Re: Aw: Re: [stella] z-Axis Movement Programming Theory Sources?

Subject: Re: Aw: Re: [stella] z-Axis Movement Programming Theory Sources?
From: KirkIsrael@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: 14 Oct 2003 13:55:57 -0000
> I don't think it's disencouraging. For one you can learn things by
> studying others works and the you can always try to improve
> things or giving it an interesting new twist. And the earlier you
> know about parallel efforts, the better you can react to it.

That's true. But as a beginner, there's a slight advantage to 
picking a game that's unique, just to ensure your efforts don't
look bad by comparison.  For someone with a stronger 6502 background
than I have, that's less the case, and stella list etc provides 
a great framework to boldly go and break some new and better ground.

 
> > Then again, I'm even amazed at things like
> > circular radar screens with a sweeping hand. Actually,
> > in some ways I'm more amazed by that. How *do* you do
> > something like that?
> 
> You mean the radar from Batlezone?
> 
> If you're *really* interested in how that works, I might go and
> further reverse-engineer (that part of) Battlezone. :)

Ah right, you were doing the "crash" stuff previously.

To be honest, I'm not too skillfull at reading disassemblies...
sometimes even with decent comments I'm a little clueless. But 
Battlezone has always fascinated me...for my money, it's the 
most impressive technical achievement of a game on the system.
If you were into the code, I'd love to hear even a very high 
level description of 
A. How the radar is drawn...is it players for the circle, 
   missiles for the "dots", and what for the line, then?
B. (and this is probably pretty subtle) how, fundamentally,
   are the game elements represented in memory?  Is everything
   polar coordinates-ish, and then mapped to X/Y? (I suspect this
   is how the less-3Dish Robot Tank works) Or does the game have 
   an X/Y "map" of the elements (2 enemies, your bullet, the enemy
   bullet), and then just is clever when it draws the radar?  
   (and if that's the case w/ an X-Y map, is the player always 
   at center, and it swings the other elements around, or does 
   it just have an X-Y map that clean wraps around)


So I promise to listen with rapt attention to anything highlevel
you figure out, and even read through any commented disassembly
you provide, though I can't promise to really get most of the 
latter...

-- 
KirkIsrael@xxxxxxxxxxxxx    http://kisrael.com
    "My stomach says no but my sick carny sense of humor says yes..."
             --Mr. Wick (The Drew Carey Show)


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