Beats of Fire

[Steve T]

Thats correct, nuthin to it

[leathered]

Originally Posted by nobody

I see that you have a palette already so all you need to do is just recolor/remap the graphics, maybe some touches here and there too and that's all about it.
It's very easy to do with a couple of programs on Windows and then with Personal Paint on the Amiga.

Off you go then =). Finding someone who can make this look easy is just what I'm looking for.

Originally Posted by Gzegzolka

I would love to see this game as full aga version not only in title.

It is – you're just expecting another bitplane – which ain't gonna happen this side of me finishing it - sorry!
I trust you have something faster than 030 @50mhz?
AGA version uses 32 bit fetchmode and a layer of 16 colour, 64 pixel wide sprites for the parallax – that's more than plenty of supposed 'AGA' games of the day. Using the copper the max amount of colours on screen at present is 55 – based on the most advanced stage with 16 colour sprite palette. This is without a copper 'rainbow'. We could do it using another bitplane but the drawing of it will be slower – and the excellent copper is part of what makes Amiga games great – pushing it to do more – it's to the Amiga what mode 7 is to the Snes.
I think I need some sort of disclaimer!

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

I've just played the ECS version of it.

It's friggin awesome. Its eons better than the oficial port, when this gets completed, it will be the best game of its genre on Amiga.

The music is fantastic on level 1 (On level 2 it had some weird cracks on it), the sound effects are perfect...

Goddamn it, I've been thinking about learning Blitz Basic 2 so I could code for Amiga.. if that's the kind of stuff its possible to do with it, I am *very* into learning it now. This is amazing work mate. I can see the slowdowns, it would be better if the game was a little faster , but I am not complaining. A game like this working 100% back at the time would get rave reviews.

EDIT: Please, consider finishing this ECS 7mhz version at some point. I understand you wanting to focus on the AGA version, but I do know a few people who has no AGA machine (myself included, hehe). This would be a killer-app on an A600

Thanks for the news. Converting in such a way to ECS is the simplest of all options, and would in any case be necessary. Any re-colouring etc beyond that should fit with the framework of what is there. The easiest way to do that is to become familiar with what's present in the AGA version.
Please learn Blitz!

Additional notes on the conversion process.

Ideally when a stage/ character is recoloured they should be returned with the palette indexed for the 23 colour character palette (0-22) and any additional colours clearly marked (you can extend the size of the screen for notes and working etc.)

For the purposes of this engine – the copper is used to change the index of a colour to another value further down the screen.

Looking at Stage 2_2 here as an example – you can see that the colours in indexes 23 and 24 run for the entire vertical length of the screen. Colours indexed 25 through 31 are changed around line 40 to colour the walls and doors. Colours indexed 25 through 28 are then changed again to colour the floor.

Obviously on the Amiga FFAGA is using a 32 colour palette. To represent these colour changes with the copper therefore requires using additional indexes to simulate the copper.

So long as the required colour per index is not present in the same horizontal line as the colour it replaces there is no problem.
All that is required then is something to show the working of this in rough – as shown in the example here.

Before making the tiles, I'll convert these indexes back to the 'root' index and change them in the Amiga using the copper.

Turrican3 wants to recolour 4_1 as he is learning how to utilise the copper. The rest of the stages beyond that are up for grabs.

[Konrad]

Just tried out the demo in WinUAE. This is really impressive ! I'm really looking forward to see more .

[AF2013]

Couldnt you make 32 colours Final fight game with 2MB Ram Memory(or more than 2MB Ram) or it isnt possible?

[Interceptor]

that last picture looks pretty nice, but i think both nobody and Toni's palettes look quite poor to be honest.

i'm no expert on this but i'm just curious, did anybody try the Dawnbringer palettes?

16 colours - http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/foru....asp?TID=12795
32 colours - http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/foru....asp?TID=16247

they would depend on dithering but the examples given there seem to display a very versatile set of images.

[nobody]

Don't expect some miracles from dawnbringer's palettes, this game uses 256 colors, i took 4 screenshots and uses more than 650 colors in just 4 scenes.

[leathered]

Originally Posted by Konrad

Just tried out the demo in WinUAE. This is really impressive ! I'm really looking forward to see more .

Cheers buddy. Comments like that are fresh right now, I really appreciate it.

Originally Posted by AF2013

Couldnt you make 32 colours Final fight game with 2MB Ram Memory(or more than 2MB Ram) or it isnt possible?

I'm not sure what you mean... This is a 32 colour game as such and fits into 2mb of chip ram. There is not really much room in that ram for music but we are using fast ram. Later on I'll maybe have to do it better and try to fit music into the 2mb chip as well.
The talk of 16 colours you see is to do with either speeding up the game for ECS or fitting the game into less memory.
I'm sorry if I've misunderstood your question.

Originally Posted by Interceptor

that last picture looks pretty nice, but i think both nobody and Toni's palettes look quite poor to be honest.

i'm no expert on this but i'm just curious, did anybody try the Dawnbringer palettes?

16 colours - http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/foru....asp?TID=12795
32 colours - http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/foru....asp?TID=16247

they would depend on dithering but the examples given there seem to display a very versatile set of images.

Some of the palettes within the pack above have the suffix db for this very reason. There has been some inspiration, let's say.
The palette's themselves are I think not the most useable as they are for Final fight - can't say I've looked much into the 16 colour palette though.
I think the palette we have at the moment is good - and is still adapting steadily as the game advances.
Sorry Steve T, but you know why I can't name an Amiga palette ST right?
It would confuse people... Yours is the CODY palette until I can get over that!

Originally Posted by nobody

Don't expect some miracles from dawnbringer's palettes, this game uses 256 colors, i took 4 screenshots and uses more than 650 colors in just 4 scenes.

Lol!
A lot of the colours used are down to individual palettes for each sprite - the colours are poorly optimised (they didn't have to) so you get several hues of near matching colour. It's like the designers of each character were in entirely different rooms.

Someone like Turrican3 can learn to recolour these beasts with very little previous experience (or am I assuming too much?). The characters are being converted into a palette that is already made, and the stages need to be taken as they are (without characters!) - ok, so you already know that...

Taking one stage at a time we've got over half of these backgrounds converted now - and on behalf of all those involved, I have to say they've done a great job - I'm really proud of that.

All it takes a little time, good man =)

[Adrian Browne]

Good stuff. I must try the demo of the ecs version. I'll enjoy playing this when its finished on my a1200. My miggy should be well beefed up by then.

[nobody]

I see now that the palette you use actually is similar to db32 palette with some changes. Its some serious work there to have this result with that 32 colors.

[Steve T]

OP, Why don't you just call it the 'Steve' palette then? I'm a bit confused where we are with this as I'm still seeing different character palettes in the latest pic you posted - this would mess up the bonus round quite a bit!

Those palettes nobody linked to are probably fine for general use, but palettes with bias toward certain tones can make a stronger looking artwork than a totally unbiased, even spread. Since we can choose from at least hundreds of colours on home 16/32bit systems but are limited in the amount we can display at once it makes sense to bias a palette for a particular level design than have a one fits all solution. Those palette examples are probably more of academic than practical interest for what we are trying to do on Amiga, but if you were designing a computer which had a total palette of 16 or 32 cols, thats exactly what you would want- an even, unbiased spread of tones, and it gives everything a retro aesthetic that evokes the 8 bit machines which some people like.

And yeah there's similarity with the FF palette because both are trying to use more natural tones and we need a large variety in the character palette, but there's a distinct lack of green in FF. It is there, but its less important as we are dealing with largely urban settings and characters so we're biased toward red and blue in every tone... I'm struggling with the bonus round background to have just 2 greens (which even then are very pastel-y and desaturated) because there's no place for them in the character palette, and because we need so much of everything else in the extra palette, which is nearly all greys and blues. Phew.

Paul's approach here is very sensible, and considering he doesn't have an art background as far as I know, what he came up with was quite good. My suggestions have been mostly to warm up some of the tones, desaturate others, make them a bit more natural overall and reduce the dynamic range - theres still a bit too much range imho... I feel like we're having a kind of (friendly) palette war over email as we seem to go back and forth over certain shades

TL;DR

We're trying our best to make it look as cool as possible within the restrictions

[leathered]

Originally Posted by Steve T

OP, Why don't you just call it the 'Steve' palette then? I'm a bit confused where we are with this as I'm still seeing different character palettes in the latest pic you posted - this would mess up the bonus round quite a bit!

You are right - it is actually an older version of the palette but the example was one of the best. I used it by way of demonstrating the copper - but I'm also positive that the changes made will not adversely affect the characters. Some of the hues in the character palette do change a little between stages so long as the effect on the character is minimal. You could call it 'dynamic lighting' =). Be assured that the palette used for the bonus stage is as it is - and we only have the player characters to worry about.

I need at this point to 'audit' and catalog the palette changes throughout to ensure it all still works - after a while I can become a bit complacent. It works in the demo - but again, the palette used there has some variance to the new palette. The new palette is different in the sense that it has allowed for proper colours on Cody - which will need to be present in the palette from the start. Palette for each stage is decided by the Amiga as such - it doesn't matter as such what the shade in the data is - the colour of the index is changed to the decided palette.

[Steve T]

Ah, ok well I guess the bonus stage is simpler since you only have to cater for the player characters, and the car... if any tones are freed up and I haven't used them much it might be worth putting them into the car.

I don't envy you keeping track of everything, if Haggar's hair turns purple, don't blame me...

[spud]

Just gave it a test on my A1200. Superb work so far!

[Steve T]

So, still working on this one, still more to do but now the bonus round background is made up of 3 images, or the same image using 3 different palettes (they all share the common palette though). I've broken the image up into panes just to illustrate the effect, Also stashed a couple more amiga specific easter eggs in there for those eagle-eyed amigans.

[dlfrsilver]

excellent work !

[Adrian Browne]

Nice, indeed.

[TjLaZer]

So this isn't AGA then? Will it run on an ECS Amiga?

[turrican3]

Originally Posted by Steve T

So, still working on this one, still more to do but now the bonus round background is made up of 3 images, or the same image using 3 different palettes (they all share the common palette though). I've broken the image up into panes just to illustrate the effect, Also stashed a couple more amiga specific easter eggs in there for those eagle-eyed amigans.

The result is just really great. awesome work Steve.
Your work on the dithering is impressive, really.

[turrican3]

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

So this isn't AGA then? Will it run on an ECS Amiga?

Final fight aga is an aga game, it doesn't work on ecs.
But there is a beta exe which work on ecs but you'll need a powerfull amiga 500, perhaps Leathered will do a lighter verion for ecs machines.

[nobody]

Originally Posted by Steve T

So, still working on this one, still more to do but now the bonus round background is made up of 3 images, or the same image using 3 different palettes (they all share the common palette though). I've broken the image up into panes just to illustrate the effect, Also stashed a couple more amiga specific easter eggs in there for those eagle-eyed amigans.

Fine dithering, much better than the previous one where dithering had almost completely broken the image