5 Colors in One Sprite Explained - Audiovisual Effects Pt. 04

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Retro Game Mechanics Explained

Retro Game Mechanics Explained

3 жыл бұрын

How do the character sprites in Super Mario Bros. 2 have 5 colors? It's all explained right here.
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Thank you to Xkeeper for their SMB2 disassembly, which you can find here: github.com/Xkeeper0/smb2/tree...
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Пікірлер: 448
@joebykaeby
@joebykaeby 3 жыл бұрын
I cannot imagine the board meeting where they decided “giving the player one pixel of white in the eyes” is worth reducing the number of drawable objects by more than 10%
@aetherarcanist4819
@aetherarcanist4819 3 жыл бұрын
It looks baffling, but hey, we probably paid more attention to their white eyes than we would to an extra sprite being drawn without flickering everything
@melody3741
@melody3741 3 жыл бұрын
It's a tiny detail but I think that subconsciously it makes a big difference to the players and makes the characters much more animated and alive looking. Even if you don't think it makes a difference, it probably affects you subconsciously. I mean literally the entire game (and every videogame) is literally just you interpreting visuals, so it makes sense to want to make them look as good as you can.
@claude-alexandretrudeau1830
@claude-alexandretrudeau1830 3 жыл бұрын
@@melody3741 This is the reason we remember Mario and not Pitfall Harry.
@BagOfMagicFood
@BagOfMagicFood 3 жыл бұрын
It helps that the game was already fully designed, so they knew how much room was left for extra objects.
@door-chan
@door-chan 3 жыл бұрын
Only 90's game devs will understand 😤
@aurachanneler8396
@aurachanneler8396 3 жыл бұрын
Don’t you just HATE when your eyes turn door-colored? I sure do!
@ashtonsmith1730
@ashtonsmith1730 3 жыл бұрын
yeah stalkers can relate :)
@kemalswimmingsuitswimmingh415
@kemalswimmingsuitswimmingh415 3 жыл бұрын
Ikr
@gooolixx
@gooolixx 3 жыл бұрын
ikr
@manioqqqq
@manioqqqq Жыл бұрын
Ikr
@arthurhenriqued.a.ribeiro2078
@arthurhenriqued.a.ribeiro2078 3 жыл бұрын
I've noticed the Mario with Red Flickering Eyes multiple times when going through a door. Thanks for the explanation!
@Dargonhuman
@Dargonhuman 3 жыл бұрын
I main Peach myself but I too have noticed that she seems to "blink" rapidly when going through doors. I never considered it was the same effect as the flickering sprites so in my head canon, I explained it as the characters were just blinking fast to adjust their eyes to the drastic changes in lighting.
@theREALsilviautism
@theREALsilviautism 3 жыл бұрын
@@Dargonhuman huh
@gunsunnuva8346
@gunsunnuva8346 3 жыл бұрын
I've always mained Toad since the early 90s, so I have to admit I've never noticed this glitch.
@yourlocaldeedge69420
@yourlocaldeedge69420 3 жыл бұрын
Yea
@xander0479
@xander0479 3 жыл бұрын
Somehow I never noticed the eyes freaking out when on a door but now I won't be able to un-see it, thanks
@xander0479
@xander0479 3 жыл бұрын
@@alainchristian I'm pretty good at not seeing things. It's one of my many talents
@Bry10022
@Bry10022 3 жыл бұрын
r/TIHI?
@xander0479
@xander0479 3 жыл бұрын
@@Bry10022 this ain't reddit, fella
@Bry10022
@Bry10022 3 жыл бұрын
@@xander0479 I know, It probably qualifies for the Thanks, I Hate It subreddit…
@aaendi6661
@aaendi6661 3 жыл бұрын
Have you ever noticed that in SMB3 and Kirby's Adventure, the tiles on the right side of the screen have the wrong colors while scrolling?
@shadowmanwkp
@shadowmanwkp 3 жыл бұрын
Another well-known NES game that uses multiple sprites for the player character is Mega Man. In those games, the whole face is a separate sprite, so sometimes Mega's face flickers due to hitting the sprite limit.
@pleasedontwatchthese9593
@pleasedontwatchthese9593 3 жыл бұрын
The MSX, which came out a few years before the NES, also used this trick often of sprite stacking. I believe the first Metal Gear used this. MSX also had color math, which the NES sort of had but it was more on a global level than at the sprite level. For the NES It was often used for pausing the game or a underwater level to tint the screen. On the MSX the color math could be used with sprite stacking to get new colors.
@warmCabin
@warmCabin 3 жыл бұрын
Another fun fact about Mega Man's face graphics: the skin color, white eyes, and black pupil colors are reused for the health pickups, enemy damage flashes, and even some projectiles (at least in mm2). So you could say the iconic lemons are actually flesh balls! Plain-colored weapons, like Quick Boomerang and Metal Blade, use this trick to allow more colorful outfits for Mega Man. More colorful weapons, like Air Shooter and Leaf Shield, require Mega Man to match his projectiles. As an interesting aside, consider the flashing health and energy pickups, which use Mega Man's palettes. You'd think those are using palette cycling, but they actually have to use two separate graphics to avoid making Mega Man into a strobe monster.
@BagOfMagicFood
@BagOfMagicFood 3 жыл бұрын
This also made the graphics more versatile, since it meant that any facial expression could be slotted in with any pose. A sprite even more versatile was Dizzy in The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, where not only did he have many face pieces to choose from, but his gloves and shoes were separate objects that could float just anywhere they were needed for any pose. Being separate objects, they had a separate palette from the body, allowing the body to contain _two_ shades of white with black outlines instead of having to share with the red gloves and shoes.
@KieferSkunk
@KieferSkunk 3 жыл бұрын
@@warmCabin Re Mega Man changing colors with the weapons: That's neat! I didn't know that was due to a hardware limitation. Capcom came up with a rather plausible way to spin a limitation into canon, at least for those games. (I haven't played anything in the Mega Man series past MM4, sadly.)
@powergannon
@powergannon 3 жыл бұрын
Was going to say the same thing. They did a great job with the level of detail for Mega Man
@The_WhitePencil
@The_WhitePencil Жыл бұрын
I find it absolutely hilarious that toad is the only one who already uses white in his color palette and yet is the only one lacking whites in his eyes.
@DoomKid
@DoomKid Жыл бұрын
Toad with eye-whites seems kinda disturbing the more I think of it.. I’m just so used to them being solid black dots!
@OhSayWhatIsTruth
@OhSayWhatIsTruth 3 жыл бұрын
It should be noticed that the SMB2 prototype lacks the extra eye sprites, putting the characters' eyes more like the style shown in SMB3.
@vlco_o
@vlco_o 3 жыл бұрын
Before knowing about this, I though Mario and co. were blinking while going through a door!
@Dargonhuman
@Dargonhuman 3 жыл бұрын
That was my head canon as well - I figured they were going from very bright light to very dim interiors (or vice versa) and were adjusting their eyes.
@kemalswimmingsuitswimmingh415
@kemalswimmingsuitswimmingh415 3 жыл бұрын
Marios eye go like 😐😑😐😑😐😑😐😑😐😑😐😑😐😑😐😑😐😑😐😑😐😑😐😑😐😑😐😑 XD
@Jadamhodges
@Jadamhodges Жыл бұрын
They were….
@HappyBeezerStudios
@HappyBeezerStudios 3 жыл бұрын
I will always have mad respect to the programmers of that age. Being able to work around the limitations of the hardware to create truly magnificent games. Being able to so tightly manage the limited resources.
@sharkofjoy
@sharkofjoy 2 жыл бұрын
There's still a large amount of current work done in this space, specifically in iot and devices meant for near space flight. Extreme limitations on weight and size are still getting devs to coerce complicated functionality from scarce resources.
@stevethepocket
@stevethepocket 3 жыл бұрын
"Your new game just came out." "On the NES? It can't render my sprite. I HAVE SPECIAL EYES." "Look. Look with your special eyes." "MY SPRITE!"
@LouieFromPikmin
@LouieFromPikmin 3 жыл бұрын
What is this a reference to?
@literallyn01imp0rtant
@literallyn01imp0rtant 3 жыл бұрын
@@LouieFromPikmin 1-800-CONTACTS if I remember correctly.
@nullvoid564
@nullvoid564 3 жыл бұрын
@@literallyn01imp0rtant MY BRAND!
@noti7510
@noti7510 3 жыл бұрын
special eyes? on my cartridge? it's more likely than you'd think.
@RetroSho
@RetroSho 3 жыл бұрын
I've always seen that eye flicker effect for years as a child. And when I started playing on emulators it got more pronounced due to the upscaling on an LCD. Always wondered what was going on behind that! Thanks for demystifying yet another interesting aspect of these older games! 😀
@johneygd
@johneygd 3 жыл бұрын
What i did noticed is that on the nes via composite video, mario has black eyes and a black mustage while on a emulator via vga ,mario’s mustage and eyes are just blue, i don’t why it is, but this can be no coicidence i believe nintendo took advantage of the ntsc color artifacts.
@Nicholas_Steel
@Nicholas_Steel 3 жыл бұрын
@@johneygd It depends on the colour palette that the emulator uses. FirebrandX has made a very accurate NTSC colour palette and most NES emulators let you change the colour palette being used. It's not 100% accurate because you'd need something like a 12bit display panel and most LCD screens are 6 or 8 bits so the palette is optimized to look the best on a common LCD display (HDR displays may be 10bits and professional displays may be 12 bits).
@KieferSkunk
@KieferSkunk 3 жыл бұрын
@@johneygd NTSC color artifacts and the properties of the display itself both come into play. Remember that most CRTs aren't exactly great at reproducing the NTSC color spectrum exactly either - not to mention the TV's own controls are likely playing a part as well. I recall the SMB2 sprites having non-black (dark-blue) borders on my old TV, but I always figured that was because the TV's "black" wasn't really black. It was only when I played it on an emulator that I saw it actually being dark blue, and that it was actually different from SMB1.
@MrBizznessMan
@MrBizznessMan 3 жыл бұрын
1-800-CONTACTS? THEY CAN'T HAVE MY BRAND! I have special eyes...
@lilwyvern4
@lilwyvern4 3 жыл бұрын
Tali: Look. Look with your special eyes.
@devonhooker2332
@devonhooker2332 3 жыл бұрын
MY BRAND
@Bry10022
@Bry10022 3 жыл бұрын
I like this comment…
@nullvoid564
@nullvoid564 3 жыл бұрын
They specialize in special eyes
@thefranklin6463
@thefranklin6463 3 жыл бұрын
Everyone’s eyes may look g o r g e o u s
@andricode
@andricode 3 жыл бұрын
I've always wondered why Mario's eyes glitch out when he's in a red door and now i know it, great videos btw!
@Siphonay
@Siphonay 3 жыл бұрын
I never thought about how this flickering behavior was something completely intended and designed by the game programmers, it makes perfect sense! Thank you very much for this videos. As always, informative and easy to follow despite being really technical.
@607
@607 Жыл бұрын
It doesn't to me, could you explain? Why is this more desirable than simply having the enemy that's in front appear in front?
@thetreblerebel
@thetreblerebel 3 жыл бұрын
It still blows my mind with the limits of the NES, of what programmers and creators accomplished
@KieferSkunk
@KieferSkunk 3 жыл бұрын
IMO, coming up with creative solutions in the face of severe limitations is a lost art. Programmers back in the day knew what kinds of limitations they were up against and found really interesting ways to get around them, and many developers today just don't have to worry about it anymore.
@BokBarber
@BokBarber 3 жыл бұрын
I always thought the flickering eyes was the characters raising their eyebrows in anticipation of going through the door.
@mresturk9336
@mresturk9336 2 жыл бұрын
All the revisions that went into Doki Doki becoming the western SMB2 is a fascinating discussion. Among other things it was American audiences introduction to Nintendo's powerful MMC3 enhancement chip, which would go on to become the workhorse of second generation NES cartridges (Most future NES games would put this chip to use). In the case of SMB2 it added all the animated backgrounds that were static in Doki Doki Panic, a trick the developers lifted from SMB3's development.
@KyoukiJuuno
@KyoukiJuuno 3 жыл бұрын
I've never actually noticed the eyes flickering until this day, and now I cannot unsee it. Great job video! :D
@inlovewithi
@inlovewithi 2 жыл бұрын
Just play with Toad. Problem solved.
@KieferSkunk
@KieferSkunk 3 жыл бұрын
A couple things I thought might be worth pointing out: You can see the eye-flashing thing most clearly with the door because it doesn't move and doesn't collide. But in theory, there are other cases where it could happen as well. Specifically, if any object were to go behind the player and occupy the same space as the eye-whites, you'd see them flicker then as well, since the whites would be competing for priority with the other objects. (I think the game specifically disallows this - everything collides with each other except the door.) You can probably reproduce the eye flicker by making the player stand to the right of two or more of the waterfall logs with their eyes in the same horizontal line as the logs. Since the eye-whites would occasionally be at a lower priority than the logs, they'd hit the 8-objects-per-scanline limit and end up not being drawn. Again, this may or may not be possible or feasible to recreate. The game designers may have built the levels in such a way that you can't make that happen - e.g. no stationary ground low enough for the eyes to overlap vertically with the logs. I'd have to play around with an emulator to see for sure. Also, I would say that the Shy Guy overlap-flicker you mentioned at 6:30 is not a matter of "fairness" or a deliberate design decision to show the two characters equally, but rather a simple consequence of the sprite-shuffling design. It has the effect of making both Shy Guys appear roughly equally, but I don't think the devs specifically intended for that to happen. Finally, do you know what, if anything, actually used the "Important Item" slot? (#4, to the right of the player character slot.) I don't think I saw it ever populated in any of the examples here, but there are a lot of other scenes in the game. :)
@KieferSkunk
@KieferSkunk 3 жыл бұрын
On standing in line with the logs: It occurs to me that the player could stand anywhere on the screen so long as the eyes are in the same line as the logs. It doesn't have to be to the right of them - the priority order is essentially random.
@n2n8sda
@n2n8sda 3 жыл бұрын
Love these videos, so many things that are a lot more involved than they appear.
@mrmimeisfunny
@mrmimeisfunny 3 жыл бұрын
You don't have to leave a comment about Mega Man's face. There are already a lot of comments about it.
@KieferSkunk
@KieferSkunk 3 жыл бұрын
Hey, did you know that Mega Man's face is drawn... oh, forget it. ;)
@cupriferouscatalyst3708
@cupriferouscatalyst3708 2 жыл бұрын
How about Ninten's hat?
@TsukiZer0
@TsukiZer0 3 жыл бұрын
They have special eeeeeeyes!
@inceptional
@inceptional 2 жыл бұрын
Dude, you are a legend. I have learned sooo much about all this game stuff from watching your videos, particularly the stuff around the SNES, and I'm learning new things every day as I rewatch each video and understand just a little bit more each time. Major kudos to you.
@jaygrum
@jaygrum 3 жыл бұрын
omg this is so fun seeing all of your fans!!! i'm so excited and happy for you.
@GreenCloversGuy
@GreenCloversGuy 3 жыл бұрын
I'm always amazed by your diagrams and explanations, you really do clarify these abstract programming and design ideas
@TheYouTubeGame
@TheYouTubeGame 3 жыл бұрын
Really cool stuff, man. Always look forward to your videos. Thanks for all the work you put into them!
@brady9426
@brady9426 3 жыл бұрын
The frame by frame loaded sprite visualization is really cool, this is good stuff!
@sonnyjimbod
@sonnyjimbod 3 жыл бұрын
I've been working on my first disassembly (Bomber King). I was literally staring at code in the debugger that I had no idea what it did. This video was absolutely serendipitous.
@sierranicholes6712
@sierranicholes6712 Жыл бұрын
i always noticed the flickering effect when sprites were overlapping but never understood why that might be happening. this is so interesting, especially knowing that it was a conscious choice made to ensure that no particular sprite in that group had priority over another.
@Gunbu
@Gunbu 3 жыл бұрын
Excellent video! I always thought that the flickering was a glitch or unintentional when enemy characters overlapped each other. Interesting to learn that the sprites were cycling so that they each had a chance to show on screen due to programming!
@WatanabeNoTsuna.
@WatanabeNoTsuna. 2 жыл бұрын
I just found this channel on the patrons list at the end of the latest Technology Conections video. 😂 🤣 That was a great find!!! 💪 👍
@duckhive
@duckhive 3 жыл бұрын
SMB2/USA sprites are beautiful
@mr.cook5
@mr.cook5 3 жыл бұрын
this vid was spectacular, great job.
@Justin-TPG
@Justin-TPG 3 жыл бұрын
I guessed this one before you revealed it but the extra information about how OAM works was very interesting, thanks!
@brightsideofmaths
@brightsideofmaths 3 жыл бұрын
This is such great content! Thank you :)
@ScavengerFX
@ScavengerFX 2 жыл бұрын
This is an awesome explanation, Thanks!
@spicybreadproductions1972
@spicybreadproductions1972 3 жыл бұрын
I'm surprised you didn't talk about Megaman, seeing how he has five (well, six) colours
@vuurniacsquarewave5091
@vuurniacsquarewave5091 3 жыл бұрын
Honestly, this sprite system in SMB2 seems to introduce an artificial limitation layer on top of what the system allows. What I mean is, it does not seem dynamic at all, and can't reserve the exact number of objects required to show everything in one frame, so a lot of the "sprite bandwidth" goes unused.
@KieferSkunk
@KieferSkunk 3 жыл бұрын
Well, to some extent that problem existed in Doki Doki Panic as well. That game had some scenes in it where there were just as many sprites on the screen at once, and they had to flicker just the same, though I couldn't tell you if the code cycled the objects in the same way. The eye-transparency trick here does reduce the sprite slots by one, which exacerbates the problem, but the problem was there to begin with, and exists in plenty of other games as well.
@The_Holy_Wooomy
@The_Holy_Wooomy 3 жыл бұрын
"One doesn't really deserve to be always on top of the other, so to be fair and allow both enemies to show through, the OAM slots that each sprite gets is shuffled every frame." We did it boys, we established true equality
@IgnatRemizov
@IgnatRemizov 3 жыл бұрын
This explains everything!!! Cool video thank you!
@AWigglePig
@AWigglePig 3 жыл бұрын
Mario's *EYE* conic late NES-era sprite design
@Dargonhuman
@Dargonhuman 3 жыл бұрын
Hah!
@kemalswimmingsuitswimmingh415
@kemalswimmingsuitswimmingh415 3 жыл бұрын
Is this supposed to be a joke?
@AWigglePig
@AWigglePig 3 жыл бұрын
@@kemalswimmingsuitswimmingh415 Yes because the video is about the eyes
@kemalswimmingsuitswimmingh415
@kemalswimmingsuitswimmingh415 3 жыл бұрын
@@AWigglePig oh yes I get it now haha XD
@GameplayandTalk
@GameplayandTalk 3 жыл бұрын
So the blinking eye effect was basically a happy accident. That's so cool!
@MagnumCypro
@MagnumCypro 3 жыл бұрын
I was waiting for this to be talked about.
@Moomoo254
@Moomoo254 3 жыл бұрын
Weirdly enough, I found this channel through NileReds patron list.
@obvfw
@obvfw 3 жыл бұрын
I thought it would be an eye-shaped sprite over top of the player sprite, but having a white square show through from underneath probably saves a few bytes, since it can be reused for the other characters. Very interesting!
@legolorian3271
@legolorian3271 10 ай бұрын
Amazing visual aid
@StefanBrodd
@StefanBrodd 3 жыл бұрын
Wow, genius! I love how old console games used these "tricks" to get more done that first thought possible!
@RandyLent
@RandyLent 3 жыл бұрын
I actually genuinely love your content.
@Ravenpaw1313
@Ravenpaw1313 Жыл бұрын
The more I see to the "magic" that goes in behind what we consider "simple" games still utterly blows my mind with how much thought, attention, and creativity was needed to pull them off, let alone perform small innovations such as the whites of these sprite's eyes. Fascinating!
@Nat-jf2ge
@Nat-jf2ge 3 жыл бұрын
That's interesting, i never know they could draw sprites over / under other sprite layers. Cool video!
@hibou-cool
@hibou-cool 3 жыл бұрын
great video! Thank you so much
@maxgamesst1
@maxgamesst1 3 жыл бұрын
Such a high quality channel
@WaluigiisthekingASmith
@WaluigiisthekingASmith 3 жыл бұрын
I'll never unsee the shuffling. Thanks
@Gamezopher
@Gamezopher 3 жыл бұрын
I can't wait for part 11 of your main series on hardware registers. Then I wonder what will be your next 'main' series.
@mindnomad
@mindnomad 3 жыл бұрын
aaaaaa it's called sclera!!!!!!!!!! On a more serious note, this video was very informative, as your videos usually are. Thank you for making this!
@joesshows6793
@joesshows6793 3 жыл бұрын
Cooooool. Another wonder from my past is fulfilled.
@dezinfectant
@dezinfectant 2 жыл бұрын
Ive been searching for this answer my whole life
@gooolixx
@gooolixx 3 жыл бұрын
subscribed, this video was le epic.
@therubygemstonetrg
@therubygemstonetrg 3 жыл бұрын
I would like to know the inner workings of the Game Boy Zelda games.
@bill_the_duck
@bill_the_duck 3 жыл бұрын
Great video as always. Please consider doing a video that explains your process for creating the simulations and visuals you use in your videos. I’d be really interested to see that.
@annoyedwalrus7803
@annoyedwalrus7803 2 жыл бұрын
Watching these videos makes me feel a bit like Neo in The Matrix.
@sbuppy8713
@sbuppy8713 3 жыл бұрын
Love to see you cover the tent glitch from earthbound. Love ur stuff btw!
@VaclavNemec70
@VaclavNemec70 3 жыл бұрын
Very informational 🤍
@Lizuma
@Lizuma 2 жыл бұрын
I was wondering why the eyes flicker when opening a door! Nice explanation for one of my favorite games! Also interesting is that the prototype didn't have the whites in the eyes, so they must've been decided to be added in later!
@churroman183
@churroman183 3 жыл бұрын
Huh, thanks for making more sense of how old games used to work. I wondered how they managed to up the look from Mario 1 to Mario 2/USA
@randywilliams6248
@randywilliams6248 Жыл бұрын
These guys were legends back in the day. Any of the old school dudes had to do what they had to do and created so many classic games for millions of people to enjoy due to hardware limitations. Not that game design is any easier by anymeans but these boys set the foundation
@dorjedriftwood2731
@dorjedriftwood2731 3 жыл бұрын
WOW amazing
@diacosiapentacontahex
@diacosiapentacontahex 3 жыл бұрын
I've always wondered how SMB2 did this! This level of clarity is something I never thought I'd learn, yet here you are, solving it in a way that even idiots like me can understand it!
@sopix7761
@sopix7761 Жыл бұрын
well, if you were wondering about this then you're not that much of an idiot, don't look so down on yaself
@foolhou2e
@foolhou2e 3 жыл бұрын
When you asked how this was the day before posting, I thought this might be the answer, but I thought I was wrong because the sprites on the spriter's resource don't reflect this, and I figured the impact on sprite flickering would be more severe.
@cerjmedia
@cerjmedia 3 жыл бұрын
7:55 don't know how much time it took to create that but thank you I can't wait until Minecraft becomes a "Retro Game" because man I would love this kind of stuff for games like that
@jwhite5008
@jwhite5008 3 жыл бұрын
Minecraft (java edition) already has loads of mods, skins, maps, was decompiled and analyzed countless times, what else would you like?
@cerjmedia
@cerjmedia 3 жыл бұрын
@@jwhite5008 I would like to see this channel analyze in their style. Where every frame has a slot of data showing information, in a similar fassion to what you see at 7:55. If you know of videos or channels that make videos like this for Minecrafts code do let me know!
@FakeDomi
@FakeDomi 3 жыл бұрын
there's a lot less trickery going on behind the scenes so it wouldn't be even nearly as interesting as games on old, severely limited systems
@lev7509
@lev7509 3 жыл бұрын
You might be very interested in the classic DOOM games for DOS. John Carmack put genius effort to make something like that run on 16-bit DOS computers. doomwiki.org/wiki/Entryway
@5nefarious
@5nefarious 3 жыл бұрын
@@FakeDomi I disagree that it wouldn't be as interesting, but it would be a lot harder to show. Modern games tend to have much more complex logic. Especially a 3D game like Minecraft using tons of procedural generation.
@shona-sof
@shona-sof 3 жыл бұрын
NICE!!! Ever since the 80's I wondered why the character eyes flickered!
@abraveastronaut
@abraveastronaut 2 ай бұрын
It's very funny to me that Toad, who has white as part of his palette already, is the one who doesn't have whites to his eyes. Like it's not worth drawing them unless it takes extra effort to do it.
@swifttt
@swifttt 3 жыл бұрын
I always noticed the flickering behind the eyes. At the time, I wasn't so sure why that happened, though. This video helps clear it up, thanks! :D
@0xEmmy
@0xEmmy 3 жыл бұрын
7:00 in addition to partial transparency, I've also heard flicker used for color mixing (e.x. Metroid).
@ScootZMedia
@ScootZMedia Жыл бұрын
The technique is called Sprite stacking and megaman used it as well
@Cgeta4
@Cgeta4 3 жыл бұрын
I never knew the flickering was actually on purpose on the NES :D I remember having this a lot in Nintendo World Cup
@PedroManX
@PedroManX 11 ай бұрын
Wooah, interesting!!
@TehVulpez
@TehVulpez 3 жыл бұрын
Appropriate video for Halloween. Eyes are haunted.
@unreal-the-ethan
@unreal-the-ethan 3 жыл бұрын
That little comment about Toad was quite funny to me.
@MattRose30000
@MattRose30000 3 жыл бұрын
So does that mean that Mario is EATING TOAD HEADS the whole time!?!?
@KieferSkunk
@KieferSkunk 3 жыл бұрын
@@MattRose30000 Given all the weird things that Mario gets to do when eating them, it's as good an explanation as any. :)
@TheRunningLeopard
@TheRunningLeopard 3 жыл бұрын
This is the first time I was able to understand what is going on fully, I’m proud of myself lmao.
@JDoucette
@JDoucette Жыл бұрын
The priority issue is primarily for the limited sprite visibility per row. Secondarily it is for ensuring everything can be drawn beyond the onscreen limit. The draw ordering is only important for the main player character and other important sprites, but not because there is no preferred ordering for enemies. It would be better if their ordering was constant.
@Eventlesstew
@Eventlesstew 9 ай бұрын
Fun fact: Pac-Nan does the same trick for its third cutscene when Blinky is revealed to be a monster by rendering Blinky himself and his cloak as seperate sprites, this also allows the assembled together sprite to look like it was more than 16 pixels wide.
@Rompler_Rocco
@Rompler_Rocco 3 жыл бұрын
And just like that, the universe answers my question from over 30 years ago... THANK YOU!!! ...Also, may I recommend a very fun, but *very* glitchy, NES game to dissect? DODGE BALL. It used to regularly flicker and slow down to the point where I was sure my nintendo would catch on fire 🏐🏐🔥🚒👍
@Crimson-Hat
@Crimson-Hat 2 жыл бұрын
Oh this explains how the battle sprites in Mother look. because most of them have more then 3 colors. You can even see extra details being added as the enemy loads in like the chain and collar on the stray dog.
@phubans
@phubans Жыл бұрын
Damn, I feel like I never really noticed the eye flickering when going through doors. I probably just tuned NES sprite flicker out as a kid. But now, thanks to this video, I'm going to fixate on it every time I play SMB2.
@Bry10022
@Bry10022 3 жыл бұрын
Wow! I never knew this were ppssible
@neozoan
@neozoan 3 жыл бұрын
I always wondered about that eye flicker at the doors and whether it was some weird illusion or something.
@lyradawn4176
@lyradawn4176 3 жыл бұрын
never noticed the eyes flickering, thats neat!
@MaxOakland
@MaxOakland 3 жыл бұрын
The irony is Toad’s sprite wouldn’t even need an extra sprite but he doesn’t have whites in his eyes
@KieferSkunk
@KieferSkunk 3 жыл бұрын
Yeah, but special-casing for Toad would require a lot more complex code and a lot of extra shuffling around of the OAM, and handling that case dynamically could easily have slowed down the game execution code to the point that it couldn't maintain a steady framerate. (That kind of thing is NOT easy at the machine code level.)
@oxybrightdark8765
@oxybrightdark8765 3 жыл бұрын
Even if he did, he already has white.
@sumez4369
@sumez4369 2 жыл бұрын
One comment in this video kinda sticks out to me. The "transparency" from overlapping enemies is _definitely_ not a desired effect, and in fact a pretty notorious quirk in NES programming (but could apply to any similar hardware). It would absolutely look a lot better if one shyguy just passed in front of the other, but it's really difficult to create an effecient sprite cycling routine while also maintaining a depth priority maintained by game logic. Even giving the player character priority like SMB2 does has a negative impact on how striking the flickering appears on the remaining objects. I think this is especially evident in a belt scroller such as Mighty Final Fight which choses to forego sprite priority in favor of more effecient sprite cycling, despite the fact that sprite priority would make a lot of sense in a game like that.
@dan_loup
@dan_loup 3 жыл бұрын
The shuffling is also used to blow past the 8 sprites per scanline limit.
@BriansManCave
@BriansManCave 2 жыл бұрын
I guess I will never see this game the same way again ;-)
@itsME-dc4vm
@itsME-dc4vm 3 жыл бұрын
Nice ;D
@CutieFakeKirby
@CutieFakeKirby 3 жыл бұрын
Simple, Take mario for example, There are 2 sections, Background tiles, and sprite tiles, mario actually has four colors: red, blue, gold yellow, and transparent. The white part in the eye is actually transparent, the background tile goes white when the eyes go on the background tile. Big brain >:3 Edit: oh wait the white part is also a sprite
@juniperbelmont
@juniperbelmont 3 жыл бұрын
THIS IS SO COOL! I love that you included the clip at the end so we could see how it actually looks like on an NES. At 8:19 you can clearly see all the enemies flicker. There's also the waterfall logs that always look trippy. I never understood why they look that way. Question: there's a few frame at 8:15. where the right side of the left log has a big ol' horizontal row missing from it. What causes this? Lastly, is there any way to show the game running with none of the objects flickering? Like, adding additional storage so that all the sprites could show up at once without shuffling/cycling.
@Vuusteri
@Vuusteri 3 жыл бұрын
I second that question. The logs flicker like crazy at 8:01.
@KieferSkunk
@KieferSkunk 3 жыл бұрын
@@Vuusteri Okay, totally rewriting my response here - I was way off on stuff. :) Each log takes up a single OAM slot, but since it's displayed horizontally (4x1 objects) rather than in a 2x2 grid like Mario's slot, it puts 4 objects on a single scanline. As you can see in the video. When they're flickering, there are three logs on the screen at once, and they all overlap vertically, meaning the NES is trying to display up to 12 objects in a single scanline - since it can only display 8, only the highest-priority objects are drawn there. The priority depends on the order (top to bottom) in which the objects appear in OAM. Since individual logs are being shuffled around each frame, this can explain why the flicker appears to move horizontally each frame. You might notice also that when there are only two logs visible and the fish on the left edge is also visible, the logs flicker in time with the fish's movement as well. It appears that in this particular scene, we never quite exceed the OAM slot space. There's just enough space to hold all of the objects, so none of them have to be excluded in any individual frame. If we had one more object that needed to be in OAM during that scene, an entire thing (e.g. one of the logs) could completely disappear in one frame as it's swapped in and out. This could also include Mario's eye whites.
@alisiaale565
@alisiaale565 2 жыл бұрын
When I was younger, I thought that the flashing eyes when the player is in front of a door is just some special animation added to the player, but I didn't know it was actually a glitch, lol.
@trunkit8749
@trunkit8749 3 жыл бұрын
Is it weird that I was just thinking this a week ago? Edit: even weirder is that I thought this was the solution, but thought it was inefficient. Which it is.
@art1637
@art1637 3 жыл бұрын
What’s even weirder is that your pfp looks kinda familiar, can’t seem to put my finger on it though...
@JennBitAlt
@JennBitAlt 3 жыл бұрын
@@art1637 why does everyone have this pfp i do not understand please help
@AndreasElf
@AndreasElf 3 жыл бұрын
If I were good at game programming. It's stuff like this that would be fun to code.
@mousermind
@mousermind Жыл бұрын
Look! Look, with your special eyes!
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