Question about black bars, again. . . .

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93143
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Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by 93143 »

TrekkiesUnite118 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 1:30 pmAnd there's still the issue that scaling down in just one dimension to that extent would cause noticeable distortions and stretching. Which is probably why Capcom also decided to scale down vertically so things wouldn't look as distorted.
I think you're confused. The CPS1 and the SNES have basically the same screen aspect ratio of ~4:3. Therefore the correct way to scale the graphics is by horizontally squishing them by 256/384, or 2/3. It won't cause any "distortion" because you're not seeing the storage aspect ratio when you play the game. The only disadvantage is that you lose detail by using fewer pixels across the horizontal span of any given feature.

ryu_scaling.png

As you can see, the graphics in the actual SNES port were scaled by the correct ratio, resulting in output that looks less detailed but not distorted. The SNES graphics are also smaller in both axes, but this is probably to save ROM and/or VBlank, and has nothing to do with aspect ratio correction.
TrekkiesUnite118
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Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by TrekkiesUnite118 »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:18 pm Not sure how you're concluding there would be a disconnect in the sense of scale between the characters and backgrounds on SNES when they would both be 1:1 with the arcade, and both are obviously going to have to be stretched from the SNES 8:7 PAR to the 4:3 PAR anyway, assuming we're talking about viewing the game on a 4:3 CRT right now, so both the characters and backgrounds will also have non-square pixels of the same size too. The only difference in either the characters or backgrounds from the original art would be the characters would have to be redrawn [touched up slightly] on SNES to look good with a few less pixels making up the detail on the horizontal axis, which I don't think would be a problem as Capcom is already doing this in the current SNES version of Street Fighter II anyway (although I think maybe they're doing it on both axis just now in the SNES version). But that's not a scale or proportion thing; it's just a detail thing. There wouldn't be any additional distortion or stretching on top of the distortion and stretching that happens to the pixels when outputting any SNES game to 4:3 when viewed on a CRT.
You are talking about horizontally squishing the characters but leaving the backgrounds alone correct? You would then end up with backgrounds that are no longer the same scale as the characters and it would look off, even when squished to 4:3 on a TV. Both the sprites and backgrounds will have the same kind of squishing/stretching applied to them uniformly. They wont be independently squished/stretched. You will end up with something like this:

Image

When you are trying to get something like this:
Image

You can see in the above shot Ryu now looks tiny compared to the rest of the stage.
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:18 pm I think you're confused. The CPS1 and the SNES have basically the same screen aspect ratio of ~4:3. Therefore the correct way to scale the graphics is by horizontally squishing them by 256/384, or 2/3. It won't cause any "distortion" because you're not seeing the storage aspect ratio when you play the game. The only disadvantage is that you lose detail by using fewer pixels across the horizontal span of any given feature.

As you can see, the graphics in the actual SNES port were scaled by the correct ratio, resulting in output that looks less detailed but not distorted. The SNES graphics are also smaller in both axes, but this is probably to save ROM and/or VBlank, and has nothing to do with aspect ratio correction.
I'm not confused, I get what you're saying. Distortion was probably the wrong word for it. The point I was trying to make is when you only scale on one axis you can sometimes get odd artifacts from non-uniform scaling. You see this in things like Saturn's port of Symphony of the Night. While in that particular shot of Ryu it's not too bad, there are other frames that may not hold up as well, or other characters, or the background art.
93143
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Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by 93143 »

Pretty sure the graphics were redrawn by hand. This was a professional job, after all. In fact you can see pretty easily that the SNES version is not a simple scale-down of the arcade version; look at the back of Ryu's tunic...

Even with machine scaling, you'd still want to do hand touch-ups to avoid artifacting, and if you're a big company with an actual budget for the port, this isn't all that big of a deal. It's not like a 7/9 scale would have significantly less trouble with artifacting than 2/3. And if you use a decent method (i.e. not nearest-neighbour), the required touch-ups should be minor anyway.
creaothceann
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Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by creaothceann »

Do you think they had something like scans of hand-drawn pictures that could be converted easily to a low-res bitmap format?
My current setup:
Super Famicom ("2/1/3" SNS-CPU-GPM-02) → SCART → OSSC → StarTech USB3HDCAP → AmaRecTV 3.10
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

TrekkiesUnite118 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 3:15 pm
iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:18 pm Not sure how you're concluding there would be a disconnect in the sense of scale between the characters and backgrounds on SNES when they would both be 1:1 with the arcade, and both are obviously going to have to be stretched from the SNES 8:7 PAR to the 4:3 PAR anyway, assuming we're talking about viewing the game on a 4:3 CRT right now, so both the characters and backgrounds will also have non-square pixels of the same size too. The only difference in either the characters or backgrounds from the original art would be the characters would have to be redrawn [touched up slightly] on SNES to look good with a few less pixels making up the detail on the horizontal axis, which I don't think would be a problem as Capcom is already doing this in the current SNES version of Street Fighter II anyway (although I think maybe they're doing it on both axis just now in the SNES version). But that's not a scale or proportion thing; it's just a detail thing. There wouldn't be any additional distortion or stretching on top of the distortion and stretching that happens to the pixels when outputting any SNES game to 4:3 when viewed on a CRT.
You are talking about horizontally squishing the characters but leaving the backgrounds alone correct? You would then end up with backgrounds that are no longer the same scale as the characters and it would look off, even when squished to 4:3 on a TV. Both the sprites and backgrounds will have the same kind of squishing/stretching applied to them uniformly. They wont be independently squished/stretched. You will end up with something like this:

Image

When you are trying to get something like this:
Image

You can see in the above shot Ryu now looks tiny compared to the rest of the stage.
Yeah, I went back and corrected that in my previous posts and just removed the bit about not also pre-squishing the backgrounds, which I added in later anyway and just confused things and undermined my original point. So, basically, pre-squish both the backgrounds and characters when creating the art assets, using a few less pixels to draw everything on the horizontal axis, and then stretch them out to the correct proportions again when displaying at the 4:3 display aspect ratio on CRT. Also do any clean up where necessary.
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Mon Aug 15, 2022 1:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
TrekkiesUnite118
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Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by TrekkiesUnite118 »

93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 3:32 pm Pretty sure the graphics were redrawn by hand. This was a professional job, after all. In fact you can see pretty easily that the SNES version is not a simple scale-down of the arcade version; look at the back of Ryu's tunic...

Even with machine scaling, you'd still want to do hand touch-ups to avoid artifacting, and if you're a big company with an actual budget for the port, this isn't all that big of a deal. It's not like a 7/9 scale would have significantly less trouble with artifacting than 2/3. And if you use a decent method (i.e. not nearest-neighbour), the required touch-ups should be minor anyway.
Right, I know they'd be most likely done by hand. I'm just saying it's a very consistent pattern with Capcom's CPS1/CPS2 ports to the SNES. We typically don't see it with the games they built from the ground up for the SNES like Super Ghouls and Ghosts, the Megaman games, etc.

It could be they didn't like the look of the horizontal scaling, or the team doing the SNES ports didn't know they were supposed to be 4:3, etc. With it being a consistent pattern with all CPS1/CPS2 ports it seems odd that they'd all be due to some kind of technical limitation as some of these games really don't seem to be doing a whole lot. But it does align with the idea of trying to adapt the 384x224 resolution to the SNES. Even if it's not the approach we'd go with or the one we like, it is a valid approach and does seem to be the most direct explanation for it.
93143
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Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by 93143 »

No, I don't think that's right.

Your proposal is:

- rescale graphics to 7/9 horizontally, so they're correct with square pixels
- scale the graphics down isotropically and letterbox the screen so that the playfield is 4:3 with square pixels and shows the same amount of stuff
- but the SNES doesn't have square pixels; let's ignore this fact

What Capcom actually did was:

- rescale graphics to 2/3 horizontally, so they're correct onscreen
- scale the graphics down isotropically and letterbox the screen so everything fits in ROM and/or VBlank
- rendered area isn't 4:3 onscreen, but who cares? Everything looks right.

It's possible somebody at Capcom thought 256x193 was ~4:3, but the artists clearly didn't. I think a more likely explanation is that arcade ports typically had heavy graphical requirements that had to be designed around, whereas with an original SNES game one can simply design the game to fit the hardware. I suspect Capcom essentially had a CPS port engine that they used for everything from Final Fight to Street Fighter Alpha 2 with minor changes, which is why they all have a much bigger black bar on top than on the bottom. (It may be relevant that if you add in overscan on the bottom (lines 225 to 239), the black bars are much closer to being the same size...)
TrekkiesUnite118
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Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by TrekkiesUnite118 »

93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 5:28 pm No, I don't think that's right.

Your proposal is:

- rescale graphics to 7/9 horizontally, so they're correct with square pixels
- scale the graphics down isotropically and letterbox the screen so that the playfield is 4:3 with square pixels and shows the same amount of stuff
- but the SNES doesn't have square pixels; let's ignore this fact
This is not what I'm saying, The 4:3 example I did earlier was to show to Nikku that even if you put the arcade graphics in their 4:3 aspect ratio they still don't fit in a 256x224 resolution, you have to scale down further to get things to fit properly.
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 5:28 pm What Capcom actually did was:

- rescale graphics to 2/3 horizontally, so they're correct onscreen
- scale the graphics down isotropically and letterbox the screen so everything fits in ROM and/or VBlank
- rendered area isn't 4:3 onscreen, but who cares? Everything looks right.
This is actually closer to what I'm saying, I'm simply saying it wasn't necessarily for a ROM or Vblank issue, but possibly because Capcom felt that preserved the look and feel of the arcade games better.
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 5:28 pm It's possible somebody at Capcom thought 256x193 was ~4:3, but the artists clearly didn't. I think a more likely explanation is that arcade ports typically had heavy graphical requirements that had to be designed around, whereas with an original SNES game one can simply design the game to fit the hardware. I suspect Capcom essentially had a CPS port engine that they used for everything from Final Fight to Street Fighter Alpha 2 with minor changes, which is why they all have a much bigger black bar on top than on the bottom.
I know us Genesis fans like to joke around about the SNES's short comings, but I find it very hard to believe the system needs to letterbox a game like Street Fighter 2 just to handle it. Especially when there are other fighting games and more intense arcade ports that don't do this on the system. Case in point would be to look at Konami's arcade ports like Parodius, Sunset Riders, Turtles in Time, etc. These are all pretty intense arcade ports that are arguably just as demanding if not more demanding than some of Capcom's CPS1 ports, yet they're not letterboxed. But a big difference is Konami's Arcade hardware used for these games typically ran in a resolution around 288x224, which is much closer to the SNES's 256x224, you just lose about 16 pixels on the sides of the screen without having to even bother scaling.

I'm just saying for these particular CPS1/CPS2 ports from Capcom, the letterboxing could just root back to some arbitrary decision someone made with the first one they ported thinking letterboxing was the best way to deal with the resolution change.
93143
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Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by 93143 »

TrekkiesUnite118 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 5:59 pmI'm just saying for these particular CPS1/CPS2 ports from Capcom, the letterboxing could just root back to some arbitrary decision someone made with the first one they ported thinking letterboxing was the best way to deal with the resolution change.
Who knows? But saying
even if you put the arcade graphics in their 4:3 aspect ratio they still don't fit in a 256x224 resolution, you have to scale down further to get things to fit properly.
doesn't make any sense. It seems like you're conflating rescaling with displaying, and as a result the problem seems more complicated to you than it is.

You can't just "put the arcade graphics in their 4:3 aspect ratio" by doing anything to the pixel art, because the 4:3 aspect ratio of the arcade version is achieved by displaying it on a 4:3 monitor; if you rescale the pixel art it's not the arcade version any more. Same goes for the SNES; the picture is 4:3 because the TV is 4:3. There is zero reason to scale anything to 298x224 because square pixels is not any sort of reference or standard.

Take a look at this: viewtopic.php?p=222992#p222992

If you're willing to narrow the graphics by a factor of 7/9, it doesn't make any sense to suddenly decide that a whole different approach is required rather than just narrowing them by a factor of 6/9. Especially when said 'whole different approach' does not replicate the onscreen aspect ratio of the original art design.

Nikku4211's post was entirely correct. The screen aspect ratio is basically the same in both cases, so letterboxing cannot possibly have anything to do with preserving the look and feel of the arcade game (unless, as I suggested, somebody at Capcom had the mistaken impression that SNES pixels were square - and as that frame of Ryu demonstrates, at least one person involved with the art asset conversion process knew better). If you're fitting the same amount of stuff into the 256 SNES pixels that was originally in the arcade machine's 384 pixels, then by definition you've scaled it by a factor of 2/3 horizontally, and all your proposal does is also scale it down in the vertical direction, losing even more resolution while making everything the wrong shape.

...

We messed around with Street Fighter Alpha 2 graphics a bit some time ago, and I believe we determined that it was probably possible to use advanced techniques (predictive animation, double buffering, overload-triggered animation delay and/or a single frame of input lag that might already be there in the original) to port the game with no letterboxing, with the graphics rescaled horizontally but not vertically. And obviously with my high-bandwidth HDMA audio streaming scheme (enough for three 22 kHz streams, for both fighters and the announcer), the loading pauses would be gone, and the music would be able to use a lot more ARAM as well as switching out instruments between stages. If I had as much free time as I wish I had, this is one of the things I'd be doing with it...

I doubt Capcom actually needed all that letterboxing (around 11 KB per frame if all of it were DMA, and remember that this is equivalent to H32 mode) for Street Fighter II. But they might have needed it for Final Fight, or thought they did (it was a very early game), and when they reused the engine, as I imagine they did, they might not have bothered reassessing the DMA requirements beyond ensuring that it didn't need more.
TrekkiesUnite118
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Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by TrekkiesUnite118 »

93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 6:45 pm There is zero reason to scale anything to 298x224 because square pixels is not any sort of reference or standard.
You're focusing too hard on this and therefore missing the overall point. Yes we are all aware that both systems display in a 4:3 aspect ratio and use non-square pixels. The 298x224 was an approximation of how the arcade would look at 4:3, nothing more, nothing less. It was not trying to say this is what you need to scale to first or that it was the correct resolution or some kind of standard. It was just a visual aid to show that even when we have both displayed at 4:3, we have more horizontal resolution in the arcade and we need to do further reductions to get to 256. We can crop, we can reduce down more horizontally, we can reduce down both horizontally and vertically. Capcom chose to do the latter, that's all that post was trying to show.
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 6:45 pm
Take a look at this: viewtopic.php?p=222992#p222992
I'm well aware of this, I'm simply saying this is just one of many different approaches to this problem.
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 6:45 pm
Especially when said 'whole different approach' does not replicate the onscreen aspect ratio of the original art design.
You are aware that 256x192 is a 4:3 aspect ratio, right? Someone at Capcom may have just done that calculation and determined that's what they needed to target in order to get the right look for their CPS1 games that were designed for 4:3. Is it the correct decision? Probably not, but Capcom has been known to do very stupid things during this era. That's the point I was trying to get at, the black bars in these CPS1/CPS2 ports may not be some technical issue, but just Capcom being stupid and thinking they needed to do that to get the right look for those ports.
93143
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Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by 93143 »

TrekkiesUnite118 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 7:38 pmYes we are all aware that both systems display in a 4:3 aspect ratio and use non-square pixels.
Okay.
The 298x224 was an approximation of how the arcade would look at 4:3, nothing more, nothing less. It was not trying to say this is what you need to scale to first or that it was the correct resolution or some kind of standard.
Okay.
It was just a visual aid to show that even when we have both displayed at 4:3, we have more horizontal resolution in the arcade
You just torpedoed the point you were making. The word "even" makes no sense in this context. The 4:3 frame on the arcade monitor is 384 pixels wide. The ~4:3 frame on a TV connected to a SNES is 256 pixels wide. Obviously there's more horizontal resolution on the arcade machine. The wording you've used here strongly suggests that you do think your 298-wide image means something. It doesn't.
and we need to do further reductions to get to 256.
This is the conflation I was talking about. Further reductions from what? The only possible answer is your 298x224 scaled shot, which is, as you have agreed, totally irrelevant to the question of how to convert the graphics.
We can crop, we can reduce down more horizontally, we can reduce down both horizontally and vertically. Capcom chose to do the latter, that's all that post was trying to show.
Of course it's possible somebody at Capcom thought it would be a good idea to shoot for 256x192 as a 4:3 frame, and that this boneheaded decision propagated all the way through from Final Fight to SFA2. I've suggested as much twice now. But I don't think it's the most likely possibility.

And it is true that the stage backdrops do seem to be sized to fit roughly the same amount of the scene into the letterboxed frame both horizontally and vertically as the arcade version shows. That doesn't mean it was an attempt at aspect ratio correction; I think it's more likely that the letterboxing came first, and the BG was converted to fit the available area afterwards. Particularly since the character graphics don't share this approach, instead having the correct aspect ratio as I showed above.
That's the point I was trying to get at, the black bars in these CPS1/CPS2 ports may not be some technical issue, but just Capcom being stupid and thinking they needed to do that to get the right look for those ports.
I'm sorry, but you've been doing an exceptionally bad job of making that point. What was all that about "distortion"? Why did you use a cropped version of the 298x224 image to try to show how rescaling horizontally wasn't enough? You claimed, without qualification, that
TrekkiesUnite118 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 11:03 amIf they didn't vertically scale things down, the screen would be severely cramped and cut off
which is not true, and you've since agreed it's not true. You then showed your 298x224 image, pointed out that simply cropping it reduced the horizontal scene coverage, and remarked
So what's left to do? We lower the vertical resolution
which pretty strongly suggests that you actually thought this was the only option, rather than that you were trying to follow an errant thought process in a hypothetical Capcom employee (something that is implied nowhere in your post). Furthermore, the process you illustrated produced an image that has the correct aspect ratio, but only because it's being displayed with square pixels on a computer screen. On a SNES it would look wrong.

Then iNCEPTIONAL showed the obvious correct way to do it, and you responded in a later post:
TrekkiesUnite118 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 1:11 pmGoing from 384 to 256 is definitely in that realm of going too far. So to make things not look too distorted it makes more sense to squish down a bit for the 4:3 aspect ratio, then scale uniformly down to 256 wide to prevent any further distortion.
This seems to contradict your most recent statements on the topic of the 4:3 298x224 rescaled image and what you meant by it. It also strongly implies that the "distortion" you were talking about was aspect ratio distortion, not rescale aliasing as you later seemed to claim.

If it were the latter, "scaling uniformly down to 256 wide" would not "prevent any further distortion". It would produce exactly the same amount of rescale aliasing in the horizontal axis as if you'd gone straight from 384 to 256 (or possibly more, if you did it in multiple steps), while also adding aliasing in the vertical axis. But the point makes no sense because the graphics weren't rescaled naively; they were redrawn, and they look fine.

If you meant aspect ratio distortion, isotropic scaling does indeed prevent it, but the point still makes no sense because scaling horizontally from 384 to 256 does actually produce the correct aspect ratio onscreen, while your method doesn't.

...

None of this makes sense. It sounds an awful lot like you did get confused and are trying to avoid admitting it.
TrekkiesUnite118
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Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by TrekkiesUnite118 »

93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 10:15 pm You just torpedoed the point you were making. The word "even" makes no sense in this context. The 4:3 frame on the arcade monitor is 384 pixels wide. The ~4:3 frame on a TV connected to a SNES is 256 pixels wide. Obviously there's more horizontal resolution on the arcade machine. The wording you've used here strongly suggests that you do think your 298-wide image means something. It doesn't.
No, you're drawing conclusions that weren't there. My assumption from Nikku's post was that he was thinking that since they were both 4:3 there wasn't a need to scale. I was trying to show that there was still a need to scale things down. That may have been a mistake on my part, my bad.
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 10:15 pm This is the conflation I was talking about. Further reductions from what? The only possible answer is your 298x224 scaled shot, which is, as you have agreed, totally irrelevant to the question of how to convert the graphics.
No, from 384x224. I was trying to show you still need to scale down even though both are aiming for 4:3. See the above.
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 10:15 pm Of course it's possible somebody at Capcom thought it would be a good idea to shoot for 256x192 as a 4:3 frame, and that this boneheaded decision propagated all the way through from Final Fight to SFA2. I've suggested as much twice now. But I don't think it's the most likely possibility.
It wouldn't be the first time Capcom mucked that up, nor would it be the last.
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 10:15 pm And it is true that the stage backdrops do seem to be sized to fit roughly the same amount of the scene into the letterboxed frame both horizontally and vertically as the arcade version shows. That doesn't mean it was an attempt at aspect ratio correction; I think it's more likely that the letterboxing came first, and the BG was converted to fit the available area afterwards.
Sure, it could be that as well. Has anyone dug into these games to see if there's a serious technical reason for it? You did mention that there wasn't really a need for it in Alpha 2, does that carry over to the others?
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 10:15 pm I'm sorry, but you've been doing an exceptionally bad job of making that point. What was all that about "distortion"? Why did you use a cropped version of the 298x224 image to try to show how rescaling horizontally wasn't enough? You claimed, without qualification, that
TrekkiesUnite118 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 11:03 amIf they didn't vertically scale things down, the screen would be severely cramped and cut off
which is not true, and you've since agreed it's not true.
I wouldn't say it's entirely without qualification. There is a point where you can reduce your horizontal resolution too much and no amount of stretching or rectangular pixels can fix it, especially when you have a limited set of colors to work with to try and apply aliasing. I've seen it with dealing with FMVs on the Saturn as well as seeing similar problems on that platform going in both directions (trying to stretch 256 to 320/352 for example, Capcom's own CPS2 and CPS1 ports, bad aliasing issues in Grandia's 352x448i Map Screen, etc.). You can end up with really nasty jagged lines bad aliasing issues, cropped screens, etc. And if increasing the horizontal resolution isn't an option, then lowering the vertical resolution can help alleviate that. That's the angle I was coming at it from.

If that's wrong, I apologize.
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 10:15 pm You then showed your 298x224 image, pointed out that simply cropping it reduced the horizontal scene coverage, and remarked
So what's left to do? We lower the vertical resolution
which pretty strongly suggests that you actually thought this was the only option, rather than that you were trying to follow an errant thought process in a hypothetical Capcom employee (something that is implied nowhere in your post). Furthermore, the process you illustrated produced an image that has the correct aspect ratio, but only because it's being displayed with square pixels on a computer screen. On a SNES it would look wrong.
Again, you're clinging to this too much. I'm aware there are other ways to approach the problem. That post is simply walking through how you could go from 384x224 down to 256x192 and showing how it does preserve the horizontal space of the original game. Which you even admitted to here:
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 10:15 pm And it is true that the stage backdrops do seem to be sized to fit roughly the same amount of the scene into the letterboxed frame both horizontally and vertically as the arcade version shows.
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 10:15 pm Then iNCEPTIONAL showed the obvious correct way to do it, and you responded in a later post:
TrekkiesUnite118 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 1:11 pmGoing from 384 to 256 is definitely in that realm of going too far. So to make things not look too distorted it makes more sense to squish down a bit for the 4:3 aspect ratio, then scale uniformly down to 256 wide to prevent any further distortion.
This seems to contradict your most recent statements on the topic of the 4:3 298x224 rescaled image and what you meant by it. It also strongly implies that the "distortion" you were talking about was aspect ratio distortion, not rescale aliasing as you later seemed to claim.
I'm not talking about the 298x224 image. I was simply trying to visualize how you could go from 384x224 down to 256x192 and showing how it would preserve the horizontal screenspace of the game. I wasn't saying that's actual process you would use, that it's the way you should do it or that it's the right way to do it or the process you need to do. I was simply trying to show how you could go from one resolution to the other, and how you could end up with a letterboxed result that does approximate the original horizontal space of the arcade.

As for the distortion, as I said eariler that was probably the wrong word to use. I was talking about the general issues you can get when you scale too far in one axis. Again this is coming from what I've seen in games that struggle with these kind or problems on systems like the Saturn.
93143 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 10:15 pm None of this makes sense. It sounds an awful lot like you did get confused and are trying to avoid admitting it.
No, I think what's going on here is I tried to give a simple visual explanation of going from 384x224 down to 256x192 and how it can preserve the horizontal screenspace of the original game, and you're interpreting it as my saying it's the correct and only way to do it.

Honestly I understand what you are saying here and I agree with you that it's the better way to do it. The entire point of my original post was to just try and tell iNCEPTIONAL that the particular game he was pointing to might not actually have a technical problem requiring letterboxing, it could just be how Capcom decided to handle their CPS1 ports due to the major resolution difference. I'm sorry if my attempt to illustrate that in a dumbed down manner has upset you.

Honestly I think this has gone on in this thread long enough. If you want to continue this then you can send it to my PM inbox.
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

You know, I've just clicked onto one of the good reasons to draw SNES graphics with the inevitable stretch to 4:3 [when played on the original physical console and output to a typical old CRT] in mind: If you draw the graphics pre-squished horizontally initially then you can preserve how much of the scene you see both behind and ahead of you when stretched, as if the game was always in 4:3 and had that much screen estate horizontally to begin with. But, if you don't pre-squish the visuals horizontally, then you will likely end up with a smaller view of the scene you see both behind and ahead of you that didn't actually need to be like that but ended up like that because you were literally drawing for a smaller screen width [proportionally] in the first place. And, sure, if you pre-squish horizontally then you might have to sacrifice a little of the pixel detail on the horizontal axis, but, on the flipside, you can afford the player quite a bit more screen view ahead of them in say a fast moving platformer or a shmup.

I never really thought of that until this thread.

Now I kinda do wish I'd drawn all the art for my shmup pre-squished--but I'm not going to go in and do it all again now (too much time and effort to change it all to still look good using less pixels horizontally, and don't really know how to set up Photoshop [my art package of choice] to work like that anyway, as in showing square pixels stretched to an 8:7 PAR). And I also now kinda wish that a bunch of SNES games that didn't pre-squish the art but could have benefitted from a larger horizontal view ahead of the player, had actually done so.

The SNES didn't actually have to horizontally crop and therefore reduce the amount of the view seen on the horizontal axis in the typical arcade game or port from another console of the time, yet so many games did, probably just to avoid having to redraw the art when porting to SNES, which they would have had to do if they wanted to preserve the same amount of screen view horizontally as in the original game. It's a bit sad that so many SNES games look proportionally stretched at the 4:3 display aspect ratio, yet you don't get any benefit of viewing them at the 4:3 display aspect ratio over viewing them in the 8:7 display aspect ratio (square 1:1 PAR) that the art was clearly originally created at in most SNES games (just like my game). :-(
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Mon Aug 15, 2022 5:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

If I draw a SNES game at 256x224 in Photoshop (which has square pixels), what size [in pixels] should I stretch the image horizontally to in order to get a decent representation of what the visuals would look like proportionally when stretched to a 4:3 display aspect ratio?
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tokumaru
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Re: Question about black bars, again. . . .

Post by tokumaru »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 4:02 am If I draw a SNES game at 256x224 in Photoshop (which has square pixels), what size [in pixels] should I stretch the image horizontally to in order to get a decent representation of what the visuals would look like proportionally when stretched to a 4:3 display aspect ratio?
If the pixel aspect ratio is 8:7, you just need to scale the image horizontally by that much: 256 * (8 / 7) = 292.5714

So 293x224 should be the new dimensions of the image. However, due to scaling interpolation, the result will look very blurry. To get a sharper image, it's usually better to scale the image up by an integer amount, and then stretch it horizontally according to the 8:7 PAR. In Photoshop, this means scaling the image up to, say, 400% in both axes, without interpolation (i.e. nearest neighbor), and then scaling only the horizontal axis by 114% (8 / 7 * 100), using linear interpolation.
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