Alien Breed 3D 1x1 WIP Screenshots

[eXeler0]

How far can you get in theory by just converting AB3d1 maps to TKG format / engine?

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

How far can you get in theory by just converting AB3d1 maps to TKG format / engine?

Personally I don't think it will look as good as you might hope, even if you can replace the palette (which you can do now it can be built). You'll get the spatial resolution benefit but the colour resolution will be much lower. Mind you, RTG is on my wish list and I definitely want direct RGB support for that.

Also, for reasons I've not ascertained (or even looked into yet) yet, the bitmap objects in TKG do not shade based on light level. It's why the red dogs stand out so much. By then the game had replaced almost all bitmap entities with lit ones so maybe it wasn't a priority to fix.

The other gotcha is the fact that some of the aliens in AB3D had entirely custom behaviour that isn't replicable using the basic game link database.

[abu_the_monkey]

It would defiantly look less vibrant on the TKG engine.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

It would defiantly look less vibrant on the TKG engine.

Maybe worth a try to see how far its possible to go with whats out there in terms of existing tools, maps etc.
Im sure something is missing in the tool chain or someone would have made a AB3D1 1x1 mod a long time ago.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Maybe worth a try to see how far its possible to go with whats out there in terms of existing tools, maps etc.
Im sure something is missing in the tool chain or someone would have made a AB3D1 1x1 mod a long time ago.

That's the problem. It's a lot of effort when a flawless gzdoom remake already exists. I'd go further and say it's an improvement, especially with difficulty selection and some of the level tweaks. Anyone who claims the original is better based on gameplay is nostalgia pandering. On extinction level difficulty it'll kick your teeth in, normal difficulty is about the same as the original and easy for those who may not have played the original which was more challenging than many of its peer titles due to limited ammo and enemy placement.

[Karlos]

You're also fixating on 1x1 as if it's just a couple of global variables that need tweaking. The resolution is hard coded onto hundreds of places, including precalculated data tables. Moreover, the display format used by the game just isn't possible at 320 resolution. It's chunky copper 12-bit RGB through and through. You can't just replace it with a 1x1 c2p routine, unless you opt for something very specialised which is likely too slow. There was recently a demo raycaster that I saw which used 1280x256 HAM8 screen mode to achieve a 320x256 18-bit RGB result but outside of the fastest 060/Emulation isn't going to be a great solution for gaming.

TKG went back to 256 colour mode with dithering for this reason.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Karlos

You're also fixating on 1x1 as if it's just a couple of global variables that need tweaking. The resolution is hard coded onto hundreds of places, including precalculated data tables. Moreover, the display format used by the game just isn't possible at 320 resolution. It's chunky copper 12-bit RGB through and through. You can't just replace it with a 1x1 c2p routine, unless you opt for something very specialised which is likely too slow. There was recently a demo raycaster that I saw which used 1280x256 HAM8 screen mode to achieve a 320x256 18-bit RGB result but outside of the fastest 060/Emulation isn't going to be a great solution for gaming.

TKG went back to 256 colour mode with dithering for this reason.

Not really, although there's a lot I don't know how it works under the hood, my point was to explore the option of converting AB3D1 maps + assets so that they can be opened as TKG maps - and then rendered as TKG , but I guess there's *a lot* going on with how textures are applied / calculated in the engine in order to generate the final result we see on the screen.
Well, yea maybe that wouldn't work to well "of the shelf".
So yea probably easier to get Osiris / Zdoom running on the Amiga ;-)

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Not really, although there's a lot I don't know how it works under the hood, my point was to explore the option of converting AB3D1 maps + assets so that they can be opened as TKG maps - and then rendered as TKG , but I guess there's *a lot* going on with how textures are applied / calculated in the engine in order to generate the final result we see on the screen.
Well, yea maybe that wouldn't work to well "of the shelf".
So yea probably easier to get Osiris / Zdoom running on the Amiga ;-)

As I said, there are other challenges beyond how it might look. AB3D had something like per alien behaviour, as well as custom behaviours for barrels, switches, flame traps and the like. Conversely, TKG has a handful of general AI behaviours that take parameters only. I can see no way to implement, for example, the eyeball spawning tree alien in TKG. You can make an alien spawn more aliens when it dies but the feature is basically buggy since some of.thr aliens can end up invisible and all are pretty much untargetable.