nesdev.com

For those who haven't followed the thread on title screen name table compression, my game is called Bionic Commander. (To be honest, I'm surprised nobody's poked fun at me for the ridiculous parody, but I digress...)

In the title screen, the word "Bionic" is written with a metallic font. It's looking pretty good so far, but it could use a little more "oomph".

In order to make the metal look more reflective, I originally wanted to add white highlights along some of the edges. Unfortunately, since each 2x2 tile region is limited to 4 colors, I had no available colors left after drawing the sky and landscape gradients. I didn't want to compromise the quality of those gradients, so the highlights got the boot.

Then it occurred to me: what if I layered sprites on top of the background to get those highlights? Doing so would produce the result shown below:



What do you think? Does this seem like a reasonable way to go about it? Any other ideas?

Yeah, it does improve the metal effect. If you have the spare tiles to do it, go for it. There seems to be less than 8 columns of sprites, so the sprite limit won't be a problem.

Oh yes, you should do this. I use sprites + background to make the portraits in my game. In fact, a lot of those look like just straight lines. You could get away with using very little tiles to make these. I think it really does make it more metallic looking.

That's definitely a good way to do it. It does add some nice extra detail.

Thanks for the support! Cool, sounds like that idea's got the green light.



Good observation! I originally had the highlights running horizontally across the tops of the letters, but quickly realized the sprite limit would prohibit it. After switching to the vertical orientation, I think it looks much better. I love it when technical limitations foster creativity.

And yes, there are exactly 8 columns. If you look closely at the letter B, you'll notice a missing column of highlights. I originally had additional highlights immediately to the right of the two holes, but removed them to stay within the sprite limit. I don't think the omission is very noticeable, nor does it diminish the overall look.

Looks nice. I did the same thing for a competition hack of Atlantis no Nazo:



The dragon/eel thing on the right uses sprites for both the "mane" and the glowing red eye.

If you want some insane examples of sprite overlays, check out the ending to Ninja Gaiden 3 (or any of the cinema scenes, really). It's mind-blowing.

_________________
- BMF
RuSteD LOgIc

Oh yeah... I counted 7 before, but now I see it. And I didn't even miss anything when looking at the B, it's perfectly fine.

I didn't catch the difference at first, but now it's really clear. It's a nice touch.

I think a nice example that really sticks out is in the Batman ROTJ intro sequence with Joker.

This is a good idea, and look better.
Also Bionnic Commander sounds really like a parody of Bionic Commando (#1 on gamefaqs top 10 today btw)

_________________
Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.

One of the only two side scrollers I know of where the player's character doesn't jump, the other being Lode Runner.

Wow, figuring out a good sprite arrangement for the highlights was a pain. After shuffling some pixels around and exploiting the sprite V-flip bit, I managed to cram all the highlights into 6 unique tiles. A more optimal arrangement might be possible, but considering that the per-scanline sprite limit prohibits me from layering sprites on top of each other, I'm pleased with the results.



The colored boxes on the right half of the image indicate where each sprite goes. (There are 38 sprites total.) The red boxes indicate sprites that are flipped vertically.

Also, I went ahead and made the highlights thicker so they'd be more noticeable. The NES ain't about subtlety.

Thin highlights look better.

_________________
Here come the fortune cookies! Here come the fortune cookies! They're wearing paper hats!

Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate it.

Personally, I prefer the thick highlights, but of course it's hard to judge my own artwork objectively.

So, thick or thin? Could I get a quick consensus from you dudes?

It doesn't make that much of a difference to me but if I had to pick I think the thinner highlights are better.

Thin

_________________

Here to at least get an idea of how the NES works. I mean I know alot of the basic things, but this place'll help me grasp more how NES functions.
Major respect to NES developers.