tssk
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Posts: 6
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Post by tssk on Feb 17, 2005 23:22:06 GMT -5
I remember back in the day suddenly some C64 games had these fantastic highly detailed characters in their games. I think I first saw this in either Target Renegade or Robocop.
I worked out it was some sort of overlay thing when once one of the levels in Target Renegade didn't load properly leading to the overlay being displayed slightly to the left of the character revealing some pretty chunky sprites.
So, how did it work and who developed the technique?
Were there any shortcomings? (There must have been as some games like Batman:the Movie and New Zealand story had a detailed overlay for the main sprite while the enemy sprites were C64 chunky.)
Cheers.
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Post by Gary on Feb 18, 2005 1:24:46 GMT -5
The overlayed sprites became a staple in our C64 games, although it did come with restrictions which our clever artists and coders deftly overcame. I remember one of the most effective uses of the technique was in Untouchables, for some reason.
Is anyone here going to lay claim to being the first to do it? I'm pretty certain it was Ocean who first used it in games this way, but I don't recall the actual person who pioneered it....
If no-one comes forward, I will state on record that it was Lee Cowley!
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tssk
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Post by tssk on Feb 18, 2005 1:41:52 GMT -5
Is my memory playing tricks on me or did the main sprite in Roland's Rat Race have an overlay. (In fact, thinking back I think the main sprite in that Rupert Bear game did as well.) In fact both were released around 1985
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Post by Gary on Feb 18, 2005 4:06:58 GMT -5
Aaah, but Ocean was the first to do it in a game called 'The Untouchables'
Phew. Got out of that one!
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Post by Simon Butler on Feb 18, 2005 5:37:59 GMT -5
I'm going to have to put my hand up to this one and say it was me who suggested we first use it in an Ocean title.
The first Ocean title that used it was Platoon in 1986. And then again in Combat School released in 1987.
But I've got to admit that I nicked the idea from Odin's Heartland released in 1986.
I used to think that they were the first but I now stand corrected as Rupert and the Toymakers Party appears to be in fact the originator of this formula.
Kudos to Martin Walker the coder...who I suspect did the graphics as well, as he did on quite a lot of his projects. Hats off to Quicksilva as well who published this title.
I always believed it was Heartland, but I now know otherwise...anyway they made such an impression on me that when Platoon came along I wanted to try it for myself as I knew that the tunnel sections needed more detail on the guys who popped up out of the water.
So I'm sorry to say Gary...t'weren't the Untouchables, that title never saw the light of day until 1989. Same year as Robocop. I actually instigated the use of them on Robocop as I hated the palid, fuzzy legobricks that the 64 used and knew that Robo...being a top license of the time would need a tad more oomph. The Spectrum got away with it because of the greater resolution and The Amstrad had more definition in the brightness of its colours.
But I left shortly after starting on the project to move into 16 bit games.
Target Renegade used them in 1988... again my suggestion as I was character designer for that title and worked with Martin McDonald on the sprites...I showed him how to use the hi-res overlays as he hadn't done them before.
So there you have it... it wasn't an Ocean invention.
But it WAS me who brought it to Ocean games.
See? I wasn't such a fifth wheel after all.
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Post by Paulie on Feb 18, 2005 6:08:43 GMT -5
I think Si is right about Platoon (I first saw it used on Rupert the Bear although that was all hires!) - I think Ocean were the first to use the overlays "in anger" i.e we reworked the sprite multiplexors to handle the priorities on the hires sprites during the sort.
With lots of dynamic movement (no fixed rasters) it was a pain as the multiplexors generally grabbed the next available sprite for the next raster split which wasn't appropriate for overlays as you had to guarantee that the overlay was drawn last (higher priority) - add to that it halved the number of sprites on a line - which is why games like NZS had a mixture of overlays and multi colured sprites.
John Meegan overcame the "sprites on a line" limitation with overlays by software rendering the bullets on Robocop etc
Johhny Palmer was also a big advocate of the overlays - I wrote him a program that took a solid hires sprite animation and converted the frames into outlines (IIRC Jamie suggested the four way shift and XOR method to extract the overlay).
The main character on Dragon Ninja was garbage and John knocked up a new characer with overlays one lunch time - what a difference that made!
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Post by Gary on Feb 18, 2005 9:40:08 GMT -5
I stand very much corrected - sorry about that.
However, the phrasing of my latter statement could have been better - I meant that Ocean was the first company to develop a game called 'The Untouchables', that had overlaid sprites.
You see, when it's rephrased that way, it's not half as hysterical as the way I originally stated it.
I'll get me coat.......
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Post by Mark Jones Junior on Feb 18, 2005 10:36:15 GMT -5
Gary, you make me laugh!
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Post by Gary on Feb 18, 2005 12:01:50 GMT -5
(Tempted to do a Joe Pesci-style retort -'I'm here to f*cking amuse you?....'etc - but falls asleep instead)
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Post by johnnyboy on Feb 18, 2005 12:28:02 GMT -5
Gary, I got what you meant. I may be wrong here, but I think Ocean were the first to use this technique in combination with sprite multiplexing.
It was Simon's idea to use the technique first on Platoon having seen how nice it looked on the Odin game.
The Untouchables was definitely my favourite development at Ocean. I've been fortunate to work with quite a few talented artists, but Steve Thomson was truly exceptional on the C64. His bitmaps were amazing, exploiting chroma-bleeding to increase the colour palette. And a genuinely funny, affectionate guy.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Feb 18, 2005 18:34:42 GMT -5
shame non of the chroma bleeding woked on NTSC versions!!
Bloody amazing discovery tho... clever and incredibly talented lad was steve ... his c64 work was awesome.. him, bob stevenson and robin levy of thalamus were the dons of c64 graphics.
Martin walker was also one of the first guys to do multi stacked high res sprites to make true high resolution sprites...
Hunter's moon, of which he did art programming and graphics for (STILL love the music to that!) was possibly the first.. either that or quedex...
I think MW is a writer for sound on sound (music production) magazine now...
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Post by Paulie on Feb 18, 2005 20:34:18 GMT -5
Where is Jolly Steve these days? Is he still in the UK (didn;t he go out to the States with Jobbee and Rob?)
Man, those loading/inter level screens on Untouchables and Navy Seals where superb.
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Brian
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Posts: 29
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Post by Brian on Feb 18, 2005 23:53:45 GMT -5
AFAIK he went out there, then came back after a while... sent him a mail a few years ago to where he was supposed to be working, mail never bounced, never got a reply..
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Post by Simon Butler on Feb 20, 2005 14:32:03 GMT -5
I ran into Steve a couple of years ago when I had a horrendous two day interview with Blitz. he was...as you would expect, turning out quality stuff albeit for their Frogger clone Zapper.
I had a few pints with him in some dingy pub in far-from-exciting Leamington Spa...it was great to talk to someone from the old days who basically, hadn't changed at all. he was still enthusiastic, still as friendly as ever and damn his eyes...still had a head of thick lush locks compared to my cue ball.
I'll see if I can track him down.
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Post by Mark Jones Junior on Feb 20, 2005 16:01:28 GMT -5
Jolly Steve sure lived up to his name! Be good to hear from him again
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