I'm sorry , I just jumped into this topic and I saw this.
I tried to track the discussion but I'm not too sure whether it runs on Emuzwin or Spin enhanced ula...........Help please ?
TO: John Elliott ...slightly off topic, but please do yield to that temptation... If you have any patches and additions to the Chaos game to add, or new features, there are plenty of people here that would love to see them!!!!!
TO: John Elliott ...slightly off topic, but please do yield to that temptation... If you have any patches and additions to the Chaos game to add, or new features, there are plenty of people here that would love to see them!!!!!
I wasn't thinking so much of new features, but of (for example) fixing the bug that allows you to resurrect (say) a Golden Dragon by sticking a Giant Rat on top of it and casting Vengeance. Or the 'New Spell for X' message that shows up after the game is over.
(If you'd prefer altered game mechanics to 256 colours, there's an extensively patched version of Chaos on the gooeyblob Yahoo group: chaosmod.sna)
This version adds:
- Import palettes from TAP palette files or 64-byte raw files.
- CLUTmasks - restricts the engine to only using the selected CLUTs
Note that the GUI has no controls for either of these features, so you will have to apply them on the command line.
Arda, you probably want to update :)
Next version (0.15) [strike]planned for fairly soon[/strike] now available, same place. Adds:
- YUV-tweaks (shift&scale) on the command line. Arda could use sliders
- proximity-depress control on the command line. Again, a slider to control this would be useful. What this number does is control how much the 'wantedness' of nearby yuvs is scaled back when a palette entry is added, so it adjusts the tendency to use colours close together. Arda: this uses the double 'depress', which was already present in old versions but always left at 0. Was that what you were using for the "Palette variation" slider? (If not, then what?)
Adds:
- Reasonably functional GUI (including sliders for the yuv-tweaks and the prox-depress, and buttons to reset them, toggle Timex, toggle Dither fix, update render, save, discard, and exit)
- A new algorithm for Stage 3 ("Per-Block YUVs", distribution splitting)
The engine has changed, so Arda should use this one in the next cULA (although, now that the GUI is usable, some cULA users might flip over to SCRplus... ;) )
I have tried reading on the http://sites.google.com/site/ulaplus/ site and in this thread, but couldn't figure out how to get the recoloured games on the ulaplus site to work in Spin. I did get Chaos obtained from this thread to work though. Do you have to load in the palette first and then then the game after?
Apologies if I am missing something obvious or just being an annoying noob :smile:
I have tried reading on the http://sites.google.com/site/ulaplus/ site and in this thread, but couldn't figure out how to get the recoloured games on the ulaplus site to work in Spin. I did get Chaos obtained from this thread to work though. Do you have to load in the palette first and then then the game after?
Apologies if I am missing something obvious or just being an annoying noob :smile:
Yes, in spin:
settings -> display -> emulation
make sure 64 colour is enabled
The engine has changed, so Arda should use this one in the next cULA (although, now that the GUI is usable, some cULA users might flip over to SCRplus... ;) )
Good thing that I'm too lazy nowadays :D Looks like the only thing left to implement is a file requester/browser for SCRplus.
I'll try to port it soon but no promises. And for users flipping over to scrplus, I don't think there is any user other than andrew (basically he is a mac user, so there is a big posibility that there is no user of Cula anywhere.) :)
Looks like the only thing left to implement is a file requester/browser for SCRplus.
Yeah, I was thinking about that, and I think a graphical file requester is really quite a difficult thing to code, so I'm not sure that'll happen, at least not for a while. I mean, you need /scrollbars/ and things. Have you any idea how hard that is to code with ad-hoc SDL?
On Linux, the best way to use the GUI atm is to pipe a file into scrplus and load from /dev/stdin, then use the rest of the gui as normal.
Yeah, I was thinking about that, and I think a graphical file requester is really quite a difficult thing to code, so I'm not sure that'll happen, at least not for a while. I mean, you need /scrollbars/ and things. Have you any idea how hard that is to code with ad-hoc SDL?
so use a proper toolkit then instead of re-inventing the wheel ;)
Latest drawing from andrew owen, note that this is not a conversion. And it only uses 20 colours, with still 8x8 attribute clash. There is still free 40 colours available.
It's incredible to see how a simple palette changer improves graphics on a Speccy. If only Clive would have thought about it...
The Spectrum design was all about cost, "... not designing the Space Shuttle.". Besides, it would have been impossible to do the 64 colour palette (as in the ULAplus design) without a huge and prohibitively expensive ULA (or two cheaper ULAs) and/or external palette memory (which would require some mental signal timing and extra ULA pins....)
So you can see what it wasn't done. Technically simple, but costly.
Regarding low cost requirement that made more colours impossible, there is add-on thing for russian clones called 'Flash color'. It uses Flash bit to allow 128 (actually less) ink colors on black paper if the bit is set. The difference is that color switch happens at 14 MHz instead of usual frequency. It is much simpler than ULA+ (no RAM etc), and thus cheap, and I guess it was doable in 1980s.
How about connecting a VIC II from C64 to Spectrum (with own Video/S-Video output) and use it to display such images, hardware scrolling and hardware sprites? Maybe with a Hires timer chip to allow IFLI.
C64s SID chip was already connected to Spectrum.
How about connecting a VIC II from C64 to Spectrum (with own Video/S-Video output) and use it to display such images, hardware scrolling and hardware sprites? Maybe with a Hires timer chip to allow IFLI.
C64s SID chip was already connected to Spectrum.
That could be a tricky one with the timing differences. The VIC-2 runs at around 8MHz with not a lot of waggle room and the Spectrum at 3.5MHz.
Comments
The latest Spin with ULAPlus turned on.
I've never played Laser Squad, let alone disassembled it, so I don't think I'd be able to.
I wasn't thinking so much of new features, but of (for example) fixing the bug that allows you to resurrect (say) a Golden Dragon by sticking a Giant Rat on top of it and casting Vengeance. Or the 'New Spell for X' message that shows up after the game is over.
(If you'd prefer altered game mechanics to 256 colours, there's an extensively patched version of Chaos on the gooeyblob Yahoo group: chaosmod.sna)
http://pc.sux.org/tomcat/Tuksu.tap
Original C64 image:
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=88672
This version adds:
- Import palettes from TAP palette files or 64-byte raw files.
- CLUTmasks - restricts the engine to only using the selected CLUTs
Note that the GUI has no controls for either of these features, so you will have to apply them on the command line.
Arda, you probably want to update :)
Next version (0.15) [strike]planned for fairly soon[/strike] now available, same place. Adds:
- YUV-tweaks (shift&scale) on the command line. Arda could use sliders
- proximity-depress control on the command line. Again, a slider to control this would be useful. What this number does is control how much the 'wantedness' of nearby yuvs is scaled back when a palette entry is added, so it adjusts the tendency to use colours close together. Arda: this uses the double 'depress', which was already present in old versions but always left at 0. Was that what you were using for the "Palette variation" slider? (If not, then what?)
SCRplus 0.16 now available (http://sourceforge.net/projects/scrplus)...
Adds:
- Reasonably functional GUI (including sliders for the yuv-tweaks and the prox-depress, and buttons to reset them, toggle Timex, toggle Dither fix, update render, save, discard, and exit)
- A new algorithm for Stage 3 ("Per-Block YUVs", distribution splitting)
The engine has changed, so Arda should use this one in the next cULA (although, now that the GUI is usable, some cULA users might flip over to SCRplus... ;) )
Apologies if I am missing something obvious or just being an annoying noob :smile:
Yes, in spin:
settings -> display -> emulation
make sure 64 colour is enabled
settings -> files -> tapes
UNTICK Load tapes automatically
open the palette tap file, load""
open the tap or tzx for the game and load""
Good thing that I'm too lazy nowadays :D Looks like the only thing left to implement is a file requester/browser for SCRplus.
I'll try to port it soon but no promises. And for users flipping over to scrplus, I don't think there is any user other than andrew (basically he is a mac user, so there is a big posibility that there is no user of Cula anywhere.) :)
Yeah, I was thinking about that, and I think a graphical file requester is really quite a difficult thing to code, so I'm not sure that'll happen, at least not for a while. I mean, you need /scrollbars/ and things. Have you any idea how hard that is to code with ad-hoc SDL?
On Linux, the best way to use the GUI atm is to pipe a file into scrplus and load from /dev/stdin, then use the rest of the gui as normal.
so use a proper toolkit then instead of re-inventing the wheel ;)
But they're all object-oriented. I don't do Oops.
It's not completely ready for prime-time yet, but for those who want a preview, check out SCRplus 0.17.3:
For Linux: http://sourceforge.net/projects/scrplus/files/scrplus_0.17.3-nogui.tar.gz/download
For Windows: https://sourceforge.net/projects/scrplus/files/scrplus_w0.17.3-nogui.zip/download
Still missing: The GUI; decent documentation.
Known bugs: YUV-tweaks don't work properly on Windows.
Latest drawing from andrew owen, note that this is not a conversion. And it only uses 20 colours, with still 8x8 attribute clash. There is still free 40 colours available.
Download as Ula64 scr.
(youcan view ula64scr files with speccyview at http://sites.google.com/site/ulaplus/home)
When I see these drawings, I wonder what if Clive came up with 64 colour idea when he introduced zx spectrum. :) These images looks sexy.
So you can see what it wasn't done. Technically simple, but costly.
TAP: http://pc.sux.org/tomcat/IndustrialDawn.tap
Original C64 demo: http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=76275&show=review
I think this one might be the last one from me :)
What pics ? Link ?
Something like this? ;)
I'm not sure the conversion is possible (most are IFLI pictures), but it would be nice..
http://zx-pk.ru/
TAP: http://pc.sux.org/tomcat/ChunkFunk.tap
C64 original: http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=93993
C64s SID chip was already connected to Spectrum.
That could be a tricky one with the timing differences. The VIC-2 runs at around 8MHz with not a lot of waggle room and the Spectrum at 3.5MHz.