Limitation details

[pixolpalette]

I'm doing a couple of sprites for a thread i am going to make, and i would like to know some of the graphics limitations.

1.how many max colors per sprite.
2.how many max frames per animation.
3.Maximum size of a sprite.

Thanks.

[playgeneration]

The factors change on what kind of game you want to make. You can have a big players sprite with lots of animation, but it will limit the size and number of enemy sprites you can have on screen at the same time without incurring flicker (sprites turning on and off) or slowdown.

1. There is a single definable palette for all sprites of 16 colours, but in reality its actually 15 as you'll need to reserve one for transparency.

2. Frames of animation depends on what else is going on in the game. A characters like Sonic has a lot of animation frames, but the enemies don't. Have a search for 'sprite sheets' for various SMS games to give you an idea.

3. The sprite limit is 256 8x8 pixel sprites on screen at once (I think). But the limitation that will really be an issue is the 8 sprite per horizontal line limit. So if the character/enemy sprites in your game were 16 pixels wide (so two sprites across), then you could only have four of them on screen at the same height at the same time, any more and some of the sprites will have to flicker on and off to have them even appear at all.

[pixolpalette]

Mar 23, 2013 17:54:51 GMT playgeneration said:

The factors change on what kind of game you want to make. You can have a big players sprite with lots of animation, but it will limit the size and number of enemy sprites you can have on screen at the same time without incurring flicker (sprites turning on and off) or slowdown.

1. There is a single definable palette for all sprites of 16 colours, but in reality its actually 15 as you'll need to reserve one for transparency.

2. Frames of animation depends on what else is going on in the game. A characters like Sonic has a lot of animation frames, but the enemies don't. Have a search for 'sprite sheets' for various SMS games to give you an idea.

3. The sprite limit is 256 8x8 pixel sprites on screen at once (I think). But the limitation that will really be an issue is the 8 sprite per horizontal line limit. So if the character/enemy sprites in your game were 16 pixels wide (so two sprites across), then you could only have four of them on screen at the same height at the same time, any more and some of the sprites will have to flicker on and off to have them even appear at all.

Figured that might be. Hmm. Guess its keeping pretty strict for sprites. Thanks for the info! I'll keep this in my notes. 8)

[vingazole]

The transparency colour is colour #0; the 15 other colours must be selected from the sms's 64 colour palette (2 bits [4 different values] for the level of red, 2 for the green and 2 for the blue).

You cannot display more than 64 8x8 pixel sprites at the same time.

To display a 16x24 pixel sprite, you must use 2x3=6 8x8 hardware sprites.

Only the 256 first character patterns ("tiles") can be used to display your sprites.

[Maxim]

The only real limit on animation frames is that you have to store them all in ROM, which is no real limit these days, but in the 80s and 90s would have had a significant price effect; and you need to upload them continuously to the display chip, which has a limited bandwidth which is related to what else is happening in the game. As an approximate guess, you could change 10 8x8 tiles every frame, so 600 per second.

Edit: looking at your other thread, I think it's worth reiterating that there is a single 15 colour palette for all sprites, so you can't have 15 just for what you want, it has to be a general shared palette.

[pixolpalette]

Mar 24, 2013 8:45:00 GMT Maxim said:

The only real limit on animation frames is that you have to store them all in ROM, which is no real limit these days, but in the 80s and 90s would have had a significant price effect; and you need to upload them continuously to the display chip, which has a limited bandwidth which is related to what else is happening in the game. As an approximate guess, you could change 10 8x8 tiles every frame, so 600 per second.

Edit: looking at your other thread, I think it's worth reiterating that there is a single 15 colour palette for all sprites, so you can't have 15 just for what you want, it has to be a general shared palette.

Whoops. I guess i'll have to pick my set of colors, and edit. Can i have a different set for tiles, or its for everything?

[playgeneration]

Tiles use a separate 16 colours, so in theory you can have 32 colours on screen between sprites and tiles. In reality you'll be using several of the same very useful colours in both palettes, black, white etc. So you'll end up with 20 something colours on screen overall.

Tiles can also use the sprite palette colours too, but every pixel in that 8x8 tile has to use only sprite colours, it can't be a combination of sprite and tile palette colours.

[pixolpalette]

Mar 24, 2013 11:17:21 GMT playgeneration said:

Tiles use a separate 16 colours, so in theory you can have 32 colours on screen between sprites and tiles. In reality you'll be using several of the same very useful colours in both palettes, black, white etc. So you'll end up with 20 something colours on screen overall.

Tiles can also use the sprite palette colours too, but every pixel in that 8x8 tile has to use only sprite colours, it can't be a combination of sprite and tile palette colours.

Ah okay. I'll have a least some different colors for things that sprites cannot be positioned on. What if its a entirely different level? can i again choose a new set that use the same, with some different colors for that stage?

[playgeneration]

Sure different levels can have their own unqiue sprite and tile palettes

[Maxim]

Mar 24, 2013 17:18:45 GMT pixolpalette said:

Ah okay. I'll have a least some different colors for things that sprites cannot be positioned on.

The colours of a tile are independent of what positions sprites are at. You can think of sprites as an independent layer over the background. (Foreground tiles are an additional complication that is irrelevant here.)

[pixolpalette]

Mar 25, 2013 0:45:19 GMT Maxim said:

Mar 24, 2013 17:18:45 GMT pixolpalette said:

Ah okay. I'll have a least some different colors for things that sprites cannot be positioned on.

The colours of a tile are independent of what positions sprites are at. You can think of sprites as an independent layer over the background. (Foreground tiles are an additional complication that is irrelevant here.)

Oh okay. Yeah, i was not going to do foreground tiles. Thanks for clarification.