Loading...
1,314
2 years ago

I've been continuing work on getting the Status Bar (at the bottom of the screen) to "seamlessly" transition between levels of my NES game.

It now works properly when transitioning in all directions.

๐Ÿงต๐Ÿ‘‡


It's complicated because the status bar lives in the BG layer, so you would see it moving up/down the screen as you scroll up and down.

The Fix?

The NES renders the screen top to bottom, so I detect when it is drawing 1 pixel above the status bar. At that precise moment, in the middle of drawing the screen, I tell the renderer to skip down to 1 pixel BELOW the status bar.

image.png
image.png

This effectively erases the existence of the status bar in the middle over screen by redirecting the renderer to a different part of video memory for that section of the screen.

A bit like folding a piece of paper over itself to hide some of the contents.

image.png

You may notice that during the video, the Status Bar sometimes vanishes.

image.png

This looks pretty bad, but is actually a simple thing to fix!

It is happening because my level streaming logic is not yet accounting for the status bar area, and loading level data in over top of it. I just need to stream in less data.

The only reason it isn't fixed yet, is because I hope to get a little performance boost out of it, so I want to take some time to measure just how much of a boost I get. ๐Ÿ˜



1 comment

Loading...

Next up

MASSIVE Game Boy Homebrew GIVEAWAY! We're giving away physical copies of 4 new Gameboy games to 1 winner! From Below is on sale NOW: http://shop.matthughson.com ๐Ÿšจ ENTER HERE: https://twitter.com/matthughson/status/1710641131590221843 ๐ŸGiveaway ends Oct 11th 11:59PM PT

When making games on the NES, nothing is easy!

With a LOT of help from the #nesdev Discord, I was able to clean up the seam above the status bar.

Also there's some new (temp) art, and I even perform the forbidden mid-frame palette update for extra colors!

Here's something you don't see in every NES game:

A platformer with ZAPPER support! Super Sunny World allows a 2nd player to kill enemies with the Zapper Gun.

#nesdev

Happy #WIPWednesday! Are you working on a game? Making some art? Practicing a song? Something else? Tell us in the comments!

Big news for From Below (NES) and From Below Pocket (GB) physical editions!

Full Update: https://mailchi.mp/9df0515acedb/from-below-update-3

Short Version: Both NES and GB will start shipping next week!

Woohoo!!! #nesdev #gbdev

Thanks to @TeamHalfBeard , it is Time to Morp.

Begin to Morp in your quest log and then Morp more here: https://bit.ly/time2morp

It's the FINAL push for From Below!

shop.matthughson.com

Sale ends 11:59PM PT!

If you know folks who love Game Boy, Tetris, NES, or Homebrew... LET THEM KNOW!

If you're on Reddit, Discord, social media... anything: Every share makes a HUGE difference!

An NES crossover!

The Kraken from my first NES game, "From Below", will make a cameo as one of the bosses in my next NES game, "Super Sunny World"๐ŸŒž

Super Sunny World is a new pixel platformer, and a love letter to the original Super Mario Bros.๐Ÿ„

WISHLIST!

@ddemkoo is a Jolter to Watch and a creator who makes games, music, art, websites, and everything else in-between! Follow @ddemkoo before the quest ends on March 11 and you'll get Coins!

Only 48hrs left to pick up my new game for your Nintendo Game Boy & NES!๐Ÿฆ‘

https://shop.matthughson.com

Preorder ends Oct 16th, 11:59PM PT! Do not miss it!๐Ÿ—“

$60USD w/FREE SHIPPING!๐Ÿ’Œ

Compatible with EVERY model of Game Boy, including Super Game Boy!