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null
Account closed
Registered: Jun 2006
Posts: 645 |
HCB - what is it and what can we do with it?
okay, so.. I was (and possibly others are) wondering what HCB is exactly? what are the possibilities and limitations of this new GFX mode? and where can I get an editor for it? :_)
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 702 |
There is not much of a dramatic increase in color/image quality when splitting $d800, nonetheless it is something which has not seem to have been done before. May as well just do fli per 4 lines and get an additional 2 colors per 4x4 block. and leave the $d800 twiddling. Nonetheless the restrictions have been reduced even if it does not make much of a visual difference (and smoother 4x4 defading/fading in multicolor in comparison to 4x8 |
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ptoing
Registered: Sep 2005
Posts: 271 |
I don't get it? How do we get 2 more colours per 4x4 with fli every 4 lines?
As I understand in full FLI you can change the bg colour every line, have 2 unique colours per 4x1 and have a 3rd colour which is fixed to the 4x8 still. Am I wrong here?
And in the HCB editor you get a new bgcolour every 4 lines, and 3 extra colours per 4x4. And also it seemed as if you can use all 40 chars.
But yeh, I do not have a lot of clue about the coding details at all, just a bit confused about this. |
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Wile Coyote
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 637 |
From the demo of HCB that appears during EoD, HCB appears to be the same as multi colour bitmap, only each char is 8x4, opposed to the normal 8x8.
/I once had an idea for new graphics mode. I called it Multi Colour Bimtap +1. The idea was to have the usual Multi Colour Bitmap screen, with an extra possible colour (provided by 1 layer of expanded hired sprites). I had this idea pre 1990. |
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Cruzer
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1048 |
ptoing: Aren't you mixing up HCB and the 4x4 dither plasma?
HCB means FLI every 4th line as well as "splitting" the d800-colors by replacing them on the fly with the excess cycles in the displayer.
Dithered 4x4 is, as far as I remember from the note, done like Xbow did the 16 color 2x2 plasma in the bonus part of DEM. This means both splitting d800, plus having a layer of sprites where the colors of each sprite and the 2 multicolors (adds up to 10 colors) are updated too. This gives each char a 4th color, but limits the width of the effect to 10 chars, or if the bg color was also used it could be 11, and you could even put half an extra char on each side to make it 12.
I might have an idea of how to make it wider though, so yes, EoD CAN be beaten! ;)
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1055 |
I don't understand HCB. I mean, I understand how it's implemented (the code at $2000 and up is easy to follow), but I don't see the advantage over plain FLI. It only uses two screens instead of eight, but the d800 speedcode eats up the difference. 3+1 colors per 8x4 pixels doesn't sound more flexible than 1+1+2 colors per 8x1. It still uses 100% rastertime.
What gives? |
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Tao
Registered: Aug 2002
Posts: 115 |
Quote: I don't understand HCB. I mean, I understand how it's implemented (the code at $2000 and up is easy to follow), but I don't see the advantage over plain FLI. It only uses two screens instead of eight, but the d800 speedcode eats up the difference. 3+1 colors per 8x4 pixels doesn't sound more flexible than 1+1+2 colors per 8x1. It still uses 100% rastertime.
What gives?
Hey, it's possible to do. What nobler reason could there possibly be to implement it? Actually being useful? Bah. It's not like the 9 sprites in the lower border in Krestology 3 was particularly useful either. It's still cool :-) |
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tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1714 |
Quote: I don't understand HCB. I mean, I understand how it's implemented (the code at $2000 and up is easy to follow), but I don't see the advantage over plain FLI. It only uses two screens instead of eight, but the d800 speedcode eats up the difference. 3+1 colors per 8x4 pixels doesn't sound more flexible than 1+1+2 colors per 8x1. It still uses 100% rastertime.
What gives?
You can free raster time (if only a little) by optimizing the picture/displayer.
First you can save two cycles for each color value that isn't used on that particular line. Secondly you can omit updating colors that are the same on this line too, saving 4 cycles for each occurance.
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JackAsser
Registered: Jun 2002
Posts: |
Quote: I don't understand HCB. I mean, I understand how it's implemented (the code at $2000 and up is easy to follow), but I don't see the advantage over plain FLI. It only uses two screens instead of eight, but the d800 speedcode eats up the difference. 3+1 colors per 8x4 pixels doesn't sound more flexible than 1+1+2 colors per 8x1. It still uses 100% rastertime.
What gives?
The gain is obviously 8x4 fades instead of 8x8 fades. :) |
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Twoflower
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 434 |
Not only that - mind that this is quite a flexible mode from a graphicians point of view. Ok - it's hard to tell since I haven't drawn an entire pic in this editor, but it feels like a quite nice format to work with. Limits within the 8X8 (=d800) is actually one of the things which really has irritated me while working with FLI. Unless you really want the pic to show off as FLI, you don't need the fast vertical changes in color that FLI enables. |
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1055 |
Quote: The gain is obviously 8x4 fades instead of 8x8 fades. :)
Hah, yeah, that's a good one :) And you only have to change the lda's, so fading d800 is "cheap".
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