Dimension Shift
- Thread starter Mugi
- Start date
Mugi
Member
i noticed you like them lol.
In any case, i finished the tileset as the previous post shows and i'll start designing the actual stage and working on getting the elevator to work soonish.
this tileset is a little hard to use though, nesmaker is really REALLY starting to not like what i do with it
In any case, i finished the tileset as the previous post shows and i'll start designing the actual stage and working on getting the elevator to work soonish.
this tileset is a little hard to use though, nesmaker is really REALLY starting to not like what i do with it
Mugi
Member
i already met rimoJO here who REALLY likes the conveyors lol.
as far as new things, i implemented a placeholder for the HUD money display, and coded a function to allow changing the appearance of the hud (will be selectable from settings in the title menu)
next things i guess are to design more of the stage, and get the elevator up and running, along with designing some enemies.
as far as new things, i implemented a placeholder for the HUD money display, and coded a function to allow changing the appearance of the hud (will be selectable from settings in the title menu)
next things i guess are to design more of the stage, and get the elevator up and running, along with designing some enemies.
Raftronaut
Member
That hud looks great!
I assume it's sprite based?
Eventually I'd like to work more with sprite based huds. I was playing Twin Bee over the weekend and really admire how the score-only hud allows extra space for scenery, it really does make the play field feel less claustrophobic...
Color selection for the HUD is great too, the main bright really pops!
I assume it's sprite based?
Eventually I'd like to work more with sprite based huds. I was playing Twin Bee over the weekend and really admire how the score-only hud allows extra space for scenery, it really does make the play field feel less claustrophobic...
Color selection for the HUD is great too, the main bright really pops!
Mugi
Member
i could animate it if i wanted to, but the my hud is sprite based and currently the hud tiles are sitting in the monster bank, so it's not animated.
as far as the default tile hud goes, my hudtiles are animated, i use those to make the health platform and other static objects of the game at the moment.
as far as the default tile hud goes, my hudtiles are animated, i use those to make the health platform and other static objects of the game at the moment.
Mugi
Member
here's an interesting little experiment i did.
now, it's unlikely that this will ever be implemented into dimensionshift, but i REALLY wanted to see how this flows,
so here's a "functional" 4-screen mirroring.
this loads 2 screens of garbage now because the loading code is written vertical mirroring, but even so, you can observe from this that the game does indeed scroll in 4 directions at once, with zero scroll artifacting, and does indeed
utilize all 4 nametables.
for the more technically inclined, the way INL cartridges do this, is by hijacking the 4th CHR RAM bank for the tableloads, which means that tile animations are permanently locked to a maximum of 3 frames instead of 4.
that said, a "perfect" 4 screen scrolling can definitely be achieved using nesmaker and current mapper 30 hardware.
https://youtu.be/jdKRJHXhJpw
now, it's unlikely that this will ever be implemented into dimensionshift, but i REALLY wanted to see how this flows,
so here's a "functional" 4-screen mirroring.
this loads 2 screens of garbage now because the loading code is written vertical mirroring, but even so, you can observe from this that the game does indeed scroll in 4 directions at once, with zero scroll artifacting, and does indeed
utilize all 4 nametables.
for the more technically inclined, the way INL cartridges do this, is by hijacking the 4th CHR RAM bank for the tableloads, which means that tile animations are permanently locked to a maximum of 3 frames instead of 4.
that said, a "perfect" 4 screen scrolling can definitely be achieved using nesmaker and current mapper 30 hardware.
https://youtu.be/jdKRJHXhJpw
Mugi
Member
there are other caveats to consider about but that's the immediate effect of it, because of the extra ram needed for the subsequent 2 screenloads which is for whatever reason absent from the board,
it's using the last rambank instead thus permanently losing the ability to use it for anything else.
that said, scrolling is an extremely complicated piece of code, and 4directional scrolling even more so. the resource usage of the scroll in DS's engine is simply enormous as it is, and in addition to forcing me to redesign lots of stage graphics to adapt for 3-frame animations, god knows what else we'd have to sacrifice in order to actually get this working, so as said, it's likely to not happen for this game. i merely wanted to test this out for seeing how broken it is without additional work.
the above video is basically running with nothing else done to it aside setting the 4-screen mirroring in use from the header.
it's definitely something im going to look into for future projects though.
it's using the last rambank instead thus permanently losing the ability to use it for anything else.
that said, scrolling is an extremely complicated piece of code, and 4directional scrolling even more so. the resource usage of the scroll in DS's engine is simply enormous as it is, and in addition to forcing me to redesign lots of stage graphics to adapt for 3-frame animations, god knows what else we'd have to sacrifice in order to actually get this working, so as said, it's likely to not happen for this game. i merely wanted to test this out for seeing how broken it is without additional work.
the above video is basically running with nothing else done to it aside setting the 4-screen mirroring in use from the header.
it's definitely something im going to look into for future projects though.
Mugi
Member
agreed. I'ts really fascinating to explore this sort of options when messing around with the code.
im still learning here myself and most of the time have no clue what im doing really, especially when it comes to things like scrolling, which in case of Dimension Shift, is for the most part written from scratch by FIX94.
it vould be quite a mental victory to have a pure, non-artifacting scroll running with this game, but as the development is as far as it already, rewriting and redesigning half of the game simply for that is more or less out of the question.
not only we'd have to rewrite the scroll, and redo the memory allocations, but we'd also have to redesign the stage graphics for animations again and rewrite the bankswitching code.. it's just like starting from scratch again pretty much
im still learning here myself and most of the time have no clue what im doing really, especially when it comes to things like scrolling, which in case of Dimension Shift, is for the most part written from scratch by FIX94.
it vould be quite a mental victory to have a pure, non-artifacting scroll running with this game, but as the development is as far as it already, rewriting and redesigning half of the game simply for that is more or less out of the question.
not only we'd have to rewrite the scroll, and redo the memory allocations, but we'd also have to redesign the stage graphics for animations again and rewrite the bankswitching code.. it's just like starting from scratch again pretty much
Mugi
Member
couple general minor fixes put in place.
new jump/jump attack animation for the protagonist (no more stupid 2-frame hair that looked silly)
run, jump, jump attack all have a 4frame animation for the flapping hair now and it seamlessly switches between the 3, making it look much more natural.
conveyors now decrease speed when walking against them, increase speed when walking with them, and they no longer tilt if you touch a wall when standing on one.
https://youtu.be/o2959rBNRus
new jump/jump attack animation for the protagonist (no more stupid 2-frame hair that looked silly)
run, jump, jump attack all have a 4frame animation for the flapping hair now and it seamlessly switches between the 3, making it look much more natural.
conveyors now decrease speed when walking against them, increase speed when walking with them, and they no longer tilt if you touch a wall when standing on one.
https://youtu.be/o2959rBNRus