18 July 2024, 19:28 | #61 |
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18 July 2024, 19:40 | #62 |
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Interesting. I only checked the color count of some of the in-game screenshots we have on HOL and they have less than 32 colors.
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18 July 2024, 19:48 | #63 | |
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So i guess if colour count a screenshot with an explosion or smoke over something more than just the desert. Btw the manual states the cut scenes were drawn in 32 colours. |
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19 July 2024, 06:21 | #64 | |
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That screenshot uses 31 unique colors. I didn't analyze every screen the game produces, so there might be some that have more than 32 colors. |
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19 July 2024, 08:35 | #65 | |
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In WinUAE, the "No-EHB Denise" option under Adv. Chipset can be toggled on/off while emulation is running. Without EHB, there is only about 21 on-screen colors. |
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19 July 2024, 14:44 | #66 |
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Okay, that is interesting So EHB is used, but not for the full 64 colors. Would be great if somebody could explain why it is used.
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19 July 2024, 15:05 | #67 |
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19 July 2024, 15:11 | #68 | |
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As i say above, the manual says why they used EHB mode. I’m sure the tradeoff of a couple of fps was worth it for the extra colours, i know coming from the Mega Drive version, the intro, menu and explosions along with much better sound makes for an all round better game, even if it is slightly slower, not so much of a problem compared to John Madden or Road Rash (still playable of course!). |
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19 July 2024, 15:27 | #69 |
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The manual is clearly written by a person from the marketing department. I meant an explanation why they *didn't* use 64 colors, but only used 32 while EHB is used would be interesting.
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19 July 2024, 15:40 | #70 |
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It was for the shadows, I thought. If you use more than 32 colours then you end up the shadow not being effective on some of your colours.
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19 July 2024, 15:41 | #71 |
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It's interesting that the helicopter shadow is bitplane 6 but so much else seems to rely on a either with black.
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19 July 2024, 18:48 | #72 |
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I came across this interesting message from Bob Pariseau from 1985 in Google Groups about EHB. It has a sample program by Dale Luck, has anyone ever compiled it, would be interesting to see? https://groups.google.com/g/net.micr...m/5qnZJg7ts5cJ
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19 July 2024, 19:10 | #73 |
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The hardware can't do 64 selectable colours. You select 32 of them and EHB adds an extra 32.that are the half bright versions. So you're always going to be a bit limited in what the results are.
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19 July 2024, 19:15 | #74 |
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So the result should be 64 different (not selectable) colors. The screenshots I've looked at have 32 different colors max.
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19 July 2024, 19:43 | #75 | |
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All of the in-game assets (tiles/sprites/etc.) are likely using the same 32 color palette, and maybe you won't actually see >32 distinct colors at the same time, but that doesn't mean the game didn't benefit from EHB. This way they could just designate BPL6 the shadow bitplane, and it would always work regardless of what the artists were doing and would never need to perform complex ingame color swapping. Here's the palette from the save state I uploaded yesterday: Maybe if you're at the transition from ocean to desert and certain enemies appear you'll see "actual" benefit, but even if not, I can certainly see why you'd use it from a development standpoint. |
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19 July 2024, 20:24 | #76 |
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So to see more than 32 colors in a screenshot, both ocean and desert need to be visible and some smoke and explosions might do that. I'll get my best agent on that tomorrow
Edit: I just wanted to know why it was done and that explanation makes a lot of sense, so thank you |
19 July 2024, 20:55 | #77 | |
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19 July 2024, 21:25 | #78 |
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19 July 2024, 23:31 | #79 |
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It's also entirely plausible that a developer thought "that would be a cool use of the feature" and so implemented it, even though in the end, once all the assets were created, it turned out to be mostly pointless.
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20 July 2024, 02:09 | #80 | |
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"Hey we can add shadows for free with EHB" "What kind of performance hit is that extra bitplane?" "Negligible" "Might as well then " kind of deal. |
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