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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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WVL
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 902 |
Quote: Hah, yeah, that's a good one :) And you only have to change the lda's, so fading d800 is "cheap".
and you can buffer the 2 screens to 2 other screens.. ;) |
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DeeKay
Registered: Nov 2002
Posts: 363 |
Quote: 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
Well, Rayden did a FLI-Plasma in his SCPU demo that had new $d800 in every line, but for standard c64 this is probably the first time, yes! ;-)
I still find it useless, since it uses just as much rastertime as FLI, also has the FLI-bug (which you can btw cover nicely with sprites, too, in FLI, if you want to! 8) Ever seen Xbow's FLI-Profi?) and because it essentially offers LESS colors than FLI..
Seriously: How many people have ever run out of colors in MCol FLI? How many times did you think "Damn, i wish i could have another $d800 in that char" when working in FLI? 8)
For me Mcol-FLI is pretty much arbitrary colors already, so why would I need 3 new colors every fourth line instead of 2 new colors every line? 8) |
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Danzig
Registered: Jun 2002
Posts: 440 |
Quote: Well, Rayden did a FLI-Plasma in his SCPU demo that had new $d800 in every line, but for standard c64 this is probably the first time, yes! ;-)
I still find it useless, since it uses just as much rastertime as FLI, also has the FLI-bug (which you can btw cover nicely with sprites, too, in FLI, if you want to! 8) Ever seen Xbow's FLI-Profi?) and because it essentially offers LESS colors than FLI..
Seriously: How many people have ever run out of colors in MCol FLI? How many times did you think "Damn, i wish i could have another $d800 in that char" when working in FLI? 8)
For me Mcol-FLI is pretty much arbitrary colors already, so why would I need 3 new colors every fourth line instead of 2 new colors every line? 8)
I see the SIZE-improvment... it could get the proper new gfx-mode for intros... |
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Copyfault
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 478 |
Interesting mode indeed...
I was curious if this mode would really work without any FLI-bugs. After some q'n'd tests I managed to reveal the FLI-bug on every 2nd 'half char line'. Any other behaviour would've really suprised me;)
Some notes on optimizing the viewer code: just like WVL noted it is enough to work with 8 x lda #col (long live SAX); but it is even possible to just use 7 x lda #col saving additional 2 cycles per 'half char line' (there are max. 3 cols in one char so you can always choose a 'good one' for d800).
A real advantage over normal FLI is the following flexibility: for every 2nd 'half char line' the speedcode for updating d800-colors does not necessarily need to be done in the rasterlines directly before but e.g. like this
rl---hcl---code
---------------------------------------------------------
0---00---(badline)
1---00---update d800cols for next hcl
2---00---"
3---00---"
---------------------------------------------------------
4---01---(badline)
5---01---do some fancy stuff (digis, sprite plexer,...)
6---01---"
7---01---"
---------------------------------------------------------
etc.
This not only allows for some funny things like e.g. digis or sprite plexers but also frees up rastertime considering the complete frame, because updating the d800-colors for _every_ charline in the lower border only needs the 8 x lda #col once!
I'm sure there's even more advantages 'hidden' in this mode. Thanks to HCL for making it real! Me likes it a lot! |
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WVL
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 902 |
HOLD ON!
You're not updating $d800 every 4 rasterlines now, and I agree that this works.. but. After you've run the displayer once, $d800 holds different data than it did before!
So you need to write $d800 back to the way it was before you ran the displayer for the first time. timeconsuming!
Maybe you can work around it if you have 2 different displayers, but I dont think so.. since the colors you write for the 2nd 'halfline' are now used for the first 'halfline'
Anyway, I think that's a no-go! or at least you can expone the writes, but that's all. (note : this does save on rastertime, since you only need to do 8x lda to restore the _whole_ $d800 screen)
Oh wait. Now i read your message again, this was exactly what you were planning :D I'm teh dumb. And perff : can you add and BBcode? |
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DeeKay
Registered: Nov 2002
Posts: 363 |
copyfault: Maybe you can do some other stuff in the second half-char, but keep in mind that a HCB pic is also less colorful than an FLI pic. So for a bit more colors, is it really preferrable over standard Mcol bitmap? 8)
Keep in mind, like Graham said: 90% of all FLI pics can be converted to Mcol bitmap with no visible or just very little loss of color fidelity! ;-) I remember xbow once even did that with the Dutch Breeze FLI-gallery pics, just for shits'n'giggles, and *I* had a hard time telling the difference! 8) And you don't wanna know how much time I spent looking at these fantastic works by Hein! ;-D
I'm rather sure that JB pic in Ninja's 6-sprite FLI-routine could even be converted with ZERO loss! 8)
So, summing up: To get teh color orgasm you need a motive and a gfxian that makes full use of the colors first and foremost. Whenever I do FLI, i make sure it's worth it, check the FLI-Stretcher Crest Logo in Krestage 2 or the end-gfx in Risen from Oblivion VIC. I highly doubt these could be converted to HCB. And don't forget: There's also some mighty colorful bitmap gfx out there that look like FLI already! ;-)
And hey, did I mention that I've seen quite a few Multiplexers over full FLI and also digis (Dane himself did it long ago, and so did Jolz/Ons) already? <:-) |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980 |
Quote:
Maybe you can work around it if you have 2 different displayers, but I dont think so.. since the colors you write for the 2nd 'halfline' are now used for the first 'halfline'
But then you can at least toggle the start position +/- 4 scanlines each frame though, using a 2nd bitmap. Rastertime for fancy stuff again \o/ |
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algorithm
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 705 |
FLI should only be used if necessary. an extra 7k and nearly full processor usage on a pic that can be displayed nearly as good in multicolor is not worth it at all. The opposite can ofcourse be said to the Hires equivelant (HIFLI). A great example of what can be achieved in MCol mode is in the end part of DEM (Lovely pics by mermaid) |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980 |
It should also be possible to update only 20 $d800 values every 4 lines instead of 40 every 8 lines, so the fancy stuff can be spread more evenly, good for digis. |
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Style
Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 498 |
how so krill? |
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