Re: A86: List / Challenge idea (was dismissal)
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Re: A86: List / Challenge idea (was dismissal)
I like the first idea better... there are already way too many
putsprite routines out there and I never use them anyway. But yeah,
transition effects are cool. I've seen some that make the screen
"ripple" away or roll up like a canvas (although I doubt either would be
very easy to do). I think a good contest might be to see who can come
up with the best effect under a certain amount of memory... maybe 1k.
David Phillips wrote:
>
> I agree! This list has little value as it is, without losing any more good
> programmers! I'm interested in seeing some graphics demos, is anyone else?
>
> I think we should have some contests. The game of life has been used for
> many optimization challenges (this was Michael Abrash's first challenge),
> but I doubt too many people are up to writing a full screen game of life at
> 30+ fps. Besides, it would take too much time to write just for something
> cool to look at. Something useful would be better.
>
> I'm all for grayscale graphics. I was scared of doing grayscale for the
> longest time. But once I started, I'm hooked! There's nothing
> better...black and white just looks so plain! So my two ideas are
> grayscale...
>
> First, screen transitions/effects. There are all kinds of cool ways to
> clear the screen.
>
> - One way that's very easy on the PC (one line in C!) but would take a
> little more doing in asm is just filling the screen with black dots, at
> random spots until it's (almost) cleared. This was used in Wolfenstein 3D
> (remember that game?!) when you died...the screen was filled with red dots
> simulating blood.
> - Another way is sheers. This is where the screen is cut away at many
> places at the same time. You might do it horizontally, where colums in
> multiples of 8 are cleared. Or it can be done at a 45 degree angle, where
> say every 8x8 square is being rotated or swept away (hard to say, I know,
> maybe a demo).
> - Doom had a cool transistion. The screen was eaten away by a bunch of
> "worms" that floated down the screen. There are several ways to do it.
> You can just have the columns filled in with black at different intervals
> until it's cleared. Or they can be shifted down. I actually think Doom
> scaled the strips down, but I don't remember (that'd take some doing!).
> - I had an idea to do an explosion like effect. There isn't enough memory
> or time (processor-wise) to do all 8192 pixels (using all of page 1 and some
> _very_ clever coding might make it possible), but you could do it in 8x8
> blocks or so. Each block would be given x and y velocities and the screen
> would seem to "explode" with all of the blocks going in random directions
> and speeds.
>
> We could come up with rules and see who could do the neatest looking effect.
> Since there's no good way to time code, we'd need a judge to tell who's
> looked the best.
>
> The other idea for a challenge is a fastest routine challenge. The two
> routines that come to mind are a grayscale PutSprite and a Line routine.
> Both would be useful. Since there are so many ways to do a putsprite, we'd
> need a standard for it. I suggest an 8x8, masked grayscale putsprite, with
> clipping. Background saving? Interleaved or layered sprites? Hmm....the
> same set of calling registers should be used. "Standard" is BC for x,y and
> HL for the sprite. Should the buffers have to be contiguous? For the line
> routine, I think that Jimmy Mardell's FastLine routine would be considered
> standard. That routine would be tough to beat :)
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