Sprite scaling pseudo-3D engines (Lotus, XJ220...), how were they done?

[vitux]

But these pseudo 3d, already were made in the 8 bits as the ZX Spectrum without a special chipset.
for example, I think the best [ Show youtube player ]
I have more curiosity here without special hardware dedicated
@Mrs Beanbag, How did they do?

[s2325]

There was some rare Amstrad CPC racing game with awesome pseudo 3D effect but I don't remember the title.
[edit] I found it, it's Star Driver: [ Show youtube player ]

[vitux]

Originally Posted by s2325

There was some rare Amstrad CPC racing game with awesome pseudo 3D effect but I don't remember the title.
[edit] I found it, it's Star Driver: [ Show youtube player ]

you just upload it,!
I was the first to play! :-)
very good that game

[Mrs Beanbag]

@vitux what are you asking me here?
We already have the excellent article above about how the road is calculated, exactly how it is rendered on the screen on an Amiga could be various. It could be blitter filling, or it could use the hardware technique using copper and scroll registers, effectively the same as parallax scrolling. The "stripes" of the road and grass are certainly copper palette changes.

The roadside objects and cars, I am sure, are simply bobs that have been pre-scaled to different sizes.

[vitux]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

@vitux what are you asking me here?

of course, I did not write well Mrs Beanbag? you made a great game.

ok, not get to click ,thx

[hattig]

Originally Posted by Boo Boo

How is the floor done on the racing games? Just constant redraw or theres some scrolling?

On the Amiga, I can imagine that simple roads could be done with the copper selecting a line from a pre-drawn bitmap (and changing palette colours as required) with per-line horizontal scrolling.

However this makes games with variable width roads (e.g,. Chase HQ) a lot more difficult.

As many 8-bitters could do these racing games fairly well (look at Chase HQ on the Amstrad CPC for example) I expect that many Amiga games - sharing an engine with the Atari ST version - simply redrew the screen each frame.

[MrD]

Originally Posted by dex

Somehow I also feel that those games (Lotus series in particular) had some kind of "open" or even "endless" feel. I don't exactly know why, any ideas? The only recent games that gave me that impression were "Need for Speed Hot Pursuit" (the 2010 one from Criterion) and "Need for Speed Most Wanted" (also the 2012 one from Criterion), both great "current gen" games by the way, I like them far more than the "illegal street race" type "Carbon" etc. games.

I mean Outrun even had A-B roads, but Lotus and XJ220 roads felt "endless" or more open even during lap races. Just my imagination...? Don't even know how to explain xD

Have you played NFS: The Run? It's like Hot Pursuit 2010, but without the level select menu, so you really are just driving from A to B over and over with different themed levels (1) The City, 2) The Highway, 3) The Mountain, 4) The Desert Highway. etc.)

It's the most Lotusy thing I've ever played. (Okay, Top Gear on the SNES was pretty Lotusy, I admit.)

[Lord Riton]

Originally Posted by hattig

As many 8-bitters could do these racing games fairly well (look at Chase HQ on the Amstrad CPC for example) I expect that many Amiga games - sharing an engine with the Atari ST version - simply redrew the screen each frame.

A C64 can scroll a complete screen faster than an Amiga 500

This because most of the time the C64 games are in "character" mode (not sure of it's real name). In that mode an 8*8 pixel area is represented by a single byte ! This means a complete screen of 320*200 in 2 colors, does only take arround 1k !!! (even a bit less actualy because 1k = 1024 bytes, and it really takes only 1000 bytes)

Most of the Amiga 500 games are in 320*256 and 32 colors, and such a screen does take 50kb. Compare that to the 1kb from the C64 screen, and you will know why a lot of games had a 25 or even sometimes 50 ips (images per second) on our great C64


p.s. only talked about "real" scrolling, where the whole screen gets moved in memory, not scrollings where only screen adresses change in the copper list, of course.

[s2325]

New racing game in old style for Android http://android.mob.org/game/moto_gp_2012.html It's hard to play on 480x272 display as everything is too big (driver and menus).

[s2325]

another one - Final Freeway for Android and iOS: [ Show youtube player ]

[lilalurl]

Originally Posted by s2325

another one - Final Freeway for Android and iOS: [ Show youtube player ]

There is something that feels wrong when I watch the video. I guess it has to do with the rendering engine.

I have the feeling that the side views are only textures over 3D walls and that the opponent vehicles are simple cubes with textures wrapped around them.


While in a static screen it looks like a pseudo-3D game, there is something completely different when seen in motion.

[s2325]

For me car have not enough animation frames. There are too many things on sides of road - very distracting. Cars shadows should be black, not gray to make illusion of riding, not flying.

[dex]

You're right, it feels strange somehow. As s2325 said there are quite a lot of objects on both sides of the road. The constant waterfall of sprites thrown at you can get irritating as it scrolls very fast and smooth.

[s2325]

To play Android version of Final Freeway you need gmail account and wifi connection.

[JudasEZT]

How do you think would resulted a racing game with UbiSoft's Unreal engine ??

The sprites scaling is fast and massive.