Comparison of 4th generation ("8/16-bit") system hardware

[Barone]

^Great stuff.


Another game/version that I've always advocated:
Beast II (Mega CD)
0)

Number of unique colors: 56

1)

Number of unique colors: 71

2)

Number of unique colors: 78

3)

Number of unique colors: 71

4)

Number of unique colors: 69

5)

Number of unique colors: 71

6)

Number of unique colors: 67

7)

Number of unique colors: 66

The MD version usually has half of the color counting and does look bad.

[evilevoix]

Go back a few pages on the thread and reread the multiple posts where I've already explained that to you.

Actually I just did but I can't figure out why it cannot be used in full game play. 1500+ Colors with light/shadow and yes less sprites but what about for an RPG? Or any other game with less action on the screen? That would really up the anti in terms of color and presentation.

So any color representation in real time like Vector Man and the like is simply a shading trick?

[N.Saibot]

Actually I just did but I can't figure out why it cannot be used in full game play. 1500+ Colors with light/shadow and yes less sprites but what about for an RPG? Or any other game with less action on the screen? That would really up the anti in terms of color and presentation.

So any color representation in real time like Vector Man and the like is simply a shading trick?

This shading trick does increase the amount of real colors on screen though. Some people seem to think shading and highlighting does not bring actual new colors. However it does, if you would go by the logic that it doesn't, you'd end up having only 7 unique colors in total, which are the rainbow colors. Everything is just a mix between red green and blue anyway, so maybe these are the only real colors? Of course not, the shades of something that are distinguishable from the primary color still count as a new color and have a different hex-value, etc.

So the shadow-highlight method does increase the color count and the colors are real new colors. The problem with maximizing the on-screen color count on the Mega Drive would be, you have to plan everything out. If your background utilizes same colors as the foreground plane, you have just wasted memory space because you can't say to the bacgroundplane "use that one color from the foreground", you have to actually use memory space to save the same color again. So you have to carefully plan where which color would go, so that it still looks good and you don't reuse colors in between planes. Obviously, that works best with still shots like that Travellers Tale logo. Love that one

[TmEE]

S/HL gives more shades of existing colors.

Those Toy Story shots do not look as colorful as the numbers are haha. I am impressed however.

[Drakon]

Speaking of limited colours I was playing verytex last night and the colours were very limited...but I'll be damned the music is so good I don't care! I even like the retro look of barely any colours just as long as it's not a 16 colour limit.

[Kamahl]

*Sigh*, I am not making images to explain this. Ended up doing them...
Shading tricks to increase the number of available colors work well on the Amiga, but only for only for static screens on the Genesis.

Why?
Because by being able to replace any color by it's darker shade, you don't actually have to have that darker shade on the palette. So that doubles the amount of color you can have.

Now why doesn't this work during gameplay?
Because you aren't able to replace any color by it's darker shade.

Huh? But you just said you could!
You can in static screens, since you can waste every sprite to do the trick.

So you're saying that since you must sacrifice sprites, it's not worth it during gameplay?
Pretty much.

What about games like Vectorman or The Lost World?
Those games use a priority trick on the background to make entire tiles shadowed.

Why doesn't that increase color counts?
It does.

Dafuq? But you just said it didn't!
It increases color counts on the image, but not the number of available colors.

Why?
Because you can no longer simply replace any color anywhere by it's darker shade, only large blocks onscreen.

I still don't get it.
Let's say I tell you to paint a picture of a tree, the tree must have leaves, a trunk and apples. You need at least green, brown and red to do it.
I only give you those 3 colors to work with. A single shade of them. That's the maximum number of colors you can have.
You draw your tree, and notice it looks like crap since there's no shading.
Now I tell you: You can make any pixel on the image darker.
Suddenly you can shade the tree, and all is good.
Instead what if I tell you: You can make any tile on the image darker.
Suddenly... You can make it seem like half the tree is underwater for example.... that's it. No shading. The tree is still it's stupid 3 color self.



The third image has 6 colors, just like the second. But see the difference? Get it now?

[Stef]

You can use it in game, although it requires nice design you can do it easily, Ecco ther dolphin or Jurassic PArk 2 does it well (for Ecco the dolphin i do not speak about the picture posted).

Here is a good exemple :


Parts in red rectangle (i did it quickly, they a re not 100% correct) are in shadow (low priority) and in this case it really add colors to the plan... With only a single palette containing "normal" green levels you can also display dark green so that might be quite useful for this particular case where you need colors dark gradients...
And of course you can still use sprite to add shadow part, it's the case in the above picture, to draw a shadow on the gray box... but here ok, it's just to add an object shadow.

[Kamahl]

Are you sure shadow mode is being used in those rectangles? They look just like shades available in other places. (And even if they are, the "look just like shades available in other places" is the problem, you can't actually save colors on the palette with this trick).

[Drakon]

Stef look at the shadow of that gray metal box in the lower right corner. Ever second pixel is gray every pixel in between is green. Next time you take a screenshot make sure to disable the 2d blur.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Stef look at the shadow of that gray metal box in the lower right corner. Ever second pixel is gray every pixel in between is green. Next time you take a screenshot make sure to disable the 2d blur.

If you are seeing the dithering that would more than likely mean the 2D blur is disabled. The shot does appear to be a bit fuzzy though if you look at the number and the main characters sprite.

Is that an emulator shot or a real hardware shot Stef?

[Drakon]

That looks just like an emulator with the blur. I've done the same thing then found out how to change the settings so it would take picture perfect screenshots. Pixel perfect emulator screenshots are always the best way to see colours perfectly along with individual pixels.

[Stef]

All i can say you the red rectangle are indeed shadow effect as i tested it in my emulator...
About the gray box, ok i spoke too quickly maybe, i observed the small image and did not saw that... though it could be done by sprite here.
About the image, it comes from an emulator i guess, i just re-used the previous posted image and resized it to 200% (with insane bilinear filtering or something like that). The idea was to show the shadow part in background.

[Stef]

Are you sure shadow mode is being used in those rectangles? They look just like shades available in other places. (And even if they are, the "look just like shades available in other places" is the problem, you can't actually save colors on the palette with this trick).

Hmm i do not get it... It did save some colors as with a 16 colors palette you display about 22/23 colors as you could use shades of this color.
This is exactly what this game does, if you count the number of green and gray levels on the screen shot, you will have more colors then what palette actually contains.

[sheath]

Huh, Jurassic Park 2 uses layer B for the floors and Layer A for the hillsides and other odd details. Layer B overlaps Layer A with Shadow and Highlight dithered tiles of varying intensity.

[Kamahl]

Hmm i do not get it... It did save some colors as with a 16 colors palette you display about 22/23 colors as you could use shades of this color.
This is exactly what this game does, if you count the number of green and gray levels on the screen shot, you will have more colors then what palette actually contains.

So there's green, green and more green. You can't save colors by using this which would be the only actual advantage. This is what I keep trying to say, you can increase color counts, but you don't actually get any extra colors, since you can't save any palette entries. That picture could have been done with all the colors it already has without any shadow and highlight use.
Color counts don't mean SHIT. Vectorman looks like a 3 color game.