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Wile Coyote
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 646 |
Green Beret - Is any interested in..
Is anyone interested in making a new version / conversion for the C64, as I am sure it can be done better than the original official Imagine release. The Imagine release was impressive especially the Audio which could be re-used, or conversed to use less raster time, although the graphics, and some of the playability could be much improved.
Ideas:
If the game were based on disk / cartridge, I thought it would make sense to load each level during the interlude screens.
With the extra memory, maybe it would be possible to use hires overlays on the sprites.
If the score were placed in the upper border, the playing area could be increased, to match that / be similar to that of the Arcade version. |
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3145 |
open a bounty for it (lol) |
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STE'86
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 274 |
i would have thought that hi res sprite overlays would be a touch ambitious for green beret. there are rather alot of potential sprites in a line during sections of that game.
and bearing in mind that the original was written by Dave Collier who was a sprite multiplexer pioneer, the sprites in green beret have some problems with glitches when lots of nasties appear.
i'm not saying that the graphics couldnt be improved, but hi res overlays would be pushing your luck i think :)
Steve |
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v3to
Registered: Feb 2005
Posts: 150 |
green beret graphics can be improved in some ways, but i agree with steve that overlay sprites are probably a bit too much. but more fluid animation should do...
stephen wahid did a pretty good job with the char-bg-gfx. actually there might be some chars left if there are unique sets for each level, but thinking of the colorscheme of the arcade there is very limited potential. slightly better dithering here or one more screw and weld seam there.
to get a more high-detail-level or something like that you need a more flexible color combination for the characterset and this means loosing authenticity.
green beret uses the fixed colors "light blue - medium grey - black" and you would need something like "brown - light blue - light grey" to become more flexible. the bg would get a different look (more dirty, divergent contrast, less saturated). |
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STE'86
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 274 |
i've just been staring at the green beret screns on lemon for the first time in many years and tbh i can't see a way of improving the the colours either.
it seems to me that the colours picked are pretty much required for all the levels to provide clarity and contrast against the sprites given the lower 8 colour limit on char colour.
given that Collier is scrolling pretty vast amounts of colour ram in GB and its associated memory overhead, the only way i could see an improvement would be a transient (multiload).
possibly given memory you could have multiple "flagged" charsets per level in memory for added detail.
in such a system you could do the following:
(AAAAAAAABBCCCCCCC)
where A are screens comprising 1 charset C are screens defined by another charset and B are screens built from say 50 chars common to both sets. charsets can then be switched over when uncommon chars are no longer visible on screen.
HOWEVER, having looked at GB again, i would hazard a guess that Collier may already be doing this in the area between the red bridge and the missile trucks :)
so basically it would come down to the possibility of improving the draughtsmanship and not much else :)
Steve |
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Wile Coyote
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 646 |
1x1 hires font could be improved. It could look 100% like the Arcade game font.
Title screen logo. It could look 100% like the Arcade game, all-be-it using the C64s Green.
In game:
Sky colour, I would have chosen Cyan, not Medium Blue as used my Imagine.
Pixeling of the back drops could be much improved.
Sprites:
If hires overlays are not possible, I still think it would be possible to create sprites that look like those of the Arcade games, complete with black outlines.
Playability:
The Imagine game featured 2 major faults:
1. The enemy bullet speed was too fast.
2. While running along ground, the player when jumping can be effectively kicked in the head. This never happen on the Arcade game.
The C64 Green Beret was actually tougher than the Arcade game. I could complete the Arcade game, but not the C64 conversion. |
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v3to
Registered: Feb 2005
Posts: 150 |
for the bg cyan is not the best choice for bg, though it may be possible to get a bit more detail by pixelling transitions. there are some color-combinations with the variable color that will provide problems. that is the reason why i think you need a lighter shade of grey or you need to use cyan like grey. both versions would cause a color cast.
the whole thing would look more grey-ish.
playability: agree, without a doubt. |
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STE'86
Registered: Jul 2009
Posts: 274 |
well, personally i found the cyan of the c64 not very easy on the eye. but technically yes the arcade is closer to the "duck egg" colour of c64 cyan. tho tbh i am unsure how well this would "gel" with the other c64 colours.
the draughtsmanship yes could probably be improved in a few areas. Steve Wahid did pretty well in this conversion but he wasnt a graphic artist in the Steve Thompson class. But again in defence, drawing stuff in char mode takes a different mindset to doing it in bitmap or you run out of chars quicksmart.
you are in no way ever going to get black outlines in those sprites, sorry but its never going to happen in 2:1 multicolour mode.
fair point about the c64 version being so hard, but in mitigation, the bullet speed is so because its alomost certainly a software sprite and so has to move 8 pixels a time.
Steve
edit no i am reliably informed the bullets are HW sprites and move fast to get them off the screen quickly to prevent the multiplexor overloading and glitching. :) |
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Wile Coyote
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 646 |
With the original Steve Wahid graphics, they look stretched horizontally.
This had the knock on affect of making the play area appear lacking in height.
One idea might have been to narrow the play area width. Another idea might have been to keep the wider player area, and show more of the backdrop.
Speaking hypothetically, and given the fact Im not a programmer, the illusion of a taller play area might be possible.
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cadaver
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1154 |
But what's the pixel aspect ratio on the real arcade screen? The resolution seems similar to NES, which stretches its pixels horizontally to fill the TV screen, but emulators don't always emulate that.
Of the graphics, you could possibly achieve more colorful level backgrounds by not making black a common color, but a char color instead. However at some points that could be a detriment. Or perhaps even using bitmap mode and VSP scrolling :) |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 703 |
Sprites with overlays would give 4 characters on one section (including player) But would need to take into account any enemies/player jumping up to next section on screen (eg if there are already 4 players on the top platform=no more sprites. but the AI would take care of that. would ofcourse require a considerable amount of multiplexing although would not hit cpu resources greatly and due to the simplicity of the background graphics, charmode will do (although bitmap and vsp) would give more color combinations.
For the bullets/missile, would be easier to use charmode and to eor the bullets with the background
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