Does Jurassic Park use pseudo high-res mode?

Discussion of hardware and software development for Super NES and Super Famicom. See the SNESdev wiki for more information.

Moderator: Moderators

Forum rules
  • For making cartridges of your Super NES games, see Reproduction.
iNCEPTIONAL

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

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

jeffythedragonslayer wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 12:36 pm
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.
I don't understand what that means. I'm not a programmer, so saying to add read and write breakpoints on the COLDATA port (2132h) is like a foreign language to me. How is that done, what does that do in Mesen-S, and how do I use it to tell if they've used any colour math on top of the faux semi-transparency in either of those games?
User avatar
rainwarrior
Posts: 8732
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:03 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

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

Post by rainwarrior »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 12:00 pmYes, 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)?
Honestly, I don't think there's a reason.

It works fine for what it does on the hardware they had to work with. It was a simple way to do 50% blend, probably no easier or harder to implement than the actual hardware colour blend.

They just happened to pick the uncommon way to do it for the SNES.

On Genesis people did this exact technique all the time, because it didn't have a true hardware blend. It's a pretty "normal" way to do it, but because SNES had a dedicated hardware feature for it, almost everybody else who wanted a blend solved it that way instead.

The difference just didn't really matter until RGB became common. We easily notice notice now because emulators don't do pseudo-hires like an old TV did.
Pokun wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 2:39 pmDidn'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?
I don't think Kirby 3 does anything that couldn't have just been done with 50% blend colour math. At least, it definitely isn't in the first water level, or anywhere else I've checked so far.


The one thing that people seem to justify its use for is to use for is COLDATA to do some per-scanline colour tinting on something that also has transparency. That's definitely possible, but I haven't yet caught either of those two pseudo-hires games doing this. It'd be a pretty limited effect, like I guess you could do a rainbow gradient on something that looks transparent? There's probably better ways to do that, especially in this post-RGB era.
User avatar
olddb
Posts: 188
Joined: Thu Oct 26, 2017 12:29 pm
Contact:

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

Post by olddb »

rainwarrior wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 7:46 pm
Pokun wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 2:39 pmDidn'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?
I don't think Kirby 3 does anything that couldn't have just been done with 50% blend colour math. At least, it definitely isn't in the first water level, or anywhere else I've checked so far.
Secret of Mana uses the checkered technique for the dialogue window. Probably because of this same reason?
...
User avatar
rainwarrior
Posts: 8732
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:03 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

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

Post by rainwarrior »

olddb wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 8:15 pmSecret of Mana uses the checkered technique for the dialogue window. Probably because of this same reason?
They did it to have a dialog box that had both "transparent" and opaque parts on the same BG3 layer. It blends fairly well over composite, though it's also intended to have a coarse pattern to it.

It's not nearly as smoothly as blended as pesudo-hires though, since its half the resolution, and it's notoriously hard to read in RGB/emulator situations.
iNCEPTIONAL

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

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

jeffythedragonslayer wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 5:03 pm My tutorial might help you:

https://wiki.superfamicom.org/data-breakpoints
Thank you, genuinely, but,

I'm not sure you quite understand what I'm saying: Even if I could follow that guide to add break points, I literally don't understand a single line of whatever code it is that is being shown there [or would be shown for whatever game], so it wouldn't help me personally determine anything the game is doing as far as I can tell, which isn't going to help me as the designer and artist on my own game know some best practices and/or interesting/novel ways to use the system's feature set. Again, it's like looking at a foreign language to me. Now, I get that I would surely understand it if I learned to program for SNES, but, as the designer and artist of my game, that's not what I want to do as it would take me literally years (I'm a very slow learner when it comes to this whole programming stuff, and even just learning new software in general), and I'm just trying to find some quick answers to queries I have about how/why some things are being done on the system, which I can then use to help guide me when designing my own game and creating the art, levels and effects that I would then hand over to the actual programmer to implement in the game when ready. Me basically learning to read SNES Assembly programming language just to answer general queries and have a basic understanding of possibly why these developers used faux transparency rather than colour math in Jurassic Park and Kirby's Dream Land 3 [in this particular instance] doesn't make sense. Does that make sense?

Honestly, I'm just trying to get a general understanding of some of these things on a very high level, one of a game designer and artist rather than an Assembly programmer, so I'm mostly asking you guys who already know such things in here as a means to get some of that info without having to become a programmer myself. Think of it like Miyamoto asking the programmer on some game "I'm thinking of trying this idea in one of the levels. Can this be done and how? Is this example in this other game potentially something we could use to implement what I what to do in our game?" vs him going away and becoming a programmer himself just to answer that more tech-spec/code-based question, which he's likely looking for the answer to in the next minutes-days rather than taking months-years to get to that answer himself.

I'm not trying to be jack of all trades here. I want to stick to being the designer and artist--I've learned my lesson from mediocre past attempts at trying to be the programmer for a bunch of my own games--and I'm hoping the programming wizards in here can answer any of the questions I have that might veer more into tech-spec/coding territory to answer, and then I can continue designing, creating the art for and prototyping my game knowing I'm basically on the right track and not doing things entirely incorrectly such that they won't actually work on the SNES.

Sorry if I'm confusing things by making people in here think I'm a programmer and/or interested in learning any level of SNES programming myself. I'm not a programmer and am not interested in going down the whole programming route again. I'm just asking a few questions and hoping I can get answers to help with some of the things I'm thinking about doing in my SNES game from people with far more knowledge about all things SNES hardware/firmware/feature/code related than I.
User avatar
jeffythedragonslayer
Posts: 344
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:29 pm

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

Post by jeffythedragonslayer »

I understand, but I also have been working on this system around the clock and still don't feel like I know very much about it yet. If I had a better answer I would tell you.
iNCEPTIONAL

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

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

jeffythedragonslayer wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 3:16 am I understand, but I also have been working on this system around the clock and still don't feel like I know very much about it yet. If I had a better answer I would tell you.
That's no problem. I'm grateful for any support and answers provided thus far. :)
iNCEPTIONAL

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

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

dougeff wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 8:15 am 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.
Well it does seem like that is the case but I have to assume they must have had some reason for going the pseudo high-res faux semi-transparency route here, especially the Kirby team, as I know those guys are pretty amazing programmers in general (as least based on most of their Kirby titles and now being basically first party and the like). And even the Jurassic Park game has some amazing coding feats in it as well, such as the fps sections for example, so I tend to believe the same of them too. I feel like there must be some reason it made/makes sense to use the pseudo high-res faux semi-transparency in these cases, but I can't for the life of me figure it out (maybe they simply wanted to demonstrate the mode being used since most developers just ignored it). If I could understand the choice then it might at least help me better decide if it would be worth using it over the more typical colour math transparency myself in some places in my own game. I guess I just don't like not knowing the why. Lol :-o
User avatar
Nikku4211
Posts: 569
Joined: Sun Dec 15, 2019 1:28 pm
Location: Florida
Contact:

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

Post by Nikku4211 »

rainwarrior wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 7:46 pm The difference just didn't really matter until RGB became common. We easily notice notice now because emulators don't do pseudo-hires like an old TV did.
I'm sorry, but outside of emulation, did RGB really become 'common'?

I think it's mostly emulation (and HDTVs) that became common.
If you have a real console, and your TV, CRT or not, still has composite or RF, isn't the standard user just going to use those cables and not care much for an upscaler?

But yeah, in the post-SNES9x era, it matters now, but it didn't back in the mid-90s.
I have an ASD, so empathy is not natural for me. If I hurt you, I apologise.
calima
Posts: 1745
Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2015 10:16 am

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

Post by calima »

If you're that curious about why they used it, ask them. It's not like the production team is dead yet.
iNCEPTIONAL

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

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

calima wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 7:27 am If you're that curious about why they used it, ask them. It's not like the production team is dead yet.
Well, I'm not THAT curious, not enough to go hunt down the original dev team and email them about it, knowing fine well they probably won't even respond. lol

It's an interesting thought though.
turboxray
Posts: 348
Joined: Thu Oct 31, 2019 12:56 am

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

Post by turboxray »

rainwarrior wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 7:46 pm
iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 12:00 pmYes, 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)?
Honestly, I don't think there's a reason.
I pointed out a possible reason in my post. Honestly, just setup a test rom with a still-shot from Kirby 3 (from a save state or such). Implement both ways, and see how both look over composite. I'm willing to bet there is a difference. I'm just curious of how much a difference it is.
iNCEPTIONAL

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

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

turboxray wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 9:33 am
rainwarrior wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 7:46 pm
iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 12:00 pmYes, 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)?
Honestly, I don't think there's a reason.
I pointed out a possible reason in my post. Honestly, just setup a test rom with a still-shot from Kirby 3 (from a save state or such). Implement both ways, and see how both look over composite. I'm willing to bet there is a difference. I'm just curious of how much a difference it is.
Without being able to do such a test myself (I'm hoping someone with actual knowledge of SNES than programming gives it a go), I would imagine the faux method is always going to look a little worse no matter the display*, so I still come back to thinking there must have been some reason from them making that slight visual trade-off. Other than them maybe just wanting to use one of SNES' rarer-seen background modes for the sake of it, possibly just to show they could, I can't think of the reason though.

*Although, to be fair, I never realised this water in Super Mario World was done with dithering until recent times: https://youtu.be/l0XtXB0fEaA?t=452
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Mon Jun 27, 2022 10:11 am, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
rainwarrior
Posts: 8732
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:03 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

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

Post by rainwarrior »

Nikku4211 wrote: Mon Jun 27, 2022 6:39 am
rainwarrior wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 7:46 pm The difference just didn't really matter until RGB became common. We easily notice notice now because emulators don't do pseudo-hires like an old TV did.
I'm sorry, but outside of emulation, did RGB really become 'common'?
I very explicitly included emulators in the point I was making, but yes, outside of them RGB is also something I'd call common now. It's not the most common hardware setup, but lots of people have RGB output with their SNES now, as opposed to 1992 where basically nobody did.
Post Reply