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Hey all,

I know someone within the last two months inquired about simulating the Arcade "Banding" Effect (though I can't find it now). Simulating the effect gives the illusion of a higher resolution, more detailed sprites, & makes the game (in my oppinion) look more professional and less like a web-based "simpsons" looking.

Note: Edited After Pincho's Post (Added Picture & following text). Notice the thin dark-grey lines that run across the background. I need those lines to also be over the gladiator and which method is the best way to do it.

screenie:




This is a game, tenatively titled "Tournament Gladiator", I am currently working on. I hand drew the character using a printout of a "Street Fighter" character as a visual reference. This is my first attempt at drawing a Fighter-Style sprite. The character was drawn in MS Paint 100*155 pixels @ 16 colors. The backdrop, is not mine, I think it came with DB Classic??? Well Please feel free to critique the art as well. The Game will comprise a few genres including 2D Fighter, 1st Person 3D, and 2D-ISOHEX startegy.
(End Of Edit)


I have been able to achieve the effect...
(Note: Currently I am just using the line command in a stepped loop on a 640*480 screen with backdrop turned off)
...on my background image (Think "Street Fighter"-esque game), but I am unable to get the banding on top of both the background image, and my sprites.

Setting the draw to back doesn't help because then my sprite is not visible, as it becomes obscured by the background image being drawn over it.

WHeewww. With all that said; Does anyone know the best way to achieve this effect. Do I need to have my background on a flat 3d plane??? Sky-Box??? Should I creat a huge sprite that contains the Bands for a 640*480 screen and force it to be drawn before the sync???

I can't remember what the response was to that post I referred to and I never seem to be able to find anything with the forum search?

Thanks for any help, and for reading my "wordy" to say the least post. Also, If you have a different method than perhaps a response I may get, please post yours as well. I am always interested in seeing multiple solutions and methods.[img][/img]

Don't know what you mean. Maybe you mean those raster lines that games used to have on the Amiga. Anyway, can't you just have them on the background image?

Thanks Pincho,

Yes, I believe I used the wrong terminology, which no doubt has limited the number of repsonses I will receive. By "banding" I was referring to the "RASTER LINES" that you mention. Sorry for the confusion.

Note: For some who are trying to visualize what I am referring to. The effect is essentially a very thin dark grey or black line that runs across the screen spaced close together. It creates A True Arcade feel, and actually has the ability (illusion) of making your images seem to contain 2* the resolution. An image would probably help at this point.

I have no problem getting them on the background, even in real time. The problem I have is Also getting those lines to appear over the character sprites. So I need the Raster lines to be drawn above everything.

I Had though about creating my sprites with the Raster lines built in, but this did not work because as the sprite moves in a vertical (up or down) position the lines become offset.

So Now I am wondering what is the best method to create the "raster lines". I am thinking the answer lies either with using 3d plains (which I'm not familiar with) or possibly having a huge sprite 640*480 that gets drawn last.

I hope I am making some sense.

edit:
ok here is the same in-game screen capture with the "interlacing" effect off.

Well you could use a transparent plain for the effect. You would create an image of a gradient fill, then just ghost it in DB Classic, or use DBPro to make an alpha channel.

"horizontal banding lines", are known as interlace. Just a quick FYI.

The reason you would have seen those is because you were playing games on an older television set that had 3 rectangular pixels (red,green,blue) to make 1 dot of color. Also, the pictures are displayed using interlace.

But yeah, you can do what pincho said and use a transparent plain with a horizontally striped texture. Make it the highest object number so that it is drawn in the correct order and appears ontop.

Why you'd want to do this? Nostalgia maybe? I know that it's a feature offered in MAME32. Sometimes it's kinda cool to go retro by 20 years and play a game with interlace. Makes me feel like a kid again.

Yeah this looks like interlace, but I couldn't see the pictures till now. Raster lines were a gradient fill trick. Yuk I don't like interlace.

Yeah, interlace is merely nostalgic...I'd never use it in a modern game myself.

edit: An Interesting link to play around with different offsets
of vertical interlacing. Much better representation than my simple
line scheme. Can't believe someone actually went through the trouble to mimic this through code.

click to create more blobs. Up to 10
#keys 2-4 change interlace offset
#key 1 to return to normal

http://www.toxi.co.uk/p5/blobsInterlace/


Pincho & tapewormz,
Well thanks for posting the correct term "interlacing" I just reposted the image, please take another look at it. The one's you saw looked even worse because I did an in-game capture and I made the unfortunate mistake in loading the images with the load bitmap command, which distorted them. Yet I don't think that it will change your oppinion of the look.

Also thanks for helping, even though you don't really like the look. I haven't tried using plains yet, so it will be interesting. I'll post back to let you know how things go.

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Why Interlacing?
As far as interlacing. I personally like the effect. I think that the game would look too "simpsonish" otherwise. I will repost the second image without the interlacing look and I think that you will see the improvement that the interlacing provides.

The reason I am doing this is because this part of the game is suppose to have the Retro 2D-fighter feel of Double Dragon and the like. I am using images with a color a 4bit color depth (16 colors). The media size will be kept to a minimum. The interlacing makes the images appear to have more depth and resolution than they actually do. If I'm not mistaken many Arcade screens utilized this method including some beautiful games like "Metal Slug" and the original "Street Fighter". I will have to research this though[b]