Would the Amiga be able to handle Angry Birds?

[Retro1234]

There is an Angry Birds 68k for Mega drive this is quite basic ........
[ Show youtube player ]

[Predseda]

If Amiga is able to handle Puggsy, it is also able to handle Angry Birds.

[BigD]

A better comparison to Angry Birds in terms of kinetics, momentum and object rotation/acceleration physics is Worms Revolutions from 2012! Every object including water pockets is a moving entity. That took a PS3 to power it!

[Reynolds]

On my Samsung StarIII mobile with Symbian OS there was an Angry Birds game, which was obviously kinda simplified compared to the original, but was fun. Well, it would be, with HW capabilities of an A500, where scrolling could be handled as in Worms for example, and birds could be moved also as sprites or BOBs, I believe. The aiming with dots also could be visualized.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Reynolds

On my Samsung StarIII mobile with Symbian OS there was an Angry Birds game, which was obviously kinda simplified compared to the original, but was fun. Well, it would be, with HW capabilities of an A500, where scrolling could be handled as in Worms for example, and birds could be moved also as sprites or BOBs, I believe. The aiming with dots also could be visualized.

While the Amiga can handle things like scrolling and drawing BOBs with relative ease, the huge amount of calculation that's needed for the physics simulation in Angry Birds is the main bottleneck, as has been pointed out plenty of times. Scrolling is not the issue here, and even taking away the CPU load that might be required to scroll on other platforms still leaves a CPU that's maybe 100 times slower than the CPU in a 10-year-old smartphone, which was the base market for Angry Birds.

[Karlos]

Not read the thread but to chime in anyway. No. The Amiga could not run Angry Birds. At least, not any kind of direct port, with the possible exception of OS4/MorphOS and maybe PiStorm and possibly even Vampire. As basic as angry birds graphics look, those cartoony sprites are actually pretty huge textures painted into the basic 2D elements that the physics engine (assume Box2D but it could be bespoke) hurls around.

Could an Amiga run a game that works like angry birds? Sure. It's all about what you are willing to sacrifice. A simpler, fixed point right body solver might be in the reach, for example.

[d4rk3lf]

I am not coder, so I might talk nonsense, but if you are using 2D flat shaded polygons, and use only 2 convex shapes (rectangle, triangle), I don't see why Amiga 500 couldn't handle that with lot's of triangles and rectangles on screen, falling with gravity and bouncing of each/other, or even have some sort of binds (stiches) between them, that could brake with force.

I mean.. we have Frontier for A500, that is waaaaay more complex then above, right?

[Daedalus]

Frontier does have a very impressive simulation of orbital physics, but it's also very simple in many ways (and don't forget how sluggish it is on the A500 when more than a couple of objects are involved). You don't have mechanical reactions as such - your ship doesn't bounce off a surface at an angle for example, or get knocked into a spin by clipping the edge of it off a building. It either continues on its path, stops dead or explodes, same for all the other objects. The sorts of vector calculations needed for reactions, taking into account things like the centre of gravity and moments of force, are a big deal, especially when you have dozens of objects involved and potentially hundreds of interactions per frame.

[saimon69]

Maybe a middle approach with polygons for beams and bobs for the rest would be doable,however the zoom (if doable) is another possible part to be undertaken - that or a radar in style of other games is needed

[d4rk3lf]

@Daedalus
Thanks bro, you are way more knowledgeable then me, for sure, but it still seems to me that it should be possible.
This is the questions that bothers me:

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Frontier does have a very impressive simulation of orbital physics, but it's also very simple in many ways (and don't forget how sluggish it is on the A500 when more than a couple of objects are involved)

Yes, but I mention frontier, because it's full 3D, and this is one dimension less... pure 2D... we just have X and Y...
btw.. I haven't had in mind orbital path of the planets and all that.. but just sheer usage of 3D.. and also (I might be wrong), isn't ship bounce a little bit when you are on the surface of the planet and very low speed? I am not sure really.. maybe it was on First Encounter.

Originally Posted by Daedalus

The sorts of vector calculations needed for reactions, taking into account things like the centre of gravity and moments of force, are a big deal, especially when you have dozens of objects involved and potentially hundreds of interactions per frame.

Yes, they are big deal for sure, but isn't snooker and pinball games already have some sort of that implemented (even in primitive way)?
I understand that for Amiga is pretty hard to rotate, or even flip single bitmap, but with flat shaded vectors should be easy, right?
We are talking here of pretty primitive math.. no friction.. no nothing.. not even a mass... just gravity and bouncing...

I can't explain what I have in mind very well, so I created sort of a demo (on PC, in 3D app)... I disabled friction, I disabled depth (just X and Y), and I got to something close that I have in mind.
Here it is:
[ Show youtube player ]

So, if you think that this kind of stuff would be impossible for 7Mhz 68k, do you think it's possible just 2 rectangles to collide in similar manner in realtime?
And, if yes, how many rectangles maximum would be possible in your opinion?
(graphics just like this.. no bitmaps at all.. nothing.. just flat shaded vectors)

It would be definitely interesting to see if someone try something like this.

Man... I have that feeling like I saw something similar on our miggy.. but I am really not sure...

[saimon69]

Try to port it in C or assembly 68k and let's see how it runs

[A500]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

So, if you think that this kind of stuff would be impossible for 7Mhz 68k, do you think it's possible just 2 rectangles to collide in similar manner in realtime? And, if yes, how many rectangles maximum would be possible in your opinion? (graphics just like this.. no bitmaps at all.. nothing.. just flat shaded vectors)

It would definitely be interesting to see this. But I think we couldn't call it Angry Birds anymore. Maybe "Slightly Annoyed Polygons"? (I'll get my coat...)

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Yes, but I mention frontier, because it's full 3D, and this is one dimension less... pure 2D... we just have X and Y...

2D certainly makes it less demanding, but there's still a great deal involved in the 2D calculations that simply doesn't happen in Frontier.

Yes, they are big deal for sure, but isn't snooker and pinball games already have some sort of that implemented (even in primitive way)?

Yep, and they can do in a quite primitive way because the items moving are circles (even in 3D pool/snooker games they'll be calculated as circles). Circles are relatively simple to deal with because you can eliminate large chunks of the calculations because they never rotate and always bounce and apply force relative to their centres, i.e. the contact point is always a tangent perpendicular to the centre of gravity.

I understand that for Amiga is pretty hard to rotate, or even flip single bitmap, but with flat shaded vectors should be easy, right?

That's true, but the drawing is only part of the problem.

We are talking here of pretty primitive math.. no friction.. no nothing.. not even a mass... just gravity and bouncing...

Yes, without gravity or friction or shapes other than circles it becomes quite simple.

I can't explain what I have in mind very well, so I created sort of a demo (on PC, in 3D app)... I disabled friction, I disabled depth (just X and Y), and I got to something close that I have in mind.
Here it is:
[ Show youtube player ]

And here's where it gets complex. You've got, what, 25 objects there? There's gravity, and there's at least some friction because the objects don't slide off screen. Some of those objects are having forces applied from 4 different sides, and in many cases at multiple points on each side. Each one creates a different moment that rotates the object, which all have to be calculated out to produce the final vectors for movement and rotation. And each time that object touches another object, it in turn needs to pass on those movements as one of many objects touching the other object, a reaction which in turn also needs to be taken into account with the first object. And then you've got the reaction of objects that are no longer touching the first object. It's an order of magnitude more complex than a pool table.

So, if you think that this kind of stuff would be impossible for 7Mhz 68k, do you think it's possible just 2 rectangles to collide in similar manner in realtime?
And, if yes, how many rectangles maximum would be possible in your opinion?
(graphics just like this.. no bitmaps at all.. nothing.. just flat shaded vectors)

I think a 7MHz machine is really not going to be able to reproduce your example in realtime. It's hard for me to say just how many objects it might be able to cope with because I haven't done any tests in that way, but it's definitely something I'd be interested in trying myself if I ever had the chance.

[Jobbo]

I’ve had a good go at implementing some physics bodies on the A500.

https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=94126

It’s not impossible to imagine a few 2D objects for something like Angry Birds if you cut several corners and write all custom code to make it happen.

But then it wouldn’t be much fun with only a handful of objects.

Then you have to draw them! In my intro drawing the two cubes with shadows pretty much maxes out the A500.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by A500

It would definitely be interesting to see this. But I think we couldn't call it Angry Birds anymore. Maybe "Slightly Annoyed Polygons"? (I'll get my coat...)

[Karlos]

Outraged Polygons.

[khph_re]

you could prerender all the different rotation animation frames for each object - that would help a bit.

And once the player chucks the bird, you could have a pause while it computes the results?

[saimon69]

From Angry Birds to Annoyed Blits ^^

[eXeler0]

There was a long thread ”Could a 50 Mhz 030 do Virtua Fighter” and the answer should have been a short but firm ”NO!”.
Anyhoo, maybe this is a more realistic target.
But also maybe rephrase it to: ”What compromizes would tou have to do to get something that plays like Angry Birds on an Amiga with a 50 Mhz 030?”

[Cris1997XX]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

There was a long thread ”Could a 50 Mhz 030 do Virtua Fighter” and the answer should have been a short but firm ”NO!”.
Anyhoo, maybe this is a more realistic target.
But also maybe rephrase it to: ”What compromizes would tou have to do to get something that plays like Angry Birds on an Amiga with a 50 Mhz 030?”

Then...could a 40MHz 68040 do Virtua Fighter?