OutRun: I started porting it!

[jotd]

wouldn't 7 bitplanes do? I ported Supercars 2 AGA which used 6 bitplanes (EHB) to use 7 bitplanes and the result was fast enough.

[reassembler]

Originally Posted by jotd

wouldn't 7 bitplanes do? I ported Supercars 2 AGA which used 6 bitplanes (EHB) to use 7 bitplanes and the result was fast enough.

OutRun generally pushes over 256 colours simultaneously and uses many more over the course of some stages. There's already palette reduction going on for AGA. By the time you slice that down to 128 colours, you're really looking at reworking all the palettes. Which I'm not enthusiastic about as there are 255 * 16 colour palettes available at any one time. So over 4,000 colours. Losing a bitplane doesn't seem worth it.

I always ask myself, what the pillars that make the game successful? For OutRun it's the vibrant palette and scenery, cool audio, fast frame-rate, simple yet highly nuanced gameplay. Ideally, I'll keep as many of those pillars intact where possible - with hopefully some tasteful sacrifices.

Maybe in the future I'll port PCE OutRun to A500! But even that has a pretty impressive colour palette vs. a typical 16/32 colour Amiga game.

Agermose is currently reworking all the OutRun art for his port. That's a massive job. Easy enough to get a single level of the game working ok. But the scenery needs to work across multiple stages in various combinations of colours. A daunting amount of work. And also why his project is interesting because of the different approach taken.

[jotd]

I completely understand that. Sometimes specially when you're porting a game with original assets, some things can't be done. For instance I ported Tetris which uses dynamic palette changes & color cycling for 256 colors so I needed AGA and 256 colors, not less. Even if the game could be redone with 32 color ECS with some minor dithering, it's not possible with the original code.

Plus we should be graced by 2 ports. The other team probably can reduce colors & general requirements more with their approach. No need for them to require the same hardware!

[Coagulus]

The PC Engine version is great but even the Megadrive version is infinitely better than the Amiga version.

I even prefer the Master System version to the Amiga version. I suspect that would be a much easier version to convert (and have much less sprite flicker) to Amiga.

[reassembler]

Yes - using the original raw asset data has a lot of benefits. I don't need an artist, much as I love artists. However, you do end up a little locked in to the way the original engine works.

I do have the ability to manipulate stuff with all my python tooling. The passengers now use a shared 16 colour palette (previously 2 x 16 colour palettes). But there's a limit to how far you can go without just starting from scratch.

[reassembler]

Originally Posted by Coagulus

The PC Engine version is great but even the Megadrive version is infinitely better than the Amiga version.

I even prefer the Master System version to the Amiga version. I suspect that would be a much easier version to convert (and have much less sprite flicker) to Amiga.

It's obviously subjective, but the MegaDrive version just doesn't play remotely like OutRun to me. The handling and playability just feels... I dunno really dull and boring? It's also way too easy. I remember being very disappointed when I finally tried a copy.

OutRun effectively has a lot of wonderful subtleties that seemed to be omitted from home conversions which add up to the overall experience. Once you take them away you're left with a relatively vanilla driving experience.

[jotd]

Python is an invaluable tool for me as well. I can decide to replace a color by another, see how it goes, then revert it, without changing all my tiles or palette. I can also blank a zone that I know is not used to save memory or colors. For instance for Phoenix ECS, not all colors were used in all levels, but there were only 2 tile sheets. I generated specific tilesheets for each level from the original tilesheets, keeping only what's needed, allowing to reduce color palette and run on 8+8 dual playfield.

I absolutely script EVERYTHING from the original assets to the amiga raw bitmaps. This avoids a lot of wasted times doing & undoing graphics. Keep up what you're doing!

[reassembler]

Hah yes, I'm a spreadsheets and Python person!

By the way, back in 2001, I coded/ported a very quick Phoenix emulator for the Dreamcast console. The Dreamcast tooling was not, back then, what it is today!

https://dreamcast.wiki/DCPhoenix

[jotd]

Great! At the time there were a lot of single game emulators (Rygar existed too I remember). All have been metabolized by MAME but the performance suffered in the process! Even PCs could not afford that bloating back then.

It's the same spirit for arcade ports on Amiga.

[alexh]

I imagine the biggest benefit of using the original assets is that users can source them themselves?

This means your project could potentially be distributed without issues with Sega and copyright

[h0ffman]

hadn't noticed the parallax before.. so yeah, probably best leave it.

[reassembler]

Originally Posted by alexh

I imagine the biggest benefit of using the original assets is that users can source them themselves?

This means your project could potentially be distributed without issues with Sega and copyright

Yes, it softens the blow a bit. Although I'm not too sure Sega are overly concerned about Amiga ports. Modern platforms are more likely to attract attention - especially iOS/Android.

[jotd]

IMHO if you distribute the game without assets, someone will make a package a distribute it with the assets

I also agree about big companies not giving a shit about amiga ports. I have more than a dozen amiga ports of big names (Namco, Nintendo, Sega...) and noone complained so far.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by reassembler

Yes, it softens the blow a bit. Although I'm not too sure Sega are overly concerned about Amiga ports. Modern platforms are more likely to attract attention - especially iOS/Android.

Just noticed you were also creating Cannonball Engine..

Happy to realize you are an Amiga dude...

[malko]

Originally Posted by jotd

[...] I have more than a dozen amiga ports of big names (Namco, Nintendo, Sega...) and noone complained so far.

This is a good news
Keep up the excellent job !

[jotd]

Ah I forgot. Some people complained that Moon Patrol was coded in Scorpion and thus didn't have 50FPS on OCS with all 3 scroll layers but they weren't affiliated to Irem

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by jotd

IMHO if you distribute the game without assets, someone will make a package a distribute it with the assets

I also agree about big companies not giving a shit about amiga ports. I have more than a dozen amiga ports of big names (Namco, Nintendo, Sega...) and noone complained so far.

While Nintendo have been famously litigious about their IP, Sega have been famously the opposite, at least where it comes to Sonic and fan-made games and suchlike.

I wonder if they'd be that chill about OutRun?

[pixie]

Originally Posted by Dunny

While Nintendo have been famously litigious about their IP, Sega have been famously the opposite, at least where it comes to Sonic and fan-made games and suchlike.

I wonder if they'd be that chill about OutRun?

I would assume their IP would be seen much better then that of the original port

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by jotd

Ah I forgot. Some people complained that Moon Patrol was coded in Scorpion and thus didn't have 50FPS on OCS with all 3 scroll layers but they weren't affiliated to Irem

Wait, what? Scorpion Engine? I thought you developed all these ports in assembly

[jotd]

it IS in assembly. I don't know Scorpion and I couldn't use it since I transcode games, I don't rewrite them. It was just a joke (but someone on indieretronews really complained about that without knowing that it was in assembly).