Flaming Mitten R&D - Afterburner/8bit racing

Sparkyidr

A while ago (sometime last year), I decided to try and recreate those old 8 and 6 bit techniques to do 3d scaling games (afterburner, outrun, space harrier etc) in gamesalad.

After reading up on some theory, and putting my A-Level maths to use, I decided to start tonight.

It's pretty hard to pull off, due to a lack of bitmap manipulation techniques.....but I reckon it's poss to get a pretty passable 8bit style 3d engine going in gamesalad.

Check the vid below.
It shows how I have got the ground working, and shader lines running to give the feeling of forward motion.

If this is something you are interested in...give me a shout. If there is a demand, I will get a template made.



I also have the same shade line stuff going for a racing game engine, scaling roadside objects is proving to be pretty tricky (especially when you factor in variable speeds).

scitunes

nice!

Weswog

This is great I would really like to get it

Cheers, Weswog

quantumsheep

I LOVE you for this!

QS

Sparkyidr

Hah.. it's 2:40 am, and I have a studio day tomorrow, so i need to get some sleepies.

It's been a little more difficult than I first thought it might be.
Just getting the shade lines to look "right" was a bit of a pain...due to the "Oatmeal effect" << As they get closer to the screen, and get taller, the appear to be going slower.
So you have to do some maths to make sure they speed up as they get closer to make it feel a bit more real, and look normal...I also didn't want to hard-code any numbers into those formulas, so you can do things like accelerate in the racing game for example.

been fun so far though )

Stan

Oh wow Sparky thats soooo cool! Id would defenatly get this, i love those retro flying games. Keep it up man!

Stan

StusApps

very awesome indeed!

ktfright

OMG!!!!!! If I had a dollar I'd give it to you!

gazjm

I looked into this a few months ago, but was moving the plane, not the ground, wasn't anywhere near as effective! looks cool!

I decided a plane game would be doable, or a straight road game, but couldn't suss out how to create bends etc to go around.

Hopefully you have more skills and get it done!

beefy_clyro

Very nice

FjantInc

Awesome stuff! Been thinking of something like this for my game, but I wouldn't have the slightest idea of how to pull it off.

jonmulcahy

yea, that's awesome.

UtopianGames

I love it !!!

Darren.

Cap

Sparky, could you please -and I mean PLEASE- make a Mode 7 template? That would be awesome. :-)

gazjm

don't think mode 7 is possible without being able to manipulate bitmaps etc. I could be wrong though.

Sparkyidr

Yeah, I think without bitmap manipulation, mode-7 will be pretty much impossible.

you could maybe do something with manipualtion of the camera, and some scary maths to keep your objects in the right places.....but feels like it might be a pretty big hill to climb with GS for that. )

Sparkyidr

Hey guys. Done a little more work on the afterburner stuff tonight.

1. Set up movement restrictions like in the original
2. Tweaked the background image a little to mimic the original arcade (ish)
3. Set up gun sights and shooting stuff
4. Started work on getting some bad guys in the sky





let me know what you think (the video seems a lot less smooth than it looks in the GS preview by the way)

quantumsheep

Take my babies. Please!

QS

tenrdrmer

This is really pretty awesome stuff for GameSalad. Could non 8-bit art be used to create the same effect?

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quantumsheep

tenrdrmer said:
This is really pretty awesome stuff for GameSalad. Could non 8-bit art be used to create the same effect?

But... but... why would you want to????



QS

Sparkyidr

HAH.. yeah. 8bit heroes in the hizzouse (or whatever the young people of today say, fo shizzle)

er....

Yeah, you could in theory use any artwork you liked, but it's never going to be a "convincing" 3d display. So the more simple, the more effective.

In a related note....I think I might have just thought up (in my brainbox) a way to do some form of mode-ish-7 style effect, using some similar techniques to the ones used in this afterburner project.

I'm thinking it would only work with UBER simple images (road textures, grass etc) that you could then stripe across the lines, and with the right maths, put the stripes back together as they are scaling....maybe......
depends how good the tiled mode works as the sizes are changing really

Once the afterburner is out of the way, I may have a look at that.

p.s.

@QS C64 or Speccy?

quantumsheep

Sparkyidr said:
@QS C64 or Speccy?

Speccy all the way! Project Air (coming soon, folks!) has a raft of 1bit music made on a standard speccy using the beeper.

It. Is. Beautiful.

QS

Sparkyidr

noooooooooooooooooo

beepy bloody rubber keyed box of greyness. ;o)

brown breadbin all the way. (with a paperclip handy to "reset" by touching 2 of the expansion ports together

Poke 47196, 220 etc

quantumsheep

Sparkyidr said:
noooooooooooooooooo

beepy bloody rubber keyed box of greyness. ;o)

At least if you dropped it it bounced straight back up into your hands!*

QS

*Don't try this at home, kids!

RH

Wow! really looks great, pushing the limits of GS,

Scoots

Dam that's awesome Sparkyidr

Portyman

It's funny how an 8 bit game is pushing the limits of gamesalad......

Great work

Sparkyidr

so.....I got a bit sidetracked, and spent far too much time making some title screen stuff, with some oldskool camera effects etc )

firemaplegames

that looks so great!!!

TwistedMech

Really good stuff. Maybe you could sell it as a template?

TwistedMech

quantumsheep said:
Speccy all the way! Project Air (coming soon, folks!) has a raft of 1bit music made on a standard speccy using the beeper.

It. Is. Beautiful.

QS

This must now be 2 years in the making. Maybe Darren could make a speccy to gamesalad converter lol.