FX-Unit Yuki: The Henshin Engine for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine

[esteban]

[BigusSchmuck]

Will you guys be showing this off at PRGE this year? It was definitely one of the highlights for me last year.

[Black Tiger]

That kinda reminds me of the first stage from Megaman X, and that can only be a good thing ;3
plz parallax!!

That particular section is modeled to look and work similar to the opening stage of Megaman X. It was designed so it could also have included the curving overpasses, but it's kinda lame having all the action take place near the top of the screen.

If it all makes it in, there are a few more background types for the stage, all designed to have parallax.

The boss is a console porn take on one of the Shockman bosses.

[sirhcman]

If it all makes it in, there are a few more background types for the stage, all designed to have parallax.

I thought the PC Engine/Turbografx-16 couldn't do parallax?

[Necromancer]

I thought the PC Engine/Turbografx-16 couldn't do parallax?

It can't.  It only does fake parallax.  :-"

[esteban]

I thought the PC Engine/Turbografx-16 couldn't do parallax?

It can't.  It only does fake parallax.  :-"

DAT FAKE PARALLAX, tho...

[Michirin9801]

I thought the PC Engine/Turbografx-16 couldn't do parallax?

It can't.  It only does fake parallax.  :-"

DAT FAKE PARALLAX, tho...

That's what makes it all the more impressive ;3

On systems like the SNES and the MD I pretty much take parallax scrolling for granted, I mean, those systems already have 2 (or more) BG layers, it's easy to do parallax on them, in fact that only makes it all the more disappointing whenever they DON'T have parallax...
You've got to do something real mind-blowing like the multi-overlapping-layer parallax from Thunder Force IV to really impress me with those two...

But when you do it on systems like the PC engine, the NES, the Master System or on the Game Boy/Colour, you know, systems that only have ONE BG layer, THEN you're doing something special!

[Black Tiger]

It's not really special pulling off parallax in 8-bit gen or PCE/Neo Geo games. Lots of 2600/Intv/Coleco games feature parallax. Just like technically having a high color count on screen isn't special on it's own, what makes any parallax special is the overall scene. Lots of dual tile layer parallax looks ridiculous because no (good) thought was put into it.

[nodtveidt]

Technically, what the PCE can't do is tile layering on its own. Parallax is just a matter of scrolling different things at different speeds to give the impression of depth. So yeah, even the 2600 could do it Like Black Tiger said, it's all about the overall scene. We are kind of forced to make it special though, since it's not something we can take for granted, like so many sloppy efforts on the SNES and Genesis. Where HE really shines in the visuals department is where Black Tiger designed layered scenes; these are anything but easy to pull off and required some careful preparation... using all of HuC's scroll() regions, dynamic tiles, realtime map rewriting, and sprite overlays are all required to pull off the most complex scenes. The fact that this was done not only with stock HuC but with the stock Denki build that is over 12 years old makes it even more special, imo.

[Michirin9801]

I get what you guys mean, but what I mean is that parallax scrolling on the PCE, or any other system that only has 1 BG layer, is inherently more impressive than it would be on the SNES or MD, because those two have extra layers to help them with that...
The mere fact that you have to do trickery to pull it off, even if it's just putting some sprites behind the BG layer and moving them at a different speed from the BG's, still makes it something special to me personally, because you know, by virtue of only having 1 BG layer to work with, the system was obviously not meant to do multi-layered scrolling backgrounds... And yet a lot of games did it, and that's amazing!

I'm aware older games also did it, and they're just as impressive because of that, but the PCE just so happens to be capable of producing pretty damn great graphics and sounds on top of it! No wonder why I gravitated towards it, it's got the best of both worlds!

[spenoza]

The SNES and Genesis also used the exact same software parallax techniques to augment their hardware background support. Software parallax is, in some ways, far more common than hardware parallax.

[nodtveidt]

Testing begins this weekend. We're so close to completion now.

[Arkhan]

parallax on the PC Engine is annoying to deal with. 

like rover mentioned, it requires careful preparation.   IE: Unintuitive art requirements, followed by multiple scrolling concepts all working in tandem.

There's a reason why pretty much any game doing this sort of thing has really simple repetition.   It looks cool, but it's pretty much always repetitive tiles.   Like the first level in Schibibin Man 3.   

and then ultimately, you've sacrificed gameplay power for eyecandy, lol.

Lookin at you, giant coral towers in Atlantean.

[nodtveidt]

"Function before flash" is my modus operandi when doing this kind of thing. It doesn't matter how pretty it looks if it plays like asscandle. We've sacrificed looks for gameplay at various points of this production; tis a shame how many would prefer to do it the other way around, as we saw from time to time back in the day and even occasionally today.

[Michirin9801]

parallax on the PC Engine is annoying to deal with. 

like rover mentioned, it requires careful preparation.   IE: Unintuitive art requirements, followed by multiple scrolling concepts all working in tandem.

There's a reason why pretty much any game doing this sort of thing has really simple repetition.   It looks cool, but it's pretty much always repetitive tiles.   Like the first level in Schibibin Man 3.   

and then ultimately, you've sacrificed gameplay power for eyecandy, lol.

Lookin at you, giant coral towers in Atlantean.

I know what you mean, but if you have a talented artist who understands all of these things and how the system works in general, it's possible to make something which not only looks great, with parallax and all, but doesn't get too much in the way of level design!
And I know a couple of people who can totally do that ;3