a degradation issue (not restricted to my TV) - whatever the cause may be.

This clip has sound! A bit loud actually, but at the end I try and indicate that creeping shadow effect:
[ Show youtube player ]

This clip is essentially the same, but without sound. I included it because there's an odd 3D glitch with some interdimesional fireballs, right at the end. Could it be, if the instigator of the projectiles dies while they are in flight, they stop caring about walls?
[ Show youtube player ]


Don't worry, the clps are only a couple of minutes long.

[Dunny]

Is the image degradation you're talking about due to bilinear filtering of your RTG display? The PiStorm's videocore driver scales the surface up to the chosen display size set in your config.txt.

Try adding "VC4_KERNEL=0" (without quotes) in your monitor tooltypes. Mine is stored in DEVS:Monitors/PicassoIV, yours may be different.

[Karlos]

Right, I get it now. The "creeping shadow" is just a side effect of the goraud shading of floors. The shading happens entirely in screen space and doesn't take well to the polygon being clipped.

This isn't a new thing, the original T17 release has it, as does AB3D1 when the floors are set to Gouraud mode. The reason you notice it more is the starker contrast in the RTG version.

[abu_the_monkey]

ok, so I had a quick look at the menu stuff

it would appear that if you scroll down to 'controls options' and try to quit with the number pad * it also hangs
stuck on the first page of that menu waiting for the user to select what key to use for 'turn left'

[paraj]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

ok, so I had a quick look at the menu stuff

it would appear that if you scroll down to 'controls options' and try to quit with the number pad * it also hangs
stuck on the first page of that menu waiting for the user to select what key to use for 'turn left'

Seems like escape (which quitting fakes) actually enters the currently selected menu. After SHOULDQUIT is true it keeps "faking" escape presses, which might not have been a good idea.


This seems to maybe it, but maybe a bit too hackish:

diff --git a/ab3d2_source/menu/menunb.s b/ab3d2_source/menu/menunb.s
index ef89fe2..b5da332 100644
--- a/ab3d2_source/menu/menunb.s
+++ b/ab3d2_source/menu/menunb.s
@@ -861,7 +861,8 @@ mnu_waitmenu:;out: d0=Selection number
                                bra.w   .loop

 .exit_game:            st              SHOULDQUIT
-                               ; fall through
+                               move.l  mnu_mainstack,a7
+                               bra             QUITTT
 .exit:                 moveq.l #-1,d0                                  ; Esc key
                                moveq.l #0,d1
                                rts

[Angus]

Originally Posted by Karlos

Right, I get it now. The "creeping shadow" is just a side effect of the goraud shading of floors. The shading happens entirely in screen space and doesn't take well to the polygon being clipped.
.

Okay, Karlos. Did you see the fireball thing in the other clip? Maybe a legacy thing, but I'd not noticed it before.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by Angus

Okay, Karlos. Did you see the fireball thing in the other clip? Maybe a legacy thing, but I'd not noticed it before.

That's also a throwback, but I do wonder if it happens more frequently than it used to as I've noticed it more. I've had it in AB3D1 with fireballs from the floating beholder thingies.

[Angus]

Originally Posted by Karlos

That's also a throwback, but I do wonder if it happens more frequently than it used to as I've noticed it more. I've had it in AB3D1 with fireballs from the floating beholder thingies.

Amongst my people, I am famed for my observational skills.

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by paraj

Seems like escape (which quitting fakes) actually enters the currently selected menu. After SHOULDQUIT is true it keeps "faking" escape presses, which might not have been a good idea.


This seems to maybe it, but maybe a bit too hackish:

diff --git a/ab3d2_source/menu/menunb.s b/ab3d2_source/menu/menunb.s
index ef89fe2..b5da332 100644
--- a/ab3d2_source/menu/menunb.s
+++ b/ab3d2_source/menu/menunb.s
@@ -861,7 +861,8 @@ mnu_waitmenu:;out: d0=Selection number
                                bra.w   .loop

 .exit_game:            st              SHOULDQUIT
-                               ; fall through
+                               move.l  mnu_mainstack,a7
+                               bra             QUITTT
 .exit:                 moveq.l #-1,d0                                  ; Esc key
                                moveq.l #0,d1
                                rts

hackish, maybe but it works

[Angus]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Is the image degradation you're talking about due to bilinear filtering of your RTG display? The PiStorm's videocore driver scales the surface up to the chosen display size set in your config.txt.

Try adding "VC4_KERNEL=0" (without quotes) in your monitor tooltypes. Mine is stored in DEVS:Monitors/PicassoIV, yours may be different.

Nice one, Dunny. That got rid of the degradation I was talking about. The lettering and detail on the bottom of the screen is pin sharp now. I think I'm in the same position as you with it, in that there's still areas of shadow and contrast that are a bit unsightly.


Problem with your fix is that it makes a big difference to my Workbench, making all the text look very spindly.

[coachman]

Another small contribution to the colors/contrast issue in AGA vs. RTG version. I tested AGA version on the real hardware (A1200+Apollo 1260), comparing the AGA output from RGB->VGA analog converter and using Indivision AGA MK3 VGA output. Indeed, the RGB->VGA route gives much lower contrast anb brighter picture with greyish background and no completely dark areas, while the same AGA signal sent via VGA output from Indivision AGA MK3 (that sits directly on AGA Lisa chip) gives a high contrast picture similar to what other people reported using RTG with PiStorm.


Thus, I tend to think that the raw AGA and RTG outputs are really identical and all the differences we see are just due to different post processing of the signal. The increased contrast using Indivision AGA MK3 is visible in many other games, too. The point is that the other games do not make such an extensive use of dark shades of grey. For example, Doom uses quite bright colors and Breathless is also pretty bright.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Angus

Nice one, Dunny. That got rid of the degradation I was talking about. The lettering and detail on the bottom of the screen is pin sharp now. I think I'm in the same position as you with it, in that there's still areas of shadow and contrast that are a bit unsightly.


Problem with your fix is that it makes a big difference to my Workbench, making all the text look very spindly.

Are you on the PiStorm discord? We can get that sorted out sharpish with some config changes rather than keep wandering further off topic

[Angus]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Are you on the PiStorm discord? We can get that sorted out sharpish with some config changes rather than keep wandering further off topic

I am. I'll post a question there about it.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by coachman

Thus, I tend to think that the raw AGA and RTG outputs are really identical and all the differences we see are just due to different post processing of the signal. The increased contrast using Indivision AGA MK3 is visible in many other games, too. The point is that the other games do not make such an extensive use of dark shades of grey. For example, Doom uses quite bright colors and Breathless is also pretty bright.

This should be fairly easy to correct just using the black point and contrast adjustments in game. It won't help the menus though. The downside is that these adjustments are to the palette and subtle differences between shades may be lost in the process.

[Angus]

Originally Posted by Karlos

This should be fairly easy to correct just using the black point and contrast adjustments in game. It won't help the menus though. The downside is that these adjustments are to the palette and subtle differences between shades may be lost in the process.

Not my experience, in game, Karlos. I'm very happy to be proven wrong, but while I could improve things to a point, an underlying issue remained.


P.S. A cool fix for the game IMHO would be sometimes if you fire the shotgun twice, in quick succession, only the first shot is heard. Only a thought.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by Angus

Not my experience, in game, Karlos. I'm very happy to be proven wrong, but while I could improve things to a point, an underlying issue remained.

There's only so much you can do by manipulating the palette itself. You lose precision as neighbouring colours become the same, or end up clamped by the 0-255 limits. I have a monitor which is significantly darker and was able to correct for that using the controls. You do have to use them together though. What I recommend first is to reduce the contrast slightly. Calling it contrast is a bit misleading because all it does is change the straight line gradient of the output gun values relative to the input. To complete the contrast decrease adjustment, you then need to adjust the black point, in this case raising it, so that you are left with a straight line that starts somewhere above zero but still ends at or around 255.

The gamma control is for adjusting the linearity of the the gradient. Increasing it tends to have a stronger effect on the darker shades, making the contrast between them greater than for the lighter ones, so maybe don't mess with that if you don't need to.

Maybe I could temporarily plot the thing on screen as it is edited, to make the process more visible.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by Angus

P.S. A cool fix for the game IMHO would be sometimes if you fire the shotgun twice, in quick succession, only the first shot is heard. Only a thought.

I want to rewrite the entire sound system at some point. The plan that I have is for a proper stereo mixer that allows for better sound directionality and higher sample rates and to include the option in that for music from a stream, rather than the basic single channel mod we have to use now.

Fixed rate mixing of 8-bit sound can be done pretty efficiently. We should also consider AHI as an output option.

[Dunny]

Updated game engine files from KarlosTKG and when running with the original TKG levels I get texture corruption - RTG 320x256x8:



Karlos mod seems fine, just affects the original levels. To be safe I copied the original files across again to be sure they're correct.

Any ideas?

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Updated game engine files from KarlosTKG and when running with the original TKG levels I get texture corruption - RTG 320x256x8:



Karlos mod seems fine, just affects the original levels. To be safe I copied the original files across again to be sure they're correct.

Any ideas?

Looks like you have copied the originals over the top of KarlosTKG levels and the texture overrides are still in the directory causing them to be loaded. Try deleting the levels directory completely and copying the originals over again.