grin
Teddy Boy
Posts: 8
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Post by grin on May 8, 2017 9:05:19 GMT
Bock posted this and it's frustrating, but true. (No offense Bock.) He has a point, it is hard work and something you have to be serious about. Say you want to get into this seriously (maybe), how does one actually start? Is there stuff you need to know before even tackling this kind of project? And yes this isn't a "simple down-to-heart question", but I figure it would be easier just to ask straight forward. And Bock, hope this question doesn't insult you, just you replied made an interesting point and it was worth using as a point. So to speak. Also Maybe, it might be fun to take the hard way and learn this stuff.
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Post by Maxim on May 8, 2017 18:10:58 GMT
It really helps to understand how the SMS graphics chip (VDP) works - tiles, the tilemap, scrolling, sprites (and sprite limits), raster effects - so you can make sure your game is technically possible and/or easy to implement graphically. You can learn a lot by playing with the VDP debugging tools in emulators and looking at how games implement things.
From there, it's a matter of picking your language - assembly or C - and diving into the examples/tutorials. You can then build up the functionality from a bare-bones example to your full game, I think it's a process of accumulation most of the time. You can end up with some common "framework" patterns if you write a few things but it pretty much always has to be somewhat bespoke to the game engine.
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Post by omegamax on May 8, 2017 22:35:59 GMT
Firstly I agree with Bocks comment/statement,most people"99%" in my opinion won't have the desire or patience to really learn"only the strong need apply here ".I also agree with Maxim on everything he said,plenty of source code on sms power will help,asking questions on the forum"sms power is the place to ask questions as there are many programmers,Maxims tutorials are a absolute must if your serious about sms coding,using the debugger and viewing the code"basically reverse engineer routines of commercial games"learning how code is structured,how to implement collision,simple scrolling,ai ect...Start with small tasks,a single sprite onscreen controlled with joypad,a screen of tiles,two sprites that collide ect... Forums are for asking questions,use them to your advantage,most programmers are more than happy to share knowledge and help another.
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grin
Teddy Boy
Posts: 8
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Post by grin on May 9, 2017 1:26:41 GMT
A bit over my head, but tolerable. Besides debugging, are there any documents that go into detail about this kind of thing, or would I need to go through to understand it, or would I actually have to use debug tools (which I know nothing about, is that a problem) hands on to figure it out?
It's fine, I knew that there would be stuff to learn in advance. Well you can't climb a mountain unless you climb a mountain... I'll assume that assembly would be the way to go seeing how both the SMS and NES probably were mostly used for programming. How much about assembly do I need to know about attempting any game programming? EDIT: Maxim, I can't access the last two tutorials, Drawing An Extra Line and Introduction To Debugging. How can I read them? It's telling me you are not authorized to access this page.
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Post by Maxim on May 9, 2017 20:28:09 GMT
That's a bit of poor work on my side - those pages don't exist, and it's been a lot of years that I've not got around to fixing them. You can find older versions of them on archive.org, but they refer to EmuKon which I wouldn't recommend these days.
Assembly will help you because that's currently the only option for interactive debugging (as far as I know, C debugging is not technically impossible) but it is a lot harder to get to grips with. What programming experience do you have?
For the VDP, the "sidebar" pages in my tutorial on the tilemap, tiles and palette are (I think) a decent introduction, it just lacks mention of sprites and raster FX.
VDP debugging tools are just point and click things in emulators, to let you see the underlying data. I suggest you play around with them and see if you get a sense of how games are achieving things - most games don't do anything much more complicated than scrolling, but there are always exceptions. And as suggested above, post questions.
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grin
Teddy Boy
Posts: 8
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Post by grin on May 11, 2017 5:55:12 GMT
That's a bit of poor work on my side - those pages don't exist, and it's been a lot of years that I've not got around to fixing them. You can find older versions of them on archive.org, but they refer to EmuKon which I wouldn't recommend these days. Assembly will help you because that's currently the only option for interactive debugging (as far as I know, C debugging is not technically impossible) but it is a lot harder to get to grips with. What programming experience do you have? For the VDP, the "sidebar" pages in my tutorial on the tilemap, tiles and palette are (I think) a decent introduction, it just lacks mention of sprites and raster FX. VDP debugging tools are just point and click things in emulators, to let you see the underlying data. I suggest you play around with them and see if you get a sense of how games are achieving things - most games don't do anything much more complicated than scrolling, but there are always exceptions. And as suggested above, post questions. Ah okay.
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Post by Stan on May 15, 2017 0:43:37 GMT
I would also add that it's not just dedicated, it requires time which we often don't have. I was doing a lot of work on it a few years ago, but let's face it, programming Z80 doesn't make me money, my job does, and I need to work on more publishing and such. Add a kid to the mix, and of course it's difficult to get any of it done. It's slow. So I'd say part of it, for some people, is not so much dedication as not having the time to do it. As Maxim said before himself, life often will and does get in the way of something that has no worth except to you and a handful of people in the world who care about programming old SMS games.
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Post by omegamax on May 15, 2017 18:38:55 GMT
That's true,time is a big factor for some people.I see members on other forums "c64,nes,genesis,amiga ect.."sometimes have the desire to learn but not the required time.
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