Crazy idea for emulators...

Paragon (1242)

11-02-2016, 03:38

I had (for quite a while) a crazy idea that could be implemented on emulators - something like a "mode 7" rendering.

The way this would work was to render the tilemap (or the pixels if on scr5+) as a SNES/mode7 plane - and then to render sprites on top of that, using the same technique.

I wouldn't know where to start this on existing emulators, but at least I made a small "fake" on how this could look:
(I hope GIFs work in here, Facebook didn't like it so much...)

Am I the only one who think this could be cool?

Edit: For some games, like Knightmare this could also be applied, but without "tilting" the images forward... would give a cool effect too!

Por SLotman

Paragon (1242)

11-02-2016, 04:01

Same idea, with Knightmare:

Por anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

11-02-2016, 04:30

OMFG
Dude.
Wow.
I wish I could help. Please think of me when re-working of the sound is needed.

Por uberjack

Champion (328)

11-02-2016, 07:05

To do screen rendering, CocoaMSX already draws to an OpenGL buffer, so as it stands now, one could easily modify the screen view to appear at an angle. I'm not sure that the landscape would stretch that far back, however - it would only go to about 1/3-1/4 of the current height. That might make things a lot less interesting.

Por ARTRAG

Enlighted (6935)

11-02-2016, 07:32

True. You cannot render more than the screen height....

Por Pencioner

Scribe (1565)

11-02-2016, 09:51

When the sprite is moving to the 'upper' (forward) side it should be correctly scaled, and what about sprite collision when all sprites scaled? Probably it will end up with hings like "i see sprites didn't touch but i died, dammit".

Those pictures make me thinking about newgen video cartridge with some 3D capabilities. Would be great to have one, games could be just modified (like when adding SCC support to existing games). The bosses in Knightmare then will not be drawn on surface...

Por Samor

Prophet (2174)

11-02-2016, 13:04

just rotation of the screen wouldn't be so hard to do, I guess... it's the part where some things are rendered at a different perspective where it gets complicated.

Por Samor

Prophet (2174)

11-02-2016, 16:25

very theoretical, but perhaps something like this is possible:

1) render the background rotated as in SLotman's images
2) render the sprites flat, but skewed, and let the skewed image overlap the rotated background.

it would cause a ton of problems, but it could perhaps give an interesting effect on some games.

Por hit9918

Prophet (2932)

11-02-2016, 17:36

Even better. Do it on TurboR.
To make a mode 7 background at knightmare rate is no problem.
Sprites are much higher rate but the bats look better in 2D anyways.

Por tvalenca

Paladin (747)

11-02-2016, 18:36

Very cool indeed. Liked it.

But: what are we going to do with the other sprites? You just showed the bottommost ones. scale down sprites by the 1/z perspective ratio?

Por Louthrax

Prophet (2465)

11-02-2016, 22:18

That might not be so hard in fact using openGL. The tricky thing will be to identify sprites as "entities" in order to render them in individuals textured "quads" (that could be placed in a vertical position on the background, that would also be a textured quad).. The emulators do not really use this notion of "full sprite", they just render pixel / lines depending on the VDP state. So the trick might not work too well with games that are multiplexing or doing tricky things with sprites.

Also, I'm thinking about the playability of Knightmare when you have lots of bullets and monsters flying in circle around you ! Monsters sprites will hide bullet sprites, this might just be hell ! But I'd still would be very curious to see it working.