01.Mar.2022
Robert Smith
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Amiga disks on PC: DrawBridge 2.8.7 / FloppyBridge 1.1
Robert Smith's project "DrawBridge" (Disk Reader and Writer Bridge) uses like the similar ADF Drive a microcontroller - in this case an Arduino board - to read and write Amiga floppies with a connected standard PC floppy drive. By means of the plugin FloppyBridge, WinUAE is also officially supported since version 4.9.0.
DrawBridge has been updated to version 2.8.7 and uses a new algorithm for reading the hard disk, which ensures better compatibility with games under WinUAE. FloppyBridge version 1.1 also improves compatibility due to changes in PLL and "Rotation Extractor" handling. Robert Smith encourages retesting games that have not previously booted. Prior installation of DrawBridge firmware 1.9.24 is required. (dr)
[News message: 01. Mar. 2022, 10:00] [Comments: 0]
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01.Mar.2022
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Developer tools: vasm 1.9 and vlink 0.17
Frank Wille hat released updates for portable and retargetable assembler vasm and the corresponding portable linker vlink. AmigaOS 3, 4 and MorphOS are supported. A list of the changes can be found on the respective websites. (dr)
[News message: 01. Mar. 2022, 07:09] [Comments: 0]
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01.Mar.2022
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Compiler: vbcc 0.9h
vbcc is a highly optimizing portable and retargetable ISO C compiler written by Volker Barthelmann (compiler core) and Frank Wille (Amiga specific code). It supports ISO C according to ISO/IEC 9899:1989 and a subset of the new standard ISO/IEC 9899:1999 (C99).
Yesterday, version 0.9h was released, which contains numerous changes. Detailed documentation is available in the form of a pdf file on the homepage, as are the binaries for the individual target platforms.
- New features
- Compiler defaults to C99, use -c89 to forbid C99 extensions.
- Several improved warnings/error messages.
- New option -sec-per-obj puts all code functions and data objects in their own section, which may be removed by linker section garbage collection.
- Simple implementation of -merge-strings.
- Added -warnings-as-errors option.
- Define macros __OPTSPEED__/__OPTSIZE__ depending on options.
- Recognize builtin functions with __asm_ prefix.
- Added -depobj option.
- Added -force-statics and -prefer-statics.
- New backends for 6502 and 6809.
- Support for charset conversions (8-bit targets).
- Code compressor (currently only for 6502).
- Better out-of-the-box support for non-8-bit-based types.
- Several improvements regarding the backend interface.
- m68k: defines macro __SMALL_DATA__ with -sd option
- m68k: added -vbcccall/__vbccargs
- vc: new option -rmcfg-* to disable options from a config file
- vc: frontend does Unix-path conversion also for -o
- vclib: New 6502 targets: Atari, BBC, C64, Mega65, NES, Simulator, X16
- vclib: New 6809 targets: OS-9, Simulator
- vclib: __gmtoffset and __dstflag may be overwritten separately
- vclib: strftime() supports ISO-8601 date format through %F
- vclib: added strtof()
- vclib: m68k-amigaos based on NDK 3.2
- vclib: m68k-amigaos supports Roadshow additions and
- vclib: m68k-amigaos adds reaction.lib for ReAction GUI support
- vclib: m68k-amigaos UTC offset is automatically initialized when possible
- vclib: m68k-amigaos configs use -amiga-softfloat (inlines) by default
- vclib: m68k-atari small-data support and libraries
- vclib: ppc-morphos support for (sysv,base)-ABI libraries
- vclib: ppc-amigaos adapted to new SDK
- Performance improvements
- Improved function inlining / cross-module inlining.
- Several improvements in register allocation.
- Improved constant propagation.
- New peephole optimizations.
- New optimization and tuning options for constant initializations.
- Improved recalculation of stack slots.
- Slightly improved common subexpression elimination.
- Range-optimizations and induction variable shortening.
- Allow strength reduction for constant left-shifts.
- Handling of volatile is improved.
- Compile-time calculations of constant pointer values.
- m68k: improved register allocation
- m68k: improved Fastcall-ABI support
- m68k: improved builtin libcalls
- m68k: improved copying of (long) doubles in memory with the FPU
- m68k: better use of scaled addressing modes
- m68k: some FPU code improvements
- m68k: fixed performance regression of internal memcpy
- vclib: reworked assembler inlines
- Bug fixes:
- Lots of fixes in the compiler core and backends. Thanks for your reports!
- vclib: bad assert.h in 0.9g: it must be possible to include the assert-macro multiple times (with and without NDEBUG defined)
- vclib: m68k-amigaos protos declare device library bases with struct Device*.
- vclib: m68k-amigaos ReAction classes must not be automatically opened with auto.lib but with reaction.lib.
- vclib: m68k-amigaos adds missing InvertString() for amiga.lib
- vclib: PPC 64-bit signed modulo fixed
- vclib: fixed mktime(), tm_mday is 1-based, and recognize gmtoffset
- vclib: fgetpos() has to return 0 on success
(dr)
[News message: 01. Mar. 2022, 06:55] [Comments: 0]
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01.Mar.2022
Amigans
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AmigaOS 4: Blog summary of February
The blog Gaming on AmigaOS 4 has published a richly illustrated summary of the developments and releases from the areas of hardware and software for AmigaOS 4 in the month of February. (dr)
[News message: 01. Mar. 2022, 05:41] [Comments: 0]
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28.Feb.2022
Amigans
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Video: Amiga game classics under AmigaOS 4
Roman 'kas1e' Kargin shows in his latest YouTube video how some old great Amiga classic games (released around the 2000s) work natively (without UAE, but with Petunia) under today's AmigaOS4 and on today's AmigaOS4 hardware. This test was done with his beta version of AmigaOS4 with all beta drivers from AEON and beta components of the operating system from Hyperion. The hardware used is an AmigaONEX5000/020 with Radeon RX 560. (dr)
[News message: 28. Feb. 2022, 08:23] [Comments: 0]
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28.Feb.2022
Discord
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Video: How easy is it to make your own joystick using a 3D printer?
In his latest video, Robert Smith attempts to 3D print and build his own retro-style joystick for his Amiga. He takes you through all the steps from design to build in his tutorial. Below the video is all the information needed so anyone can build their own joystick. (dr)
[News message: 28. Feb. 2022, 06:51] [Comments: 0]
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27.Feb.2022
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Aminet uploads until 26.02.2022
The following files have been added until 26.02.2022 to Aminet:
wla_dx_v10.1.lha dev/cross 7.0M 68k WLA DX - 8-bit CPU Cross Macr...
printer.hwp_1.0.lha dev/hwood 5K MOS Printer plugin for hollywood
anaiis.lha driver/oth 182K 68k ANAIIS USB Stack Release 1.22
Mattonite.lha game/actio 976K 68k Arkanoid like PAL game almost...
scummvm-1.7.0-rtg.lha game/misc 5.7M 68k Amiga RTG port of ScummVM 1.7.0
PPaintRUS.lha gfx/ppaint 65K Cloanto Personal Paint 7 RUSS...
AmiArcadia.lha misc/emu 4.4M 68k Signetics-based machines emul...
AmiArcadiaMOS.lha misc/emu 4.7M MOS Signetics-based machines emul...
AmiArcadia-OS4.lha misc/emu 4.9M OS4 Signetics-based machines emul...
DOSBox_RTG.lha misc/emu 931K 68k Amiga port of DOSBox
EndlessRoad.lha mods/8voic 6.0M Endless Road 5ch 16bit Soft Rock
MrR_head.lha mods/anaki 258K It's My Head - OctaMED module
SamplesCreatorDemos.lha mus/misc 200K Some samples created by Sampl...
AmiModRadio.lha mus/play 2.8M 68k Play modules from Internet so...
SpeedPDF_1.1.lha text/dtp 5.6M MOS Fast PDF viewer
Vim_8.2-i386-aros.lha text/edit 12M x86 The ubiquitous text editor
Vim_8.2-ppc-amigaos.lha text/edit 14M OS4 The ubiquitous text editor
Vim_8.2-ppc-morphos.lha text/edit 13M MOS The ubiquitous text editor
cbmconvert.i386-aros.lha util/conv 235K x86 C64 archive converters
d64.i386-aros.lha util/conv 368K x86 Converts C64 data-set files t...
IdentifyLib_FR.lha util/libs 11K French catalogs for identify....
TestProgram.zip util/misc 655K 68k Versatile Amiga Test Program
Classaction4_src.zip util/wb 1.2M Sourcecode of Classaction 4
(snx)
[News message: 27. Feb. 2022, 16:47] [Comments: 0]
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27.Feb.2022
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OS4Depot uploads until 26.02.2022
The following files have been added until 26.02.2022 to OS4Depot:
sdl_vice.lha emu/com 27Mb 4.0 Versatile Commodore Emulator
amiarcadia.lha emu/gam 5Mb 4.0 Signetics-based machines emulator
mce.lha gam/uti 4Mb 4.0 Multi-game Character Editor
iff-converter.lha gra/con 498kb 4.0 Convert images into raw format.
sdl2.lha lib/mis 7Mb 4.1 Simple DirectMedia Layer 2
zitaftpserver.lha net/ser 19Mb 4.1 A fast and secure FTP(S) server.
deepl.lha uti/tex 2Mb 4.0 DeepL tool / incl. sourcecode
vim_mui.lha uti/tex 14Mb 4.1 The ubiquitous text editor
(snx)
[News message: 27. Feb. 2022, 16:47] [Comments: 0]
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27.Feb.2022
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AROS Archives uploads until 26.02.2022
The following files have been added until 26.02.2022 to AROS Archives:
vim_8.2-i386-aros.lha dev/edi 12Mb The ubiquitous text editor
cbmconvert.i386-aros.lha emu/uti 235kb C64 archive converters
d64.i386-aros.lha emu/uti 368kb Converts C64 data-set files to A...
(snx)
[News message: 27. Feb. 2022, 16:47] [Comments: 0]
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27.Feb.2022
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MorphOS-Storage uploads until 26.02.2022
The following files have been added until 26.02.2022 to MorphOS-Storage:
ECWolf_1.3.9999.lha Games/Shoot3D ECWolf is an advanced s...
HLE-Pokercard_2.0.lha Games/Think Hi-Low-Equal Poker Card
SpeedPDF_1.1.lha Office/Show A fast PDF viewer
(snx)
[News message: 27. Feb. 2022, 16:47] [Comments: 0]
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27.Feb.2022
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WHDLoad: New installers until 26.02.2022
Using WHDLoad, games, scene demos and intros by cracking groups, which were originally designed to run only from floppy disks, can be installed on harddisk. The following installers have been added until 26.02.2022:
(snx)
[News message: 27. Feb. 2022, 16:47] [Comments: 0]
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27.Feb.2022
Apollo-Forum
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Apollo V4: Ultimate Expansion Board
The developers 'Quetzal' and 'Owl' have developed a board in mini-ITX format that can accommodate an Apollo V4 standalone and offers a variety of additional features and inputs and outputs. A detailed description of the specifications can be found on the project page. Now a new video has been released showing the final prototype. The first boards are expected in mid-2022. (dr)
[News message: 27. Feb. 2022, 10:51] [Comments: 0]
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27.Feb.2022
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Music: Amiga-DJ-Video
In this YouTube video, musician and DJ 'Fast Ram' presents the broader spectrum of old and new rave sound, which he mixes and plays using Amiga computers and software he developed himself. His equipment:
- 2x Amiga 600 running PT-1210 v1.1 (DJ-Decks)
- 1x Amiga 1200 running XSD v0.5b (Sample-Start)
- 1x mixer, two hands, 100% Amiga tunes
Those who want to support the musician have the opportunity to do so on his Bandcamp page. (dr)
[News message: 27. Feb. 2022, 06:39] [Comments: 0]
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26.Feb.2022
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Arcade port: 'Scramble 500' released
A few days ago we already reported about Jean-François Fabre's new project: the port of the shoot'em-up classic Scramble (video). Now the developer has released his game (adf file) on itch.io. Since, as he explained to us, he was able to fix the last bugs, it is basically ready. If users still find bugs, he asks to report them.
According to his GitHub page, the game was written entirely in 68k assembler and already runs on Amigas with Kickstart 1.3 and 1MB of memory. Features:
- original visual & sounds
- faithful enemy behaviour & speed & increasing difficulty
- 50 frames per second (PAL) even on a 68000 A500
- all levels
- joystick controlled (port 1) or keyboard controls (arrows + ctrl + alt)
- can run directly from shell or from whdload (fast machines/complex configurations)
(dr)
[News message: 26. Feb. 2022, 21:04] [Comments: 0]
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26.Feb.2022
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Italian print magazine: Passione Amiga, issue 5
The Italian print magazine 'Passione Amiga' is only available as an annual subscription: you have to pay 16 euros for four issues per year. The fifth issue offers the following topics, among others:
- Coverdisk: Extreme 2.0
- Reviews: Tales of Gorluth III – Dungeon of Reminiscence, The Shadow of Sergoth, Turbo Santa, Super Delivery Boy – The Holiday Shift, Ad Cosmos Ex Terra
- Tutorial for installating AmigaOS 3.2 under WinUAE, part 2
- Video editing with Blender under AmigaOS 4
- Tutorial: Programming in Hollywood, part 3
(cg)
[News message: 26. Feb. 2022, 01:37] [Comments: 0]
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26.Feb.2022
commodore.news
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French print magazine: "Boing" Nr. 3
'Boing' is a French print magazine published by Boing Attitude (e.g. Dir Me Up and Word Me Up XXL). The third issue has 52 pages in A4 format and includes a report from AmiWest, a review of the use of the Amiga in video production and tests of 'The Shadows of Sergoth', 'Turbo Tomato' and the 'Lotus' trilogy. (cg)
[News message: 26. Feb. 2022, 01:32] [Comments: 0]
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26.Feb.2022
Indie Retro News (Webseite)
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Puzzle game: Adam is me
'Adam is me' (video) is a conversion of Baba Is You for the Amiga: by moving and joining tiles on the playing field, on which nouns and verbs are noted, the rules of the respective level are changed in such a way that the game character can finish the section. According to a discussion at ppa.pl (machine translation) , this is an early version of the title written in C, which is still being worked on. (cg)
[News message: 26. Feb. 2022, 01:12] [Comments: 0]
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26.Feb.2022
Indie Retro News (Webseite)
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Tetris clone with CD32/CDTV support: Choctris
Choctris (video) is a Tetris clone with background music and sound effects. If the game is running on a CDTV or CD32, an inserted CD can also provide the background music; on a CDTV, the high scores are also stored in the bookmark memory. Choctris requires Kickstart 2.0 or higher.
Direct download:
Choctris.adf (880 KB)
Choctris.lha (320 KB) (cg)
[News message: 26. Feb. 2022, 00:47] [Comments: 0]
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25.Feb.2022
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Kickstarter campaign: Bluetooth remake of Amiga mouse
The Polish designer Lukas Remis has started a Kickstarter campaign for a wireless remaking of the Commodore Maus 1352. His 'Tank Mouse' is outwardly based on the original, but incorporates modern technology: the Tank Mouse is a wireless optical mouse that has been given a touch panel between the two buttons for scrolling. It works with Bluetooth or 2.4 GHz and can also be used with the Amiga computer. A small USB receiver is to be included in the package for this purpose. A prototype has already been built in cooperation with a renowned electronics manufacturer, extensively tested and is now ready for mass production. The specifications:
- Colour: Black or white
- Sensor type: Optical
- Connectivity: Wireless, 2.4 GHz & Bluetooth 5.0
- Resolution: 1600 DPI
- Buttons: 2
- Scrolling: Touch scrolling area
- Power: 2 x AAA batteries
- Size: 108 x 67 x 31 mm
- Compatibility: Amiga OS, Windows, MacOS, Linux
One of the main goals of the project was to be able to run the Tank Mouse together with an Amiga. This requires a USB to DB9 adapter such as the RYS MKII (supports scrolling) or Lotharek's mouse adapter to connect the wireless receiver (included with the mouse) to the Amiga.
The project goal has been set at 78,000 Euros, of which around 21,000 Euros have already been funded. Should 150% of the sum be reached, a native wireless DB9 receiver will be developed, manufactured and added to each Tank Mouse.
The minimum donation amount is 31 euros. If the funding is successful, the mouse would be produced and delivered by November 2022 (plus 8 Euro shipping). (dr)
[News message: 25. Feb. 2022, 06:49] [Comments: 0]
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25.Feb.2022
Indie Retro News (Webseite)
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Preview videos: Jump'n Run 'Maria Renard's Revenge', Beat'em Up 'Double Dragon'
'Maria Renard's Revenge' (Video) is a Jump'n Run inspired by Castlevania, is developed using the Scorpion Engine. It comes from the same team that has announced a remake of 'Rick Dangerous' recently.
The Beat'em Up 'Double Dragon' (Video) is also done with the Scorpion Engine. It's a port of Taito's Arcade classic from 1987, which is aiming to be a better Amiga conversion than the official Amiga port from 1989. (cg) (Translation: cg)
[News message: 25. Feb. 2022, 00:37] [Comments: 0]
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24.Feb.2022
Indie Retro News (Webseite)
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Playable prototype: Castlevania clone 'Akumajou Dracula' (AGA)
'Akumajou Dracula' (Video) is going to be a port of Konami's NES action adventure Castlevania. The game is developed using the Scorpion Engine, a newly released prototype contains the entire first world right up to the end of level boss. (cg) (Translation: cg)
[News message: 24. Feb. 2022, 00:05] [Comments: 0]
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23.Feb.2022
Indie Retro News (Webseite)
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Music disk: Cheesy Listening
'Cheesy Listening' (Video) released by Alcatraz, Rebels & Offence is a traditional 'music disk' featuring 12 tracks and a total run-time of about 40 minutes. (cg) (Translation: cg)
[News message: 23. Feb. 2022, 23:44] [Comments: 0]
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23.Feb.2022
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Game previews: New teaser videos for 'Boss Machine' (AGA) and 'Target Renegade'
Two previously announced games for the Amiga had new teaser videos released recently: The horizontally scrolling AGA Shoot'em Up 'Boss Machine' (Video) has been under development for two years now, it's inspired by the Genesis/MegaDrive title Thunder Force IV. 'Target Renegade' (Video) is written in BlitzBasic and is also a port of a classic game.
(cg) (Translation: cg)
[News message: 23. Feb. 2022, 23:38] [Comments: 0]
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23.Feb.2022
Twitter
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CDXL video player: AGABlaster 0.9.90
AGABlaster plays Commodore's CDXL video format. According to the author, it uses a customized version of the CDXL format supporting the AGA chipset with 24 bit colors and variable length frames. Customized CDXL files can be generated with AGAConv. AGABlaster is written in 68K Assembly and runs on native Amiga hardware (no gfx card or sound card required). Changes of version 0.9.90:
- Added support for video playlists
- CDXL videos can be selected with ASL file requester (multi-select with 'shift')
- Jump between playlist videos with 'N'ext and 'P'revious
- Can be started from workbench icon now (AGABlaster.info)
- New playlist/video loop mode ('L' key to toggle loop mode, or command line option LOOP)
- Audio filter is off by default now and can be turned on/off with 'F'
- Optimized versions for 68000/20/30/40/60/80
(dr)
[News message: 23. Feb. 2022, 20:23] [Comments: 0]
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23.Feb.2022
Twitter
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Aracade game: 'Green Beret' update
Green Beret is a conversion of Konami's arcade classic of the same name to the Amiga, written using the Scorpion Engine (amiga-news.de reported).
The recent update provides the following changes:
- Added the missing songs (Stage clear cut scene, and Game Over).
- consistent sound design as even player losing a life uses the music module (and its instruments)
- all music are now multi-song modules, meaning there will be no more in-game loading pauses to load the boss music, it's only changing music position which is instantaneous.
- there is some time for player to prepare before a new boss appears, it is not so sudden anymore.
- fixed enemies spawning out of thin air, specially on start of level 2. Score didn't reset if you beat the game and loop it. Some other fixes and improvements.
(dr)
[News message: 23. Feb. 2022, 05:41] [Comments: 0]
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23.Feb.2022
Daniel Müßener (Mail)
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Preview video 26: Souverän Soccer
Daniel 'Daytona675x' Müßener (Wings Remastered, MiniGL4GL4ES, Tower 57) is working on a soccer game with 3D view called "Souverän Soccer" (amiga-news.de reported). According to the developer, "the game still runs on a standard A1200 without turbo card and without Fast RAM in PAL lowres with 50 frames per second."
In his 26. preview video he shows the following changes:
- The city skyline has been removed to make room for more crowd. The tons of previous optimizations made that possible. This has the additional benefit that I don't have to come up with 20+ different skylines for the release.
- The crowd now consists out of multiple layers, each of them zoomed, scrolled and animated seperately. For now there are three such crowd layers. Maybe I'll add even more (they are rather cheap in terms of performance and it's coded to be easily adjustable), but I think three is a pretty good amount.
- The crowd's zooming is now muuuuch (maybe I need more even more "u"s here) smoother than before. Was a bit tricky but eventually I managed to come up with a solution that doesn't eat up all Chip-RAM ;)
- The crowd is more colorful. Well, could be even more colorful but because it's a placeholder gfx I didn't put too much effort into it. Just a proof of concept.
- The formerly blank grey crowd stand is now an adboard. The ad is generated procedurally, the text can be changed at match start.
- The top goal is now lapping over into the grass and isn't cut-off anymore at the raster-line where the grass begins. This might look like not being a big deal but was really tough. The main reason is that once the copper is inside the grass area it's ultra-busy, all available instructions per line are already used up. But with the top-goal being inside the grass now I had to somehow get some extra sprite-color and -priority changes being done there, things that were done outside the grass before, because the top-goal sprites are being reused for the bottom-goal... Eventually I found a hacky way to get away almost for free without extra copper instructions by doing the color changes before for a different color bank and switch to the right bank at the right point en passant, phew.
- All lines and circles are more white now and distance fading is smoother here too. Also, the grass texels shine through those lines now, making it all appear much more natural.
- The crowd / skyline change also implied trashing and redoing the whole stats / message area at the top. All that stuff is now done using hardware-sprites. Was a bit messy because I have to reset and modify those sprites in mid of the crowd-copper-handling now (any other approach would have been even messier). Sprite usage is somewhat tricky here because, well, I don't have too many (5) and I need one for the high-flying ball, so there are 4 sprites remaining. Combined sprites to get 16 colors aren't an option, because I need at least 3 sprites inside the same vertical area (# of goals, time and messages); no, there's not enough room to move the messages down, because the goal is too close if zoomed in. So I ended up using two sprites for the team names + # of goals: one pretty slim one for the team-colors, the other for all the text and numbers. Then one sprite for the match time info. And then two for the messages, one of which is the reused slim team color sprite. The color gradient has been removed (would complicate the copper handling here a lot because we're inside the crowd handling, and the visual gain is questionable anyway), drop shadows have been added.
- Some more love has been put into the replay function. When switching between replay and normal play a quick curtain effect now better indicates this mode change. The crowd's animation is now slowed down too if in slow-motion replay mode.
(dr)
[News message: 23. Feb. 2022, 04:37] [Comments: 0]
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