Page 2 of 19

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 3:56 am
by FrankenGraphics
Screenshots, 64x56 pixels, using black and three other NES colors
Just probing for possibilities: Any chance anyone might add a few sprite tiles to the composition?

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 9:45 am
by tepples
It's already drawn as sprites because it has to overlap the border of the window where the screenshot is shown without using either MMC5 ExGrafix or a scroll split.

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 1:32 am
by RogerBidon
tepples wrote:
  • Descriptions (16 lines, up to 28 characters each)
  • Screenshots, 64x56 pixels, using black and three other NES colors
As entrant, do we have to do it, do we can do it or somebody dedicated wants to work for us?

The "screenshot" has to be screenshot like or can it be more like cover art?

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 1:58 am
by na_th_an
I have several *ahem* NOAC handhelds with a built-in multicart. The screenshot for each game is not a full-screen shot (as it would look tiny), but a crop or even a depiction of the game, and I think it looks better. It would work like some sort of mini-cover art using ingame graphics. I was going to produce my shots in such style, but maybe it would feel out of place?

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 4:38 am
by M_Tee
Honestly, the tiny 4-color screenshots are one of my favorite parts of the previous Action 53 entries. Some are quite admirable in the success of their representation, all are interesting to examine and easy to remember once playing the game.

@Roger (or anyone else)
If you'd like a hand with the screenshots, I could make the time to put some together.

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 7:32 am
by tepples
RogerBidon wrote:As entrant, do we have to do it, do we can do it or somebody dedicated wants to work for us?
Anyone can do it. I did most of them myself for the first two volumes, but now that we're having compos more often and I'm much more busy with other NES programming projects both paid and free, I need help.
The "screenshot" has to be screenshot like
The art style I'm trying to ape is that of PlayStation Interactive CD Sampler volumes 7 and later, which actually use a screenshot.
Image
Such as Sampler 9


Earlier Samplers, particularly 3 and 5, use a UI similar to that of its competitor's subsequent Wii Menu, on which nemulator's ROM chooser was based. But I deemed that too intense for NES.
Image
Sampler 5: UI that Wii copied but we will not


Here are the screenshots from the previous volume (some colors may be wrong; click to zoom):
da53_screenshots.png

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 11:45 am
by calima
The CNROM support isn't really mandatory for this year, now that we know the date, I can make the NROM conversion before Mar 31. Would be good for next year, though.

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 4:08 pm
by RogerBidon
Here what I have been able to pull out as screenshot for this evening.

One that I like but is a cropped screenshot:
cropped
cropped
nesdev-cover.png (344 Bytes) Viewed 10741 times
Another that is ugly but is more in the style of your examples:
lowres
lowres
nesdev-cover2.png (859 Bytes) Viewed 10741 times
Feel free to use it as it is, redraw it or give me clues on how to improve it ;)

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 4:32 pm
by mikejmoffitt
I am in favor of the cropped shot. I think stylized art for the game would fit in stylistically as well.

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 4:39 pm
by rainwarrior
tepples wrote:[*]Screenshots, 64x56 pixels, using black and three other NES colors
Are the other 3 sprite palettes reserved?

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 4:42 pm
by tepples
One of the sprite palettes is used to draw the arrow sprite at the top of the screen.

But the real problem is that I'd have to add to the screenshot format some sort of data structure specifying which parts of the screenshot use which palette. This would be a breaking change to the extractor, but then I admit I haven't tested the extractor much anyway.

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 6:45 pm
by tokumaru
Wouldn't it be better if the border was made of sprites? Anyway, I don't think that the border is interesting enough that the screenshots have to suffer because of it.

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 7:25 pm
by tepples
tokumaru wrote:Wouldn't it be better if the border was made of sprites?
The border would eat all eight sprites, but that doesn't matter because the background already eats all eight sprites.
tokumaru wrote:I don't think that the border is interesting enough
Would this border look any better?
Yo dawg, I heard you like retro gaming so I put NovaSquirrel's TV in NovaSquirrel's TV so you can game while you game
Yo dawg, I heard you like retro gaming so I put NovaSquirrel's TV in NovaSquirrel's TV so you can game while you game
But seriously now:

Currently each screenshot is converted from a PNG file. If it were instead a background with sprite overlays, how would the location of the overlays be specified?

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2017 5:40 pm
by Memblers
Want to include a bootloader program? I considered it, but didn't prepare it for the compo since it's unusable without the hardware. Didn't seem appropriate. But I'd be happy to give a USB adapter to any/all interested compo participants. Though I'm having some really weird inconsistent problems with PAL compatibility at the moment.

It would need just a few kB for the program itself, and preferably a blank 32kB page. And I would need to know what flash chip is used. And if there are any other requirements like a reset code stub, etc.

I suppose it wouldn't technically be a bootloader (I mean I suppose you could call it if the NES powers up with some buttons pressed or something). I imagine it would be one of the 'toys', and if you wanted, you could have a menu option that would run the game that's in the bootloaded page.

Re: Action 53 volume 3

Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2017 6:41 pm
by tepples
Is this the same USB to NES controller adapter you gave me a year ago at the interview?

The problem with including a bootloader that can write to flash is that I don't want to let users accidentally mess up their games, causing INL to incur warranty service costs. Or is there a way to make most of the ROM not self-flashable after the cart is fully assembled, analogous to the SL1 write-protection jumper on the Nintendo DS mainboard (keyword: FlashMe)?