List of techniques to fake 3D graphics with 2D hardware

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Myask
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Re: List of techniques to fake 3D graphics with 2D hardware

Post by Myask »

Because it never really took off most of the times it's come up (3DS perhaps excepted?) it's kinda orthogonal. It might have sort of been a branch as "enhance your 3d experience" or "experience real 3d", but it died on its own rather than being superseded. Of course, I'm basing this on memories of gaming magazine article recollections of decades ago, so…take with salt.
But no more so than the coins and trees in Super Mario 64.
I was tempted to say that it wasn't until PS2/GC era that the bar stopped moving (…on console) exactly because of this consideration.

[hr]

On another note, there's stuff like the iconic Amigaball…and, when we're considering mode7 w/sprites level, one should recall A2600 Solaris because it's a tech marvel.
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: List of techniques to fake 3D graphics with 2D hardware

Post by Drew Sebastino »

tepples wrote:But no more so than the coins and trees in Super Mario 64.
And it looked just as bad there too. How that game runs at only 30fps amazes me.
93143
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Re: List of techniques to fake 3D graphics with 2D hardware

Post by 93143 »

Well, I imagine they were using an early version of the bog-standard Fast3D microcode, and they claimed the game used ~60% of the system's power. I bet with an optimized microcode they could have locked it at 60 fps without hurting the graphical complexity.

The billboarded objects in Super Mario 64 didn't look bad at the time IMO (and nobody was complaining that I can recall - general consensus was that the game looked amazing). Also, I'm not specifically accusing you of anything, but playing in emulation makes that stuff look worse because of the resolution mismatch. The same thing happens in Mario Kart 64, in which the racers and weapons look awful pasted into a high-resolution 3D scene, even though they look perfectly serviceable on a real N64.
tomaitheous
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Re: List of techniques to fake 3D graphics with 2D hardware

Post by tomaitheous »

Espozo wrote:
tepples wrote:But no more so than the coins and trees in Super Mario 64.
And it looked just as bad there too. How that game runs at only 30fps amazes me.
I take it you're not familiar with that generation?
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Bregalad
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Re: List of techniques to fake 3D graphics with 2D hardware

Post by Bregalad »

Oh dear me, I started the thread and didn't even take the time to say what I had to say 'case I was too busy.
So my theory so far was in the likes of the following :

3d operations consists of translation among 3 axises and rotation among 3 axises. 3d graphics consists of games having 2d action in a 3d environment, or a 3d action in a 2d environment, or both (3d action in a 3d environment), but the later is less suited for fake-3d style graphics obviously.

Translation among the X and Y axises are trivial to fake on 2D hardware because it's simply scrolling
Translation among Z axis is equivalent to scaling, only supported by some hardware (mode 7, GBA sprites), and is also easy to pre-render (or even real-time render like a demo by tepples)

Rotation among X and Y axis is very difficult to fake, yet it seems High Hopes managed to do so for the X axis only using some trick so it's possible
Rotation among the Z axis is equivalent to 2D rotation, this is supported by some hardware (mode 7, GBA sprites) and is also easy to pre-render

Now it's possible to combine pre-rendering with other real-time technique to get a 3d feel. Having isometric-graphic is a particular case of pre-rendering that allows for higher re-utilisation of backgrounds, making it possible to semi-pre-render large BG screens.

Parallax scrolling is just a particular case of translation (scrolling) different objects so they have different speed.
Last edited by Bregalad on Sun Jan 15, 2017 2:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: List of techniques to fake 3D graphics with 2D hardware

Post by Drew Sebastino »

tomaitheous wrote:
Espozo wrote:
tepples wrote:But no more so than the coins and trees in Super Mario 64.
And it looked just as bad there too. How that game runs at only 30fps amazes me.
I take it you're not familiar with that generation?
Even for the N64, the geometry in that game is very simple. Almost no games from the period were 60fps, but I'm saying if you took the engine used in Conker's Bad Fur Day and underutilized it to look like Super Mario 64, I wouldn't be surprised if the game were running at 60fps. Of course, We're talking about a game made in 1996 vs. 2001... It's really about the terrible Fast3D microcode, like 93143 was saying and how it wasn't until later people made their own. The N64 is a lot more powerful than the PS1, but judging by the majority of games, you wouldn't think so.
calima
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Re: List of techniques to fake 3D graphics with 2D hardware

Post by calima »

We clearly need new N64 homebrew then ;)

Retrostage just did a run of a couple hundred N64 carts, so it's not far when you can get them made too.
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