I give up. The Genesis is true 16Bit and the PCE is a 16Bit imposter.

[Joe Redifer]

I can't imagine why/how anyone would complain about fake parallax (how can you even tell?)

If the fake parallax isn't done well, parts of it will flicker away when there is too much action on certain parts of the screen.

CrackTiger was saying something kind of similar I think, but I'd like to drive the point home:  I am more impressed when a TurboGrafx game does parallax scrolling than I am when a Genesis game does it.  Why?  Because I know the Turbo only has one background to mess with since it is super crippled/weak/handicapped/mentally incompetent/mentally disturbed/etc.  When the Genesis does this effect, I think "OK whatevs" since it does it all the time.  But on the Turbo the developer needs to put more effort into it which usually makes the game a bit more special to me.  I am impressed by the evil programming trickery done to fool me.

[SignOfZeta]

Phantasy Star 4 crushes anything that came out for PCE. 

I'm actually playing through PSIV right now. I'm having to grind to beat the final boss in that fucking air castle. I like this game a lot, but I like the Final Fantasy games from that period more. Also, several PCE games.

Plus, it would have been impossible to port to the PCE.

I can't see one thing in this game the PCE couldn't do. Enlighten me.

[Emerald Rocker]

Metamor Jupiter's flight down the spinning barrel of a giant laser cannon is far more impressive than Super Castlevania 4's dumb randomly-spinning corridor.  Therefore, the PCE is better than the SNES.  Even if Metamor Jupiter's visually simplistic first level boss (all it does is scale and rotate) brought the system down to a crawl.

But Gunstar Heroes on Genesis had the boss "Melon Bread" who could not be replicated on PCE (due to technical limitations) or SNES (due to slow processor speed) so I don't see why people keep trying to compare the systems.

[Ceti Alpha]

In the PCE's case one of its drawback is its sound chip...Which is only a step up from what the NES could do.

I'm sorry.  What?

32 byte waveforms, 5-bit amplitudes, 6 channels with stereo panning, samples on every channel, and you say its only a step above what the NES can do?

WHAT?

It's on par and even surpasses the Konami SCC due to stereo panning, an extra channel, and sampling capabilities.  SCC has 8-bit amplitudes.  That's its only better part.

Either way.

WHAT?

Yeah, can't agree more with that:

Soldier Blade music NES -

Soldier Blade music OBEY -

FC Engine on YouTube (aka Ninja Spirit) has done some awesome NES music from existing PCE/TG games. Very impressive stuff, but you can really tell the difference. But, going with the Soldier Blade theme here's Ninja Spirit's Super Famicom remix of the same music. Sounds great. Not superior to the PCE, but just different:

Soldier Blade music SNES:

[Arkhan Asylum]

The PCE has the best sound chip of any of these systems to me..  Even in the hands of a jackass, the sounds come out ok.  The have that warm, smooth lead that sounds great with arcade style games.  SNES has sampleitis, like the Amiga, where arcade games just don't sound right.  The music isn't smooth and buttery enough.   I wish arcade cabinets had a similar chip in them more often than FM chips.  It would have ruled!

FM's biggest drawback is man, if you do it wrong, you will make ears bleed.   I love FM, but theres a TON of farty stuff out there that shouldn't have left the labs.  I'm looking at you, IREM.

I rank it

PCE-->MegaDrive--->SNES for music.

Both FM and PCEPSG are way more than a step above NES.  Unless you're taking some giant steps.

[SignOfZeta]

All that SNES transparency does is tint. But it's used for so many other effects that are much more effectively rendered with "fake" techniques. In reality, when SNES games use hardware transparency to attempt an effect other than tinting, it's the SNES game's effect that is "fake". The only thing "real" about SNES transparency is how much it is SNES transparency. Hardware built-in effects are only a method, just like when hardware renders an effect without a dedicated built-in chip. It's the effect itself in the end that is real.

Nah. "Real" transparencies are seen on the Saturn, the PS, and almost anything newer except for 16-bit arcade hardware. Real transparencies don't flicker. They don't change the rate at which they flicker when the action gets heavy, etc. The Hyper Cocoon in Gate of Thunder. When the music track changes from stage to boss one half of it will become completly opaque, and the other will disappear entirely...fake transparency. Fake transparencies aren't transparent in screen shots (unless they are the OG type taken with a Polaroid and a monitor hood) and they work for shit with almost any digital capture/tansfer device including LCD TVs. A "real" transparency is always see through, no matter what else is going on.

Every transparency on every retail PCE game is fake. They flicker completely opaque objects, usually inconsistently. Its just a fact. Fuck tech demos, they are neat but I can't play them. You not being able to tell the difference between a code based version of this effect and the SNES's hardware accelerate one is either wishful thinking or shitty eyesight.

But hey, all of this is okay! I mean, seriously, calm down. Obviously I love the PCE. I'm here, aren't I? I'm not some slobbering Nintendo fanboy. For the past several years I've played almost nothing but PCE, and lately a lot of Neo and Genesis, none of these systems do what the SNES does with the see-through stuff. I haven't even bothered to replace my SNES collection since my girlfriend dumped me four years ago and took off with it) but I'm not going to...pretend, which is what you are doing.

Sure Yoshi's Island had an onboard coprocessor and the PCE could have done that...but it didn't, so it doesn't do me any fucking good. Its pointless to mention never used potential. Again, I reference the kid with the shitty report card that could have done better "if he tried".

I guess then that you view the PC Engine as a 'shitty underachiever' when it comes to graphics? Nobody here is questioning that, what many of us are saying is that the PCE already has so many games that are visually impressive to the rest of us. Equal to or greater than in some aspects and/or overall than the most impressive SNES games. Of course, the Genesis technically crushes both consoles with its 32X games, which also run off of additional processing hardware.

No, I don't think the PCE is shitty. (See above). What I'm saying is that the potential inclusion of a non-existant coprocessor doesn't influence my opinion of the machine (which I love). What matters is actual games that exist here in this dimension. Therefore I'm going to respect the SNES's achievement with Yoshi's Island and not write it off as something the PCE could have done in some fantasy word.

[Emerald Rocker]

Yoshi's Island could have been done on the Xbox.

[SignOfZeta]

Yoshi's Island could have been done on the Xbox.

It has been done on XBox.

[OldRover]

Plus, it would have been impossible to port to the PCE.

I can't see one thing in this game the PCE couldn't do. Enlighten me.

Me neither. The only thing that the PCE would require a little trickery with is the minuscule amount of parallax scrolling in the caves... but even that is easily solved. I've been thinking about doing a PSIV port to the PCE for a few years now and all of these things have already gone through my head many times over. A 4MB bank-switched cartridge could be made with ease, not unlike SFIICE. However, who would want to? The sound wouldn't be quite the same, and if the graphics were converted directly, it wouldn't look up to par with most other RPGs on the PCE... although some color expansion plus massive amounts of retouching would solve that and make it look awesome. It's still fun to think about. PSIV didn't push the MD hardware in any way so there's really nothing to it that couldn't be done on the PCE.

Now... converting it for the SNES? Can't be done. Why not? Resolution. The SNES operates in 256 or 512 horizontal pixels, PSIV uses 320 horizontal pixels. You're not going to be able to faithfully reproduce the resolution of the game, and therefore, the game will take a major hit because of it. Why the SNES is locked in 256/512 is beyond me. I have searched high and low for information that might allow the SNES to go into 320 pixel mode and it just doesn't seem possible.

[TurboXray]

I can't imagine why/how anyone would complain about fake parallax (how can you even tell?)

If the fake parallax isn't done well, parts of it will flicker away when there is too much action on certain parts of the screen.

CrackTiger was saying something kind of similar I think, but I'd like to drive the point home:  I am more impressed when a TurboGrafx game does parallax scrolling than I am when a Genesis game does it.  Why?  Because I know the Turbo only has one background to mess with since it is super crippled/weak/handicapped/mentally incompetent/mentally disturbed/etc.  When the Genesis does this effect, I think "OK whatevs" since it does it all the time.  But on the Turbo the developer needs to put more effort into it which usually makes the game a bit more special to me.  I am impressed by the evil programming trickery done to fool me.

The flicker break in a back ground for 'fake' scrolls isn't a deal breaker for me. If anything I rather them try to make the effort than not. I bet even if you didn't know the exact technical reason as to why more complex/parallax scrolling was absent for the majority, it wouldn't change anything. You'd still assume something was more difficult to over come to get to that level of scrolling complexity. And in fact most people don't really understand why or how, but they can still tell you that it's more of an exciting visual accomplishment on the system than it would be on the Genesis or SNES.

I'm both a Genesis fan and a PCE fan. While I don't have a need for an over abundance of complex scrolls to reach some visual gamer climax/orgasm, I do like something other than a flat BG all the time. Complex layering doesn't have to be all the time or everywhere. Use it to transition starting areas into a level, or such. Or just part(s) in a level, etc. That can go a long way in the over feel of a game. A handful of PCE games do this, but not enough through out the game and/or not games even attempt it. That's rather sad IMO. But I think that reflects back on the systems library as whole, or rather how developers treated it. It's the accumulation of small touches like that, that go a long, long way. And vice versa (stand out when missing). I probably couldn't give a more perfect example than Rondo of Blood. Disregarding all the high level of production values that went into this game, just specifically look at how they sprinkled the game with more complex layered scrolling. They didn't try to add complex layered scrolling in every single part of the game. But they added it in transitional areas and other small areas. If many of the 'flat' PCE games replicated that approach to even just a third of what Rondo does, it wouldn't have this stigmata that it has now IMO. Fun factor is important, but it's not the only important factor in a game. Impressive/great visual and auditory parts of a game, can make a good fun game into fantastic game. No matter how fun a game is, if those other parts of a game don't meet the bar per se - it just leaves you with an unsatisfying feeling overall. I feel cheated when I play Super Air Zonk. Especially when I clearly see areas that even look like they have been setup for linescroll or dynamic tiles.

Soldier Blade music NES -

That's not a stock NES. That also uses the N106 which is a lot like the PCE's audio chip.

[TurboXray]

Every transparency on every retail PCE game is fake. They flicker completely opaque objects, usually inconsistently. Its just a fact. Fuck tech demos, they are neat but I can't play them. You not being able to tell the difference between a code based version of this effect and the SNES's hardware accelerate one is either wishful thinking or shitty eyesight.

And the transparency effects on the PCE that don't flicker? What's your opinion of those? Just curious.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I think parallax / transparencies aren't really that important, especially if the game using it sucks really bad.

I agree 100% with Zeta.  I've said the same thing before.  I can't play a tech demo, so I don't really care about things that aren't in a game.  Things on a video game machine should be a GAME.  We've seen you can do tons of wild stuff on these old consoles.

Like, interlaced images on an Atari2600.  Thats nice.  I can't play it.  I don't want to stare at a low-res picture flickering like Michael J. Fox.

What really makes the PC-Engine stand out is the vibrant color capabilities.  Phantasy Star IV could be completely replicated on the PCE with not alot of problem.  Depending on your taste, it would look better. 

Put it on a CD, rip the audio, and have the exact same tunes even. ;)  even if you did PSG versions, the tunes would sound badass.  There was that one Phantasy Star demo floating around with chiptunes in it from PSII.   They sounded badass.

Similar concept would be to look at Emerald Dragon on PCE, and then on other systems, like MSX2.    Much more vibrant!

[Emerald Rocker]

Ninja Gaiden has some great parallax.

[SignOfZeta]

Every transparency on every retail PCE game is fake. They flicker completely opaque objects, usually inconsistently. Its just a fact. Fuck tech demos, they are neat but I can't play them. You not being able to tell the difference between a code based version of this effect and the SNES's hardware accelerate one is either wishful thinking or shitty eyesight.

And the transparency effects on the PCE that don't flicker? What's your opinion of those? Just curious.

THEY ALL FLICKER. That's how they function. What are you, blind?

[OldRover]

Put it on a CD, rip the audio, and have the exact same tunes even. ;)  even if you did PSG versions, the tunes would sound badass.  There was that one Phantasy Star demo floating around with chiptunes in it from PSII.   They sounded badass.

That demo might still be on zeograd.com. It wasn't all that impressive but at least it did have music... even if it was based on Trilinear's attempt at a hucard PSG driver.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Ninja Gaiden has some great parallax.

I like it.  Its like the Ys 3 stuff

kinda chunky but still nice.

[Emerald Rocker]

I was kidding.  Ninja Gaiden would be better if they hadn't even tried to add parallax.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I know that, but I like it.  The chunkyscroll doesn't bug me.  I play alot of MSX games that do that.

[TurboXray]

THEY ALL FLICKER. That's how they function. What are you, blind?

Am I blind??? Are you a prick? Put a leash on the condescending tone for just a sec.

 These are the games that come to mind when I think of non flickering transparency.

 Lords of Thunder: The water draining part in the water level. The part right where you exit the cave back out into the open/ruins area. Translucent blue water drains because the enemy smashes a hole in the floor.

 Sapphire: Forget the level, but there's a light glow around your ship that follows you and lights up the BG underneath.

 Rondo: The boss holding his head. He's translucent blue as his transparency fades to solid.

 ShapeShifter: In the amazon level, when you fail into the pools of blue water - your character is seen with a translucent blue overlay.

 Asuka 120%: when your character is talking to the opponent before the fight. A transparent shadow in the display box over the scrolling background.  

 I'm sure if you look harder, you'll find some more games that don't use flicker.

 Also LCD TVs and digital capture devices don't have shit to do with these old consoles. They were designed for CRTs, SD at that. These old systems display 60fps, it's irrelevant if newer technology can't show these 'FX' correctly. They looked fine on SD sets back in the day. They also recorded fine on my VCR back then too. If you're gonna argue that they are invalid because it's not hardware color math in the video processor, fine. I understand your point of view. And it's a perfectly valid point to have. But don't make up bullshit excuses LCDs and such.

 As far this whole demo thing/mentality. Isn't the large part of these kind of technical system vs system arguments, of what the system is capable of? If you're gonna use existing software to give example of the system's capability, then demos are perfectly valid as well as showing this off what is capable as well. If you want to talk about the limitations of those FX, than that's perfectly valid. But to discount them completely is just ignorance. If you don't care what the system is really capable and only care to play the games, then why are you even participating or arguing in such a discussion?

I was kidding.  Ninja Gaiden would be better if they hadn't even tried to add parallax.

I completely agree. It doesn't even look as good as Ys III (good being relative here).

[OldRover]

They could have done a better job. It's the result of trying to move too much data at the wrong time during the retrace. But at least it doesn't look quite as bad as Ys III... there's no saving that one.

[CrackTiger]

Every transparency on every retail PCE game is fake. They flicker completely opaque objects, usually inconsistently. Its just a fact. Fuck tech demos, they are neat but I can't play them. You not being able to tell the difference between a code based version of this effect and the SNES's hardware accelerate one is either wishful thinking or shitty eyesight.

And the transparency effects on the PCE that don't flicker? What's your opinion of those? Just curious.

THEY ALL FLICKER. That's how they function. What are you, blind?

I guess you haven't played many PCE games (or are blind). Since you haven't picked up on what some of us have been talking about along the way, I'll just go ahead and spell it out for you once again that there are several different types of effects done in different ways in PCE games, that would usually be done with hardware transparency in a SNES game. I won't brand them all "transparency" effects, because as I explained earlier, hardware transparencies are used in SNES games to simulate an effect. The transparency itself isn't, or at least shouldn't be the effect (many SNES games use transparencies for no good reason).

A good example of one type of an effect in a PCE game that is usually done with a transparency tint in SNES games is the red lighting in a base after an alarm goes off in Blood Gear. Gamefan criticized Street Fighter Alpha for Saturn because they said that the blue shadows weren't right. They even speculated that the Saturn must lack transparencies and therefore couldn't make "real" blue shadows. But they got it completely backwords. The Saturn's default shadows were blue tinted versions of the player sprites, in other words how they'd look using a simple transparency effect. The arcade shadows were entirely rendered with shades of blue.

On the left is a blue tinted pic, as though a transparencey was used. On the right is a blue scale image, as though the screen was lit with blue light.



Blood Gear's red light effect makes the regular colored screen transition into shades of red. This alone would be a superior effect for depicting a red lit room than using a SNES transparency. But in the shadowed areas of the normal background, new details are uncovered by the strong red light. The combination of both effects is very powerful, but this type of scene is often depicted in SNES games using a transparency method to just simply tint everything.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Also LCD TVs and digital capture devices don't have shit to do with these old consoles. They were designed for CRTs, SD at that. These old systems display 60fps, it's irrelevant if newer technology can't show these 'FX' correctly. They looked fine on SD sets back in the day. They also recorded fine on my VCR back then too. If you're gonna argue that they are invalid because it's not hardware color math in the video processor, fine. I understand your point of view. And it's a perfectly valid point to have. But don't make up bullshit excuses LCDs and such.

They weren't designed explicitly for CRT displays.  Its just, thats what existed.  Its "designed for them" by default.  The arrival of new TVs shows how flickering effects and such are a bit limited.  Hardware transparency trumps flickering crap.

As far this whole demo thing/mentality. Isn't the large part of these kind of technical system vs system arguments, of what the system is capable of? If you're gonna use existing software to give example of the system's capability, then demos are perfectly valid as well as showing this off what is capable as well. If you want to talk about the limitations of those FX, than that's perfectly valid. But to discount them completely is just ignorance. If you don't care what the system is really capable and only care to play the games, then why are you even participating or arguing in such a discussion?

There are many parts to this debate.  Some of it is comparing the libraries and their use of hardware, hence some people not giving a damn about tech demos released 10+ years after the system died commercially.. or tech demos that are neat, but can't actually function well in a full game.  If you want to prove a tech demo is great for a GAME console, put it in a game.  If it can do it, but can't do it in a game, it is sort of useless on a game machine.  Thats my standpoint.  I program the PCE for the sole purpose of making games.  If some obnoxious hardware nonsense cant be done in a game, I don't care about it.

and then, some of it is comparing the hardware itself without considering the game library at all.... that line of discussion is where tech demos and balls to the wall nonsense takes place.


everythings valid.  Its just a lot of tangents to one main topic: System1 vs. System2

[Tatsujin]

I'm looking at you, IREM.

Ever played X-Multiply?

I agree that irem had up and downs on their sound works, but they had done also pretty good works here and there. as proven in the game mentioned above.

[Tatsujin]

hmm..wears the saturns trancparency?

[Arkhan Asylum]

I'm looking at you, IREM.

Ever played X-Multiply?

I agree that irem had up and downs on their sound works, but they had done also pretty good works here and there. as proven in the game mentioned above.

yeah....but why didnt they do that for ALL their games.


They did ok with the PCE chip.  Tonma and Vigilante sound nice.

[CrackTiger]

hmm..wears the saturns trancparency?

Try Shining Force III if you wanna see real-time "transparent" images of 3D models against other 3D graphics. I know that no other console through the last generation could pull that off and chances are no one has attempted it with the current gen. Every games just uses fugly transparent polygons.

[Tatsujin]

why did so many companies fail to use transparency on the SS? 2D & 3D.
just look at akumajo dracula x - gekka no yasokyoku. it ruined a lot.

[CrackTiger]

why did so many companies fail to use transparency on the SS? 2D & 3D.
just look at akumajo dracula x - gekka no yasokyoku. it ruined a lot.

There are still so many that did use transparencies. Unfortunately, just like PCE with parallax, the ones that don't stand out more.

In the case of Dracula X, it was a quick port and depending on who you believe, rendered using polygons.

[SignOfZeta]

THEY ALL FLICKER. That's how they function. What are you, blind?

Am I blind??? Are you a prick? Put a leash on the condescending tone for just a sec.

 These are the games that come to mind when I think of non flickering transparency.

Everything you listed is a flicker effect because there is no other way to do it on the PCE. The possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.

Also LCD TVs and digital capture devices don't have shit to do with these old consoles.

The reason I mentioned LCDs wasn't to say, "these effects suck because they don't work on LCDs". That would be silly. I was merely pointing out that the reason they don't work on such displays is because they are flickering, therefore, if you want to know which transparencies are flicker based, just watch a Youtube video of the game that was grabbed via analog video capture. Fighting games, for example, will usually have one guy with a fully opaque shadow and the other guy with none at all. These effects are also used a lot in SNES games, btw, since the SNES can only use real transparencies in limited situations. Street Fighter has the same flicker shadows on any system from this time.

As for the oft repeated idea that SNES transparencies are somehow a "cheap trick" because they are hardware accelerated...then you must think redbook audio is a pretty cheap trick as well, eh? Not only does it rely on hardware trickery, but it allows the used of straight up recordings of real instruments bypassing the system's soundchip completely. What a lie that is! And they do it for no good reason!*

Regarding transparencies on the SS. I'm pretty sure they are, like the SNES, limited to BG layers or something like that. They are used well in...Thunderforce V, I think it is, in the BGs. Shining Force III has one town with a giant blue gem or something (it was a long time ago) that is transparent and not made using dithering, that obviously isn't a BG by nature, but it, but maybe its possible to use a matte of sorts aligned with a polygon (not correct terms here, sorry).

* Since some people can't tell, this was sarcasm used to prove a point. At the same time though...its kind of true. Its hard to imagine how a game like...I don't know, Dekoboko Densetsu, would have had any worse music if it had been chip based. Some of that fruity-ass Yamaha/Roland based junk just drives me nuts now. Also, why the hell do you have to have a "reason"? Its a fucking cloud layer, not a spending bill. Shit.

[Tatsujin]

why did so many companies fail to use transparency on the SS? 2D & 3D.
just look at akumajo dracula x - gekka no yasokyoku. it ruined a lot.

There are still so many that did use transparencies. Unfortunately, just like PCE with parallax, the ones that don't stand out more.

In the case of Dracula X, it was a quick port and depending on who you believe, rendered using polygons.

an other case is radiant silvergun. no trans there, altought it would have looked 200% better if it had

it seems that I'm only aware of those titles which didn't use transparency..lol.

[Tatsujin]

THEY ALL FLICKER. That's how they function. What are you, blind?

Am I blind??? Are you a prick? Put a leash on the condescending tone for just a sec.

 These are the games that come to mind when I think of non flickering transparency.

Everything you listed is a flicker effect because there is no other way to do it on the PCE. The possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.

I believe, some of them are done with tiles (or stuff), which are like a stealth plane over the background which then can be changed in colors to creat kind of the illusion of a transparent transformation. In fact it's only an animation over the actual BG.

[CrackTiger]

why did so many companies fail to use transparency on the SS? 2D & 3D.
just look at akumajo dracula x - gekka no yasokyoku. it ruined a lot.

There are still so many that did use transparencies. Unfortunately, just like PCE with parallax, the ones that don't stand out more.

In the case of Dracula X, it was a quick port and depending on who you believe, rendered using polygons.

an other case is radiant silvergun. no trans there, altought it would have looked 200% better if it had

it seems that I'm only aware of those titles which didn't use transparency..lol.

I believe that Radiant Silvergun has transparency effects on every stage (like every background). I'm guessing that you're looking for games that don't have any instances of transparency substitutes as well.

[TurboXray]

Everything you listed is a flicker effect because there is no other way to do it on the PCE.

And you know this because? Everything I listed specifically is not a flicker based effect. You need to go back check for yourself if you gonna make such declarations. And you even make them admittedly without any knowledge of the system too.  

The possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.

Sapphire is not an exception from that list. It doesn't flicker. I'm not sure how flicker can be more than what it is, more kick-ass or super. You can't just increase the rate of alternating pixels beyond what the display allows, now can you? And as a side note: LCDs still uses flicker. Much higher rate. Plasma uses flicker too. Just much higher than 60hz.

 I could explain these effects if you really wanted know, but knowing how they were done doesn't change the original point - that you think 'ALL' transparency on the PCE is flicker based. There's the SGX demos, but that's the SGX so you exclude them. That's valid, since 2 of the three demos required SGX specific hardware to create the effect. And no, they don't use any sort of flicker.

 But there's also Jackie Chan. One of those SGX demos uses the same effect of Jackie Chan. And it's also not a flicker effect. Add that to the list of transparency effects on the PCE that's not flicker based and in a game.

The reason I mentioned LCDs wasn't to say, "these effects suck because they don't work on LCDs". That would be silly. I was merely pointing out that the reason they don't work on such displays is because they are flickering, therefore, if you want to know which transparencies are flicker based, just watch a Youtube video of the game that was grabbed via analog video capture.

Well, using the LCD and capture type devices as example; they can look even better than a real/original SD display. Not every LCD simply throws away 1 frame. Many do frame blending because it treats the frame as a field. It really depends on the hardware. Most of the stuff you see on youtube is emulation screen capture vids. You have to go the extra mile if you wanted to frame blend that sort of footage, since YT doesn't support 60p in all resolutions (supposedly it does for 240p view mode, but not all videos for some reason). Back to point; it's not JUST flicker that doesn't show in the examples you're talking about. Anything that exists in 60fps time zone is lost when dropping a frame. That means a lot of Shmups only show half the bullets for those kind of videos too. And that has nothing to do flicker. Anyway, I'm still not sure what this has to do with flicker base effects. These systems weren't made to be view on display equipment that's going to be dropping/not display half the frames. So they have no relevance as to whether flicker is a valid method or not. Nor does emulation (which often breaks the illusion since it will drop frames from time to time).

Regarding transparencies on the SS. I'm pretty sure they are, like the SNES, limited to BG layers or something like that. They are used well in...Thunderforce V, I think it is, in the BGs. Shining Force III has one town with a giant blue gem or something (it was a long time ago) that is transparent and not made using dithering, that obviously isn't a BG by nature, but it, but maybe its possible to use a matte of sorts aligned with a polygon (not correct terms here, sorry).

It's not. All warped quads can be rendered in transparency. There's an undesirable effect in the rendering when there's an overlapping bend edge of the same quad that folds back onto itself. The transparency logic isn't correctly applied. If you technically capable of following along, there's an in depth explanation over at spritesmind dev forum.

I believe, some of them are done with tiles (or stuff), which are like a stealth plane over the background which then can be changed in colors to creat kind of the illusion of a transparent transformation. In fact it's only an animation over the actual BG.

??? stealth plane over the background O_o   If you really want to know, I can explain them. Sometimes it's better not to know the magic behind the trick ;) It losses its luster afterwards....


 No one mentioned the TFIV transparency demo for PCE? But I guess that doesn't count since we're not counting demos.

[CrackTiger]

Everything you listed is a flicker effect because there is no other way to do it on the PCE. The possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.

Wow. So you know the PCE inside out that well huh? There are several ways the PCE can do those kinds of transparency effects. I actually mentioned one non-flicker method earlier. Programmers have talked about some of these methods as they were achieved in published games in this forum in the past.

It's pretty hypocritical to toss around "Are you blind?" insults when you yourself can't tell the difference been flicker transparencies and other 60fps PCE transparency effects.

[Tatsujin]

why did so many companies fail to use transparency on the SS? 2D & 3D.
just look at akumajo dracula x - gekka no yasokyoku. it ruined a lot.

There are still so many that did use transparencies. Unfortunately, just like PCE with parallax, the ones that don't stand out more.

In the case of Dracula X, it was a quick port and depending on who you believe, rendered using polygons.

an other case is radiant silvergun. no trans there, altought it would have looked 200% better if it had

it seems that I'm only aware of those titles which didn't use transparency..lol.

I believe that Radiant Silvergun has transparency effects on every stage (like every background). I'm guessing that you're looking for games that don't have any instances of transparency substitutes as well.

youre right. the clouds und stuff look like nice transparents, but not so those in all direction ray-explosions and uberbeams of all the enemies, nor does your weaponry use the advantage of transparency.

@nutsbonk, yeah sorry am lacking in explaining things sometimes..lol. but as talked about this stuff in an other thread (comparison thread), the trans in drac x (knight boss), was actually done that way by changing tiles over the bg.

[TurboXray]

@tats: Hey, no worries The stealth part made me grin Hmm.. stealth plane. I might use that term for something ;)

[Arkhan Asylum]

The scrolling background in Asuka 120% is not the background.  Those burning fest logos are sprites.

Everything else is a background.

The blue window is a clever color trick you can do with the PCE, I believe.

PS: Hi Tom.

[OldRover]

I could explain these effects if you really wanted know, but knowing how they were done doesn't change the original point - that you think 'ALL' transparency on the PCE is flicker based. There's the SGX demos, but that's the SGX so you exclude them. That's valid, since 2 of the three demos required SGX specific hardware to create the effect. And no, they don't use any sort of flicker.

I'm actually interested in this... I have always assumed though that it's just a case of prerendered tiles, as with most of the rest of the game. The massive amount of ACD RAM would allow for thousands of prerendered tiles to support this kind of effect.

But there's also Jackie Chan. One of those SGX demos uses the same effect of Jackie Chan. And it's also not a flicker effect. Add that to the list of transparency effects on the PCE that's not flicker based and in a game.

The "Jackie Chan Effect"... heh. People have been pulling this one off for years now. It's most certainly NOT flicker-based... it's exploitation of the hardware's physical limitations. Myself and Charles MacDonald tried to explain it to Gravis but I don't know if he got it or not... actually, I think he did in the end. I've yet to actually use the effect in a game because of its limited uses (I'm so not a fan of solid-color backgrounds anyways) but if the need ever arose, it's one of the easiest of all PCE special effects to pull off.

[Vecanti]

The possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.

That effect is real time light sourcing/bump mapping.  Genesis and SNES can't touch that.

[TurboXray]

I'm actually interested in this... I have always assumed though that it's just a case of prerendered tiles, as with most of the rest of the game. The massive amount of ACD RAM would allow for thousands of prerendered tiles to support this kind of effect.

The effect is clever. But the root of the effect has been used in some PCE games before (shadowing). Why this effect was only used to this level in all of the PCE's life, is beyond me. It's a pretty simple effect; you reserve a chunk of subpalettes (cause the PCE has plenty to spare), then apply the different subpalettes to the tilemap in whatever way you want. In the case of the ship, it's a circle with a few fade off rings. IIRC the game uses six 16color subpalettes for that area. Well, that's how many are reserved for the effect. It might not use all six of them, haven't looked at it in a while. But yeah, simple as that. The effect can be taken to much better high extremes, but no game does. Pitty.

 I assume you probably already know how the other FX are done? Rondo is just simple animation. Asuka and Shapeshifter use an hsync interrupt to changes color of an object on that scanline. Asuka's is straight forward (writes all 14 colors during hsync), but the yellow board hides any onscreen graphic glitches - thus the sprites change colors/shades. Either the BG color #0 is changed too, or the tilemap is repositioned - I forget which. Shapeshifter does it in multiple scanlines, in smaller bursts. It looks to see what part of the sprite needs changing first. You already know Jackie Chan's. Others like Star Parodia use dynamic tiles across a tilemap different subpalette (LOT has a small barely unnoticeable part like this in the water stage opening area), same with Psychic Storm. Probably others I can't remember.

The "Jackie Chan Effect"... heh. People have been pulling this one off for years now. It's most certainly NOT flicker-based... it's exploitation of the hardware's physical limitations. Myself and Charles MacDonald tried to explain it to Gravis but I don't know if he got it or not... actually, I think he did in the end. I've yet to actually use the effect in a game because of its limited uses (I'm so not a fan of solid-color backgrounds anyways) but if the need ever arose, it's one of the easiest of all PCE special effects to pull off.

Yeah it's not an easy effect to visualize how it's done, at first. Jackie Chan uses cylinders, but the SGX demo is doable on the PCE exactly as is (same effect, but looks a little different IMO). SGX just has a built in mode to extend the effect across both VDCs instead of just limiting it to one VDC. Which is pretty useful (priority propping of BG layers across VDCs).

[Joe Redifer]

The possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.

That effect is real time light sourcing/bump mapping.  Genesis and SNES can't touch that.

They could if they were programmed to do it.  They are capable of doing it.

[ccovell]

The possible exception is that one one level of Sapphire with the light on the floor. I don't quite understand how that was done. I'm suspecting its just very effective use of traditional animation, but honestly I have no idea. Maybe its just really kick-ass flicker.

That effect is real time light sourcing/bump mapping.  Genesis and SNES can't touch that.

It is totally not bumpmapping at all.  Bumpmapping would mean that light source reflections would slide all around the contours of objects as the light source moves.  Too CPU-intensive.

The scene in Sapphire is just changing the attribute maps of the BG from darker-brighter as the ship moves around, creating illuminated parts of the level.  Not even light sourcing; more like spot brightening.  For real "light sourcing", check out Ultima III (Exodus) on the NES and various PCs to see rooms ahead of the characters appear or become obscured depending on the line of sight of the characters.  Sure, it's only two levels: lightened/black, but it's quite impressive moving about considering the age of the game.

[Arkhan Asylum]

The scene in Sapphire is just changing the attribute maps of the BG from darker-brighter as the ship moves around, creating illuminated parts of the level.  Not even light sourcing; more like spot brightening.  For real "light sourcing", check out Ultima III (Exodus) on the NES and various PCs to see rooms ahead of the characters appear or become obscured depending on the line of sight of the characters.  Sure, it's only two levels: lightened/black, but it's quite impressive moving about considering the age of the game.

Realtime lighthouses on ultima 5 = awesome.

[Otaking]

this all irrelevant, what really matters is revealed if you take the music from R-TYPE III stage 1, then overlay it backwards with the Streets of Rage 2, stage 3 soundtrack, Yuzo Koshiro has encoded a hidden message:
"The PC Engine and Super Famicom are 4 Bit, that's 2 bits each. I love my 12 inches of black 16 bit plastic, to be this gay takes AGES"

[Arkhan Asylum]

this all irrelevant, what really matters is revealed if you take the music from R-TYPE III stage 1, then overlay it backwards with the Streets of Rage 2, stage 3 soundtrack, Yuzo Koshiro has encoded a hidden message:
"The PC Engine and Super Famicom are 4 Bit, that's 2 bits each. I love my 12 inches of black 16 bit plastic, to be this gay takes AGES"

What if you play it UPSIDE DOWN!

[Otaking]

this all irrelevant, what really matters is revealed if you take the music from R-TYPE III stage 1, then overlay it backwards with the Streets of Rage 2, stage 3 soundtrack, Yuzo Koshiro has encoded a hidden message:
"The PC Engine and Super Famicom are 4 Bit, that's 2 bits each. I love my 12 inches of black 16 bit plastic, to be this gay takes AGES"

What if you play it UPSIDE DOWN!

A tiny robot Yuzo Koshiro jumps out the cartridge slot of the Megadrive/Genesis and sets fire to any other games consoles in the house.

[CrackTiger]

The effect is clever. But the root of the effect has been used in some PCE games before (shadowing). Why this effect was only used to this level in all of the PCE's life, is beyond me. It's a pretty simple effect; you reserve a chunk of subpalettes (cause the PCE has plenty to spare), then apply the different subpalettes to the tilemap in whatever way you want. In the case of the ship, it's a circle with a few fade off rings. IIRC the game uses six 16color subpalettes for that area. Well, that's how many are reserved for the effect. It might not use all six of them, haven't looked at it in a while. But yeah, simple as that. The effect can be taken to much better high extremes, but no game does. Pitty.

Isn't this basically a shaded version of what games do when there is a spotlight in absolute darkness, I'm thinking Ys SMS (and Turbo) and Dragon Warrior, where the tiles surrounding the lit area are just replaced with solid black ones (or really the inverse)?

If that effect was using as many as 6 subpalettes, then it's yet another effect that utilizes the strength of the PCE. Considering that the Genesis only has 4 palettes of color to go round for tiles and the SNES 8. Not that it couldn't be done on either effectively, but perhaps not as perfect in such a detailed game.

[Vecanti]

this all irrelevant, what really matters is revealed if you take the music from R-TYPE III stage 1, then overlay it backwards with the Streets of Rage 2, stage 3 soundtrack, Yuzo Koshiro has encoded a hidden message:
"The PC Engine and Super Famicom are 4 Bit, that's 2 bits each. I love my 12 inches of black 16 bit plastic, to be this gay takes AGES"

What if you play it UPSIDE DOWN!

You get 69 bit.

[_Paul]

Wasn't there some clever spotlight effect in Schbibin Man 3 somewhere?

Also, I would have love to have heard what Yuzo Koshiro would have done with the PC Engine sound chip.


EDIT: Ah yes, here it is.

/cd9d68ae57008.png

I'd be interested to know how this was acheived as the sprite layer looks like this:

/cd9d68ae57009.png

[OldRover]

That might have been another priority trick there... would be fun to put together some test code to experiment.