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TV Graphics demos — Parallax Forums

TV Graphics demos

skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
edited 2013-02-02 21:23 in Propeller 1
I have got my quickstart outputting video to my TV and ran the graphics.spin demo for the first time last night and am very impressed with the output of the propeller (can't stop throwing snowballs) and I was wondering what other great demos apart from the games are out there for the TV output? I'm currently scouring the OBEX for more but wondered if others had links or pointers to where I could find more.

Comments

  • RaymanRayman Posts: 14,646
    edited 2013-01-30 03:36
    Baggers did Wolfenstein 3D for TV. That's was pretty impressive:
    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/116566-My-New-Demo-to-be-unveiled-at-Eindhoven?highlight=wolfenstein
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2013-01-30 04:33
    Wow that is awesome, thanks Rayman
  • RaymanRayman Posts: 14,646
    edited 2013-01-30 06:50
    Actually, OBC is big into TV stuff... On his web site, www.propellerpowered.com, there's a link to a library.

    Under "QuickPlayer" there are a lot of TV games...
  • Ahle2Ahle2 Posts: 1,179
    edited 2013-01-30 10:21
    1. You will not find any of the more impressive demos in the OBEX.

    2. There's a lot of impressive Propeller graphics demos to be found on YouTube.

    IMHO, the most impressive of them all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gEMKYnUADE
  • Ahle2Ahle2 Posts: 1,179
    edited 2013-01-30 10:30
    I'm sorry....THIS IS the most impressive Propeller TV demo.. ;)

  • potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,261
    edited 2013-02-02 12:40
    LOL

    Yeah, the sound makes that one just pop! (someday, we really need to better exploit your sound engine!) Personally, that makes the whole thing. Thanks :)

    Considering that animation is done with a simple dot plotter and block fill graphics library COG, it's not too bad. Props are plenty quick enough to use even simple techniques to good effect. IMHO, that's the good part of this particular demo. Fill rate is a bit limited, due to simple dot plotter being used over quicker techniques, but the beauty is the screen can be divided into zones super easy, just allocate a couple more graphics cogs and continue on. Despite that, it's single buffered, each frame drawn just ahead of the display raster!

    Eric's driver for video does simple NTSC artifact color too. That's where the different palette comes from. Excellent use of the video generator.

    **Yes, the rainbow is running quarter speed. Sorry. A quick edit fixes that. Didn't notice until it was done.
  • Ahle2Ahle2 Posts: 1,179
    edited 2013-02-02 13:13
    someday, we really need to better exploit your sound engine!
    Yes, the engine itself is complete and bug free and the format is well defined. I havn't shared all the details yet.
    As you know, I lost interest coding on the sequencer when I couln't fix "that" last bug that hangs the application when saving music data. (sooooo annoying)
    Despite that, it's single buffered, each frame drawn just ahead of the display raster!
    I used the same technique for my SIDcog demo. But I used several cogs and assembly to achieve tear free 50/60 Hz with multiple layers of graphics running in 256 x 240 x 2bpp.
    The wavy background just barely finish rendering the last scan line before the "electron beam" catches up. It wouldn't have worked if it wasn't for the "extra" scan lines in the vertical blanking period.
    Fun times! :)
  • potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,261
    edited 2013-02-02 13:59
    Yep. I love it when it's possible to do that. Nyan has a draw order that keeps ahead of the beam too. There are a couple of lines commented out that show measuring sticks. At one point, I had some image elements just behind the beam. A quick shuffle of things took care of that. What stunned me was just working in byte mode with a couple of shifts to calculate screen addresses was plenty fast enough. Made most graphics functions simple and easy to do. Of course, doing it that way is kind of slow compared to the much quicker sprite / tile / masking type techniques, but robust and fun. I've got an old Odyessy 2 game I've been working on that is just cake to code that way. I should have tried it long before now. I will add a graphics COG to that one though. Fill rate isn't quite quick enough to single buffer all the animated things moving around. Could drop Jim's sprite engine in there, but it's way more complicated and I nearly always got bogged down.

    Well, I know how it is when we lose mojo... For what it's worth, I'll compose! You could hear some great chip tunes. New ones :) I'll even work with something kind of broken too. Don't have the throughput to build an editor myself. Musically, I'm just itching to jam on stuff like this... Someday.

    You know, P2 will be capable of a native editor, AMIGA style. Maybe that can get your juices flowing again. Soon, Chip will have the DE2 adapter board completed and we can start trying that kind of stuff. I'm itching for it myself, currently working on SD card and learning instructions while I wait. Maybe we can get to a place where we've got killer sound, native editor, SD, and a keyboard and other input device or two all hooked up for fun times!
  • potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,261
    edited 2013-02-02 21:23
    Honestly, I think the games are some of the better "demos" as they show off great techniques. OBC has collected most, if not all of them. Maybe he can chime in here with a link. Reading through those will give you a lot of ideas on how to use the video capabilities.
  • SaucySolitonSaucySoliton Posts: 521
    Animating grains of sand using cellular automata
    http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/92322/amazing-sand-physics-demo-uses-6-cogs-to-animate-10-000-grains-of-sand-in-realt

    Nyan cat
    http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/136204/nyan-cat-animation-on-propeller-done/p1
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