Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

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iNCEPTIONAL

Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

Does it use the pseudo high-res mode in the normal levels in order to do the faux semi-transparent HUD, and if not, how is that effect being achieved there (the HUD pixels definitely look half the width of normal pixels to me, with every second half-pixel missing): https://youtu.be/MTKwNEN8FXw (check the 7:37 mark)

And, as I asked in another thread on a similar topic, I don't see any other proper semi-transparency effects going on in the game, so why not just use normal colour math here for the semi-transparent HUD instead?

Note: When I say pseudo high-res mode, I don't mean to achieve a higher resolution in this case but as a way to fake the transparency, just in case I'm using the wrong name for the mode when it's not actually about faking a higher resolution.
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Sun Jun 26, 2022 2:37 am, edited 2 times in total.
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jeffythedragonslayer
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Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by jeffythedragonslayer »

Psuedo hi-res mode sounds to me like a topic that is not very well understood. See examples:

viewtopic.php?t=21080
https://board.zsnes.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=47257

A good explanation would be super helpful for me as well. If I wanted to know specifically how that game works, I would start by dumping the rom with my Retrode, loading it into Mesen-SX, looking at which background mode(s) are used, and what bit 3 of SETINI (2133h) is set to. See Display Control 2 here:

http://problemkaputt.de/fullsnes.htm#snesppucontrol
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

jeffythedragonslayer wrote: Sat Jun 25, 2022 8:39 pm Psuedo hi-res mode sounds to me like a topic that is not very well understood. See examples:

viewtopic.php?t=21080
https://board.zsnes.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=47257

A good explanation would be super helpful for me as well. If I wanted to know specifically how that game works, I would start by dumping the rom with my Retrode, loading it into Mesen-SX, looking at which background mode(s) are used, and what bit 3 of SETINI (2133h) is set to. See Display Control 2 here:

http://problemkaputt.de/fullsnes.htm#snesppucontrol
Well Mesen-S shows me it's on background 3 and it's solid looking there, so I presume it is doing some kind of pseudo high-res "processing" effect on it to achieve the faux semi-transparency, but I can't really tell how any of it works here for sure just from looking at the emulator. I guess I can at least deduce that as an artist I'd just give the programmer a typical background layer graphic and ask them to "turn on" pseudo high-res on the layer if I wanted to use the same faux semi-transparency effect in my game, which is what I think people have told me before.

What's strange to me is that I can't see any other kind of obvious transparency or colour math going on in the game, so I still don't understand why they'd want/need to use the pseudo high-res to achieve the HUD effect here rather than just going with the typical colour math version of transparency, which would obviously look nicer. Do you know any particular easy-to-grasp-for-a-layman reason?

I'd be curious to see someone do a test using a background layer with colour math for typical semi-transparency vs the same background using pseudo high-res for faux semi-transparency, to see the overall difference and figure out if there's actually a good reason why using the faux version is sometimes better, even when no other obvious colour math is being used in the game anyway.
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Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by Pokun »

Isn't it just a grill pattern? Every other pixel column being transparent to make it see-through without the need of any hardware effects.
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Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by dougeff »

I personally think that Color Math (add w half) looks better and has more options for control. So, I would have told the Kirby DL3 and Jurassic Park teams they chose poorly.
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jeffythedragonslayer
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Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by jeffythedragonslayer »

Have to agree with Doug here, especially with the dithering shadows.
iNCEPTIONAL wrote: What's strange to me is that I can't see any other kind of obvious transparency or colour math going on in the game, so I still don't understand why they'd want/need to use the pseudo high-res to achieve the HUD effect here rather than just going with the typical colour math version of transparency, which would obviously look nicer. Do you know any particular easy-to-grasp-for-a-layman reason?
Doug makes color math sound easy, but in general I regard anything that involves multiple render targets as an advanced computer graphics topic. Since you see no other examples color math anywhere in the game, I'd guess it's simply because the team only learned how to use psuedo hi-res mode and not color math. I think Seiken Densetsu 3 looks way better than Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and has a lot better collision detection too even though these games were both made by the same company; in FFMQ your character is more or less locked to the tile grid but in SD3 you can roam much more freely and the game rotates your velocity vector by 90s until you are aligned to the tile grid again when you walk into walls and cliffs - that's something I don't see a lot of games try to do. One game was released early in the console's market cycle and it just takes time to learn how to implement features.

Here's what nocash has to say:
fullsnes wrote: The TV picture is so blurry, that the result will look quite similar to Color Addition with Div2 - some games (Jurassic Park and Kirby's Dream Land 3) are actually using it for that purpose; the advantage is that one can additionally apply COLDATA addition to (both) main/sub-screen layers, ie. the result looks like "(main+sub)/2+coldata".
So while real transparency would look better, this looks a lot worse than it would with color math would because we're watching it on youtube and can see the jagged edges; it's meant to be blurred.
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Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by Pokun »

Yeah the game is probably played on an emulator (it says 4K in the description) or a modern TV/capture-device. A CRT is really needed for the dithering transparency to show up as intended, that and a CVBS cable (or maybe S-video) instead of an RGB one.
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Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by creaothceann »

Pokun wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 9:23 am Yeah the game is probably played on an emulator (it says 4K in the description) or a modern TV/capture-device. A CRT is really needed for the dithering transparency to show up as intended, that and a CVBS cable (or maybe S-video) instead of an RGB one.
Well, there are CRT shaders.
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Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by olddb »

Pokun wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 7:52 am Isn't it just a grill pattern? Every other pixel column being transparent to make it see-through without the need of any hardware effects.
It looks like it.
Look at the main character's shadow. It's also using a checkered pattern to create a transparent effect.
...
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

Pokun wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 7:52 am Isn't it just a grill pattern? Every other pixel column being transparent to make it see-through without the need of any hardware effects.
Well, technically that's what it looks like it's doing, but the pixels there are definitely thinner than regular pixels, which I assume can only be achieved via either pseudo high-res or real high-res. It's not just a normal example of missing out every second pixel, like say the faux transparent waterfalls in Sonic.
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Sun Jun 26, 2022 12:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

jeffythedragonslayer wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 9:05 am Here's what nocash has to say:
fullsnes wrote: The TV picture is so blurry, that the result will look quite similar to Color Addition with Div2 - some games (Jurassic Park and Kirby's Dream Land 3) are actually using it for that purpose; the advantage is that one can additionally apply COLDATA addition to (both) main/sub-screen layers, ie. the result looks like "(main+sub)/2+coldata".
So while real transparency would look better, this looks a lot worse than it would with color math would because we're watching it on youtube and can see the jagged edges; it's meant to be blurred.
Yes, but what does that actually mean [in a way that's layman can understand)? Why did they use this pseudo high-res method to achieve semi-transparency rather than just using proper semi-transparency via colour math here (and in both those examples)? If it's because the programmers didn't know how to use colour math then okay, but that absolutely couldn't have been why they used it in Kirby's Dream Land 3 as they had Iwata at that company and he was a programming genius; those guys definitely knew how to use colour math for sure. Did they even apply any extra "COLDATA addition" in either KDL3 or JP above, and if not then surely that's not why they used the pseudo high-res mode, so what other reasons might there be to use it and what is the difference to just using colour math normally in such cases where apparently no other "COLDATA addition" was used?

Let me try to be real clear and simple: If they used pseudo high-res for faux transparency alongside some other form of colour math to say have semi-transparent sprites on top of the other faux semi-transparency effect, I'd totally get why they used pseudo high-res here, but if they didn't then I still don't understand why using pseudo high-res here for faux semi-transparency makes any sense. But there surely has to be a sensible reason for it's use here, you'd think, and I'm still trying to figure out what that was in both those game's cases.
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Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by jeffythedragonslayer »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Did they even apply any extra "COLDATA addition" in either KDL3 or JP above
That actually sounds like one of the easier questions to answer. Add read and write breakpoints on the COLDATA port (2132h) in Mesen-SX.
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Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by turboxray »

jeffythedragonslayer wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 9:05 am
fullsnes wrote: The TV picture is so blurry, that the result will look quite similar to Color Addition with Div2 - some games (Jurassic Park and Kirby's Dream Land 3) are actually using it for that purpose; the advantage is that one can additionally apply COLDATA addition to (both) main/sub-screen layers, ie. the result looks like "(main+sub)/2+coldata".
So while real transparency would look better, this looks a lot worse than it would with color math would because we're watching it on youtube and can see the jagged edges; it's meant to be blurred.
Just wanted to say, that it's technically not the same. While the average would essentially be the same (a+b)/2 when assuming a perfect blend/blur, this relies on composite video. You're definitely not outputting 512 "colored" pixels on the color subcarrier, so the raw RGB values are not being averaged the same way. Just sayin.
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Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by Pokun »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 11:49 am
Pokun wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 7:52 am Isn't it just a grill pattern? Every other pixel column being transparent to make it see-through without the need of any hardware effects.
Well, technically that's what it looks like it's doing, but the pixels there are definitely thinner than regular pixels, which I assume can only be achieved via either pseudo high-res or real high-res. It's not just a normal example of missing out every second pixel, like say the faux transparent waterfalls in Sonic.
Yeah maybe the pixels in the HUD are thinner than outside it, so I guess H-pseudo 512 mode might be enabled. I suppose making them thinner makes the semi-transparency look better since the grill pattern uses finer bars in that case. It's quite easy to tell if the true H-512 mode is used or not, it can only be used with screen mode 5 and 6 and is always enabled in those screen modes with no way to disable it.

Didn't Kirby 3 use dithering because the colour math is already used for semi-transparent water or something, so they needed an additional way to make the foreground semi-transparent?
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

Pokun wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 2:39 pm
iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 11:49 am
Pokun wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 7:52 am Isn't it just a grill pattern? Every other pixel column being transparent to make it see-through without the need of any hardware effects.
Well, technically that's what it looks like it's doing, but the pixels there are definitely thinner than regular pixels, which I assume can only be achieved via either pseudo high-res or real high-res. It's not just a normal example of missing out every second pixel, like say the faux transparent waterfalls in Sonic.
Yeah maybe the pixels in the HUD are thinner than outside it, so I guess H-pseudo 512 mode might be enabled. I suppose making them thinner makes the semi-transparency look better since the grill pattern uses finer bars in that case. It's quite easy to tell if the true H-512 mode is used or not, it can only be used with screen mode 5 and 6 and is always enabled in those screen modes with no way to disable it.

Didn't Kirby 3 use dithering because the colour math is already used for semi-transparent water or something, so they needed an additional way to make the foreground semi-transparent?
Mesen-S seems to suggest Jurassic Park is using Mode 1, with background 3 being the one that's used for the HUD and has the pseudo high-res applied to get the faux semi-transparency.

Kirby 3 only uses the faux transparency for everything in the game with semi-transparency that I can see in the game, be is some foreground cacti, water or whatever.
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