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Cropping on CRT TVs #1

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sniperpon opened this issue Apr 20, 2024 · 5 comments
Open

Cropping on CRT TVs #1

sniperpon opened this issue Apr 20, 2024 · 5 comments

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@sniperpon
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Absolutely love the game, it's incredible to be playing a brand new 3DO game, especially in one of my favorite genres! Just a heads-up for future projects-- make sure to have UI elements away from the outer ~20% of the screen. The HUD is cut off quite a bit on CRT TVs.

CRT TVs since the dawn of the invention overscan quite a bit. I remember reading that even official requirements for broadcast TV had a "rule of thumb"-- like for a CBS sports game broadcast, they would make sure not to put the score near the edge of the signal, just to name one example.

I've attached a few photos-- one of your game, one of the 3DO port of "Wolfenstein 3D", and one of "Escape from Monster Manor", the latter-most two for reference. Anyway, awesome work otherwise, it's great!

Overscan_01
Overscan_02
Overscan_03

@retroloveletter
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Hey there, I'm really glad you like it! Thank you for providing this. I was aware of overscan issues and had attempted to compensate for it, but it clearly was not enough.. I hope you are able to adjust the vertical settings with that TV so that you can at least see the HUD fully. A small bit of trivia: The entire game engine was created from the ground up, along with the tools to help build the maps. The art assets were also custom made using a combination of digitizing custom models and pixel art. So even though it is a new homebrew, the process to create it mimicked how licensed games were made at the time. This was one of my first 3DO projects. If I could go back, I would have made some changes in retrospect, but I'm glad you are enjoying it. I'll keep a note of this issue, and if I do a new build in the future then I'll include this patch.

@sniperpon
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So, I have to ask you-- are you using the "Cel Engine" for the characters and other objects, or are you using raycasting for those too? Did you do the development on an old Mac, or is there a more modern tool chain? How tough would it have been to write the password, or something akin to it, to the SRAM-- or is that a big can of worms?

I've been obsessed with the 3DO ever since I saw one in Dayton's Electronics around Christmas of 1993. My dad bought me the Panasonic FZ-1 Christmas of 1994, and to this day it's my favorite video game system of all time. Seeing people like you doing modern development on it absolutely captures my imagination, hence the questions above. Today I'm using a Japanese FZ-10 I bought off of eBay brand new in box just a couple of years ago-- S-video to my Toshiba CRT from 2002. I also use RetroArch with Opera on my Steam Deck (portable 3DO!).

I know this isn't the best venue for a conversation like this, but I don't use Google's ecosystem (i.e. YouTube). Anyway, thanks again for all of your work on this! I just hit stage 10, your level design is excellent! I loved the part flying the missile (it's like the "Redeemer" from "Unreal Tournament"!) through the hallway, haha.

@retroloveletter
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retroloveletter commented Apr 20, 2024

The Cel Engine is being used. The environment is rendered in vertical slivers (or cel slices), which correspond to rays. The sprites are also using the Cel Engine, but IIRC, I'm clipping the left and right edges as needed. Visible sprites are flagged during the raycasting process, and then included in the rendering pipeline. I developed the entire project on Windows. There is a more modern devkit available and image conversion tool, see https://github.com/trapexit, but back when I was building this I was using older solutions. You can save data to NVRAM, I've done it for a simpler project, but for BioFury I wanted to try creating an old school password system.

If you are not yet in the 3DO community discord, I think you will enjoy it. Many projects and tech discussions there. Here is the invite link: https://discord.gg/Zte4HJsB

@trapexit
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@sniperpon If you aren't already... join the 3DO community Discord server. @retroloveletter and other homebrew devs are there and you're welcome to ask all about the system.

@sniperpon
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Just joined, thanks!!

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