Kung Fu Master Port

[mcgeezer]

In this update I've added the heads up display (HUD) - all working and allocated to ingame counters.

A couple of nice technical things happen with this. The first is that the whole HUD is only 2 bitplanes, the head in the top left corner is a multiplexed sprite. Additionally, the updates work in such a way that only one part of the HUD will update each frame. So in the game there might be multiple updates, but they go into a pending queue and update across multiple frames

It became apparent when I was doing this that I have a spare couple of sprites to use for the water at the bottom of the screen so I'll likely use them for adding a water moving effect later on.

[ Show youtube player ]

Geezer

[jotd]

can you tell which command you're using to enable dma debugger? and is there some doc about the meaning of the colors and all?

VERY nice effort. I wonder why you need a sprite for the head, though. It doesn't scroll or gets updated. Why not just blit it and voilà?

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by jotd

can you tell which command you're using to enable dma debugger? and is there some doc about the meaning of the colors and all?

VERY nice effort. I wonder why you need a sprite for the head, though. It doesn't scroll or gets updated. Why not just blit it and voilà?

Sure.

"v -2" will enable the visual debugger, "v -3" will also do it with a different resolution.

I need a sprite for the head because it's 16 colours, blitting it would mean I would have to enable 4 bitplanes for the HUD. By only enabling 2 bitplanes I gain a lot of free cycles because bitplane DMA is reduce - you can see this in the dark Blue strips... at the top of the display the DMA is thinner/reduced.

The colours are:

Dark Blue = Bitplane DMA
Purple = Sprite DMA
Turquoise = Blitter DMA (notice it start when I scroll as it blits tiles in)
Yellow = Copper
Red = Audio DMA
Grey I believe is CPU executions.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Sure.

"v -2" will enable the visual debugger, "v -3" will also do it with a different resolution.

I need a sprite for the head because it's 16 colours, blitting it would mean I would have to enable 4 bitplanes for the HUD. By only enabling 2 bitplanes I gain a lot of free cycles because bitplane DMA is reduce - you can see this in the dark Blue strips... at the top of the display the DMA is thinner/reduced.

The colours are:

Dark Blue = Bitplane DMA
Purple = Sprite DMA
Turquoise = Blitter DMA (notice it start when I scroll as it blits tiles in)
Yellow = Copper
Red = Audio DMA
Grey I believe is CPU executions.

Great idea with the sprite head...

[roondar]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Sure.
The colours are:

Dark Blue = Bitplane DMA
Purple = Sprite DMA
Turquoise = Blitter DMA (notice it start when I scroll as it blits tiles in)
Yellow = Copper
Red = Audio DMA
Grey I believe is CPU executions.

To add to this, there's two CPU colours. One grey and one dark red. The grey colour stands for CPU memory reads, the dark red one for CPU memory writes. Chip memory only, of course.

Nice that the HUD is only 2BPL, cool trick to use a Sprite for the head - combined this saves a bunch of time for the Blitter

[Zack]

The different dma debug colours are defined here in the code:

https://github.com/tonioni/WinUAE/bl...ebug.cpp#L1400

[mcgeezer]

The eagle eyed among you will notice what I've done here.

[ Show youtube player ]
.

So widening the screen from 256 pixels to 320 pixels and making better use of the hardware... this wasn't easy due to the stupid way Amiga sprites work.

Anyone who says the Amiga hardware sprites are great really need their heads looking at, they are in my opinion absolutely crap!

Using a DDFSRT value of $30 means I lose the last sprite due to bitplane DMA having precedence over sprite DMA, no problem I thought as I only use 7 of the 8 sprites anyway.

The player uses sprite banks 0/1 + 2/3 + 4/5 and the hit sprite (when the knife hits the player) uses sprite 6/7.

However, because you need the hit sprite to be in front of the player and not behind the hit sprite needs to be in bank 0... so that means you lose bank 0/1... and since I don't have bank 6/7 anymore I now can't use a hit with a 48 pixel wide sprite.

Luckily.... when the player is hit, there is only a 32 pixel wide sprite shown and therefore only two banks are needed so the hit sprite goes in 0/1, and the player sprite in 2/3 + 4/5.

Very lucky - but had the Amiga hardware sprites being better designed then this would have been a simple problem - something them new fangled consoles don't have to worry about.

Geezer

[jotd]

for Pacman I used sprites for ghosts but can't use sprite for pacman because that would mean sharing the palette with one of the ghosts.

A limitation the original 1980 hardware doesn't have (even if it has only 6 sprites)

Conclusion: very difficult to create some generic engine when sprites are involved. But sprites are necessary to get a better framerate / less overhead...

[malko]

This wider screen is . This is really better.
Not sure, but on the video it seems to me that the black suited guy (the one with a mask) is grabbing the hero without really touching him ?

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by jotd

for Pacman I used sprites for ghosts but can't use sprite for pacman because that would mean sharing the palette with one of the ghosts.

A limitation the original 1980 hardware doesn't have (even if it has only 6 sprites)

Conclusion: very difficult to create some generic engine when sprites are involved. But sprites are necessary to get a better framerate / less overhead...

I was just saying there on my Discord that they are complex and inflexible to use, they simply lack basic stuff as well:

x/y flipping and priority changing...

They are frustrating and painful to use.

Originally Posted by malko

This wider screen is . This is really better.
Not sure, but on the video it seems to me that the black suited guy (the one with a mask) is grabbing the hero without really touching him ?

Thanks, you shouldn't really take too much notice of the collisions at the moment - they all need work. At the moment it's just about getting the basic engine working.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

I was just saying there on my Discord that they are complex and inflexible to use, they simply lack basic stuff as well:

x/y flipping and priority changing...

They are frustrating and painful to use.

Yep, it's nice they are there for some little trick shit you can do with them, e.g. parallax backgrounds, head up displays in front of the bitplanes, etc.

But these usually only work really well in 4 BPL mode.

For moving objects, which would be their real purpose, they are quite bad and difficult to use in a sensible way.

So, yes, you could say they are shit.

[jotd]

they're perfect for the pacman ghosts. 3 colors max: check, 16 pix wide max: check, 4 different palettes: check.

otherwise they suck.

[mcgeezer]

This update is a nice one as it's showcasing TenShu's awesome graphics in the game... this is stages one and two of the game.

[ Show youtube player ]

Don't worry... I will change the sound, I just needed a bit of Rick Dangerous in my life.

Geezer

[Galahad/FLT]

That is really solid looking, really nice

[jotd]

tell me there are palette changes. 32 colors that can't be possible.

Spotted "Turbo Sprint" add and "Cobra" movie poster, alongside with Jaws and Freddy?

[Radertified]

Originally Posted by jotd

tell me there are palette changes. 32 colors that can't be possible.

Spotted "Turbo Sprint" add and "Cobra" movie poster, alongside with Jaws and Freddy?

Top Gun - Evil Dead 2 - Jaws - Cobra - Turbo Sprint - Evil Dead 2 again (all the way at the end)

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by jotd

tell me there are palette changes. 32 colors that can't be possible.

Yeah there's plenty of palette changes in there.

[jotd]

Not sure it has been done very frequently to have a graphist that knows that dynamic palette can be used and uses it in a game like this, must be in very close cooperation with the coder.

I saw a lot of copper rainbow shit or plasma demo or static images / dual screens / status bars with different colors but nothing like this. This is just excellent.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Radertified

Top Gun - Evil Dead 2 - Jaws - Cobra - Turbo Sprint - Evil Dead 2 again (all the way at the end)

Yes, the movie posters are a nice touch in the background
Maybe one more could find a place on the walls ?
(Big trouble in little China)

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by jotd

Not sure it has been done very frequently to have a graphist that knows that dynamic palette can be used and uses it in a game like this, must be in very close cooperation with the coder.

I saw a lot of copper rainbow shit or plasma demo or static images / dual screens / status bars with different colors but nothing like this. This is just excellent.

You might not believe me but there's only one colour in the palette that changes. I've attached the gradient for stage 2 shown in the video. The credit really goes to 10shu as I'm unsure how he does it, I just wrote a program to read the RGB changes at the lines and generate a copper list based on it.