LASEReyes

[Jedi QuestMaster]

You probably don't need all 4 colors for a laser, you could easily fit two different laser colors onto the same palette.

Like this? <- where 'black' is the floor color and white is the center of the laser. But wouldn't we need twice as many tiles?

I decided to see how many tiles I'm already using: The laser advances 8 pixels at a time (hard to tell, but see here):


So I only have to worry about animating the strafing movement: This alone is 14 tiles. The vertical laser animation would add another 13 tiles (the completely solid ground tile is taken into account). That's 27 tiles. So the green laser would need its own 27 (or 26?) tiles to make 54 (or 53?) tiles. The blue and purple lasers would just reuse the same tiles. Is this correct?

Reyes keeps reminding me of this dude. Can't unsee (sorry, no relation to anything).

I thought he looked too much like Stuart Ashen.

Especially now that he's bald.

ashensbald.jpg (6.87 KiB) Viewed 1565 times

Haha that's Alfons Åberg!

aberg.jpg (20.59 KiB) Viewed 1565 times

This gives me an idea.

[calima]

Yes, the palettes and tile counts would work as you say.

[Jedi QuestMaster]

By the way, newbie question here:

but do I need to keep every 16x16 tile positioned on a 16x15 grid:


or can I center them like this:


That's what seems to be going on here:


Each edge is 8 pixels wide, while the border is 16 pixels wide, and the field is 208 pixels (thirteen 16x16 tiles) wide.

[TmEE]

You can scroll the image 8 pixels and get that offset.

[Drag]

...but make sure you don't have anything important over on those edges, because they're often offscreen due to overscan.

In one of my projects, I wanted to offset the attribute grid the same way, because I wanted to be able to draw one-tile-wide walls on the extreme edges of the screen without attribute clash, except I completely forgot that those walls would often not be visible.

[Pokun]

Specifically, you should have your score bar and other information within the title-safe area. Nintendo defined the 24 pixels on the top and bottom edges (3 character rows each) and the 16 pixels on the left and right edges (2 character columns each) as not being title-safe. Neither Famicom Bomberman 1 nor 2 seems to follow these rules so the status bar is risking of not being shown on properly adjusted TV-sets.

If you follow these rules strictly you may need to make your levels a bit smaller than planned. The bottom wall doesn't have to be title-safe though (assuming your status bar will be at the top of the screen).

[Fiskbit]

Nintendo's title-safe area was extremely conservative and I think you'll struggle to find CRT TVs from the 80s or newer that get anywhere close to those extremes. Based on what I've seen, the PocketNES-safe area in the image on the wiki is a much more reasonable representation of what TVs should show. Note that it really is common for TVs to cut off the entire top 16 scanlines, though, so text on the 2nd row of tiles is very much a bad idea.

I'd love to see a list of measured results from a variety of TVs at some point showing exactly how much is visible on each edge. Might be worth having a thread for people to post their TV model and results measured with a test ROM.

[Pokun]

I think Nintendo relaxed these rules a bit on the SNES as the official docs tells you to avoid the 16 pixels on all 4 edges for text or other important information. Bomberman 1 actually wouldn't pass that test either as the "T" in "TIME" in the status bar is in the second character column instead of the third one as it probably should.

"T" being one character too much to the left.

I think the geometry for each and every TV is pretty much unique even for TV-sets of the same brand. They would have to be adjusted individually, and as the parts in a TV ages it would have to be readjusted again. This is dangerous on older TV-sets as you need to adjust potentiometers inside it while very high voltage power is on. On more modern CRTs it may be doable via a service menu though.

Flatscreen TV-sets makes more sense to make a list of though as they wouldn't have their geometry changed by age. They either cut off part of the screen or show everything found in the signal. Some can even be adjusted. My LCD can't and it does cut off a big portion of the screen from NTSC signals, especially at the top and bottom.

[Jedi QuestMaster]

...but make sure you don't have anything important over on those edges, because they're often offscreen due to overscan.

Ooh! I completely forgot about this. I was planning on some stages having wrap-around corridors, like Pac-Man.

Neither Famicom Bomberman 1 nor 2 seems to follow these rules so the status bar is risking of not being shown on properly adjusted TV-sets.

It looks like they're using wasting 8 pixels of space for the HUD on Bomberman 2 by having two horizontal rules. I can forego this and inch my HUD slightly lower.

The bottom wall doesn't have to be title-safe though (assuming your status bar will be at the top of the screen).

Uh oh. Will at least the top of the lower wall be seen?

I was going to have bottom exits on each stage in Adventure Mode in case the player screwed up the puzzle and wanted to start over.

I'd love to see a list of measured results from a variety of TVs at some point showing exactly how much is visible on each edge. Might be worth having a thread for people to post their TV model and results measured with a test ROM.

I can test out my 27-inch Samsung CRT. I just need a test ROM.

Edit:

Here are two field templates:

lasereyes_field_a.png (4.58 KiB) Viewed 1132 times

lasereyes_field_b.png (4.59 KiB) Viewed 1132 times

So far, I'd rather go with the Field B, because if somehow 16 pixels were cut from either the top or bottom (or both) you'd still see the exit and HUD.

I also dragged these images into NESImageConverter2.exe and they made fine sample roms:

lasereyes_field_a.nes

(80.02 KiB) Downloaded 29 times

lasereyes_field_b.nes

(80.02 KiB) Downloaded 30 times

Edit: These screens are giving me some serious Metro Cross Pac-Man 99 vibes!

[Pokun]

Yeah field B is fine.

Overscan is not a problem for Pacman-style wraparounds. Sprites going off-screen isn't really that much important information and does not really need to be within the title-safe nor the action-safe area. You see them when you see them.

[Drag]

MOTOMODO-1.png (2.6 KiB) Viewed 1090 times

For me, it's the top two rows, the bottom row and a half, and then a column off the left and right edges each, and then the rounded bezel.

So, I'd agree with leaving at least a 16-pixel margin around the screen for any kind of important text. An HDTV will probably show more of the frame. If I remember correctly, mine only cuts 1 row/col off of each edge, and the bezel is square.

[Jedi QuestMaster]

My TV is weird. It clips off 16 pixels from the top and atleast 8 from the bottom, as well as 8 from the right. So...

Top: 2 tiles
Bottom: 1 tile
Left: 0
Right: 1 tile

Things I like:
• having a visible left edge makes the wall's perspective stand out, while the right wall you can already see the perspective without having to see the right edge
• on both Fields A & B, the HUD & exit are visible

Things I despise:
• the HUD is too damn close to the bezel in Field B
• the bottom wall is nearly gone in Field A and can possibly be overlooked
• I want the HUD to have room and actually look good, maybe I could do something like this?

lasereyes_field_c.png (4.6 KiB) Viewed 1035 times

[calima]

That last one even saves a palette, using the white-grey pal for the HUD too.

[Jedi QuestMaster]

Are you sure? The text uses the same colors as the bricks: red, black, white, and tan. But I never showed the white, so you can't tell.

lasereyes_field_a_exit.png (4.04 KiB) Viewed 971 times

Here's a modified Field A with an exit arrow, so even if 16 pixels are cut off from the bottom, you can still see the exit. I don't think that will happen, though. This is the same gutter that Bomberman II uses.

lasereyes_field_a_exit2.png (3.98 KiB) Viewed 956 times

I think Field A is what I'm going to stick with, and any of these HUD layouts could work, but now's probably not the time to decide on that. Each stage is going to have different aesthetics, and I'd like to focus next on how the laser(s) interact with players/objects.

lasereyes_field_a_exit3.png (4.08 KiB) Viewed 956 times

Edit: Just testing some stuff out, nothing big.

lasereyes_field_a_exit4.png (4.86 KiB) Viewed 931 times

[Drag]

Of all the screenshots, I like the brick border the best. I also like the black status bar at the top, stylistically, but the "in-universe" status bar where the black text is written on top of the wall is fine too.