CODING SECRETS: How Toy Story's "Next-Gen" 3D Depth Effect Was Created

[@arkaua]

It's crazy to imagine that I'd be watching someone who worked on a game I played as a little kid explain how the graphics were done. Superb video as always!

[@manonthedollar]

I was just about to comment the same thing. The future is so interesting!

[@johnnyholley4680]

SAME

[@caseygtr]

I'm an idiot because I didn't consider this game as cool as sonic or vector man, such genius programming in this gem.

[@Suimega]

My thought exactly. Something that wouldn't have ever been possible without internet at the time.

[@ricardopurnell3923]

I know how to use sprite on nes

[@aarongreenfield9038]

It takes a lot of talent to make so much, working with so little!

[@RaphaelWiggum]

You know what they say: "Limitation breeds creativity"

[@guerra_dos_bichos]

as a programmer i concur, could not be on his level

[@aarongreenfield9038]

One of the best looking 2D console games, of that generation!

[@laharl2k]

Technically yeah, but best looking is subjective. To be fair, Comix Zone looks more appealing imo or even Sonic 3 & Knuckles, both look really polished for the era. Its the same with people that say 2D > 3D and so on. While there are really nice looking 3D games, 2D games have their particular look and feel which might make it nicer on the eyes than 3D shading. Mortal Kombat 1,2 and 3 for example were fully "3D" animated, as in they litterally took photos of the actors, you cant go more 3D than that, yet it doesnt look like a 3D game at all.

[@Krystalmyth]

Uh... Yeah let's not get crazy. Nice effect. 3d doesn't automatically make it best looking. I wouldn't even compare this to Yoshi's Island, or Thunderforce IV.

[@alexman2598]

Guy's they didn't say it was THE BEST. They said ONE OF the best.

[@cross612]

Along side Donkey Kong Country

[@nowonmetube]

Even better in the SNES

[@pasta9378]

Traveller’s Tales - The Pixar of Gaming

[@OrchidAlloy]

What a great title, it's truly the Pixar of game programming

[@m4gmaroni]

Jon Burton- The John Lassiter of Gaming

[@Bobsican]

Too bad they mostly only do lego.

[@alexatkin]

As much as I love the LEGO games, you are right.

[@dlfon99]

The 90s Rare of 90s Sega.

[@AltimaNEO]

That floor effect is my favorite. Ive seen it done in a lot of SNES games, like Street Fighter 2. For whatever reason, it really fascinated me, even though I knew how the effect was done. It was just so effective. Its what got me into 3D modeling.

[@JohnnyThousand605]

Back in the day seeing the MD do any kind of progressive scaling or perspective (so, calculated rather than frame by frame animated) was really impressive, because it was one of the things that separated the MD and the SNES, so this was great 'returning fire' ammo in the console war. =)

[@KuraIthys]

Yeah, I imagine. Though once you see how it's being done you realise most any 8 and 16 bit system around can do these effects. (there's plenty of proof in the demoscene for that.) The SNES's mode 7 benefits not from it being something no other system can do if it really wanted to, but rather, from it essentially being 'free'. Plus you can pile the same tricks you use to do scaling on other systems ON TOP of mode 7... That's actually the whole reason you can get perspective out of mode 7 in the first place; You're changing the horizontal scaling parameters of the mode 7 registers every scanline. It's actually surprising nobody tried too hard to push mode 7 further. - most developers just used it in the most basic ways possible. In principle it's a screen-space texture lookup where you can change how the lookup is performed each and every scanline. - perspective effects are low hanging fruit. Much more elaborate effects would be possible. But... Doesn't look like anyone really tried much beyond the obvious.

[@JohnnyThousand605]

As you say the cost is the big qualifier though. Using background Mode 7 made it 'free', therefore it got used more casually in SNES games and it was more of a 'brag' item on the MD, because in doing it had a cost that had to be paid from somewhere else.

[@KuraIthys]

Yeah. Mega Drive games were mostly adding the effect to prove a point. the SNES games often just used it for the dumbest things... ... Because it was there, so why not. XD It's funny though, because I got to thinking about it and it occurred to me that mode 7 would be perfect for implementing a raycasting 3d engine. There's just one major caveat. Almost every raycasting game engine ever made is designed for first person mazes on a horizontal plane. As a result they're designed to cast rays horizontally and draw columns of pixels based on the calculated distance. Mode 7 would suck at drawing vertical texture spans, but it would do really well at horizontal ones. Of course, this means any attempt to put this in a game means implementing a maze that's entirely vertical, rather than horizontal. The only concept I can think of from back in the day that could get away with that is a simplified version of something like Descent, where you're flying a ship through underground caves... Anyway, yeah. Hardware features like mode 7 are interesting in what limitations they impose. Without special hardware features though, you're left with implementing these effects on the CPU. Which can work really well if you've got a monster CPU (basically how the PC architecture worked prior to 3d accelerators - aided by the rather slow system bus and graphics cards that had almost no hardware features. All of which encouraged drawing your graphics in large batches on the CPU and transferring the end result to the graphics card in one big batch.) but of course, every CPU cycle devoted solely to a graphics routine is a CPU cycle you don't have for doing anything else. And on weaker systems this can really hurt. It also goes some way to explaining the common complaint people have with tech demos. 'if the system can do this amazing stuff, why do you never see it in games?'. To which the answer of course is, that the demo can devote way more CPU time to graphical effects than any game would be able to...

[@noop9k]

mode 7 is not too flexible. You still have to use a single affine transform per whole horizontal scanline. Beyond floors, ceilings and rotations you can draw a tube-like BG, like in Castlevania 4, or maybe some rotating textured horizontal bar(end of the 1st level of R-Type 3). And you have no more layers for parallax, have to spend sprites for that purpose. Yes, you could probably do a Wolf3D-type game, but would have to ask to put TV on the side..

[@LocalAitch]

One of the most legendary oldschool programmers ever. The demo scene spirit still stayed alive within this one :)

[@MattSitton]

Oh hey there 👋

[@meatman3603]

@@MattSitton oh hey there

[@MattSitton]

@@meatman3603 hi

[@juniorxranger]

damn right

[@GarArtStudios]

Incredibly clever. I remember noticing the 3D-like effect when playing this game again a couple years ago and was very impressed. I assume that skewing thing with the floor is the same technique games like Sonic 3&K used? There are certain points within that game that have a very similar effect (like the water & ice platforms in the background of Ice Cap Zone)

[@GameSack]

Thanks for the explanation! I never knew it was inspired by Clockwork Knight! That's actually really cool. I played this particular game much later so I didn't have an overall sense of when it was released. Great job on the game as a whole, it truly is a technical tour-de-force on the system. I wish Toy Story 2 on the Dreamcast could have been just as impressive.

[@Rothiseph]

Totally read this in Joe's voice, haha! Perhaps the Sack could do a Traveller's Tales special some day featuring Jon in some way? Would make for a pretty neat crossover!

[@Bluetailvappy]

I can't hit the thumbs up enough.

[@saturndual32]

Toy Story 2 was very impressive...for Playstation. One of the most impressive action/platofrm games for the system. The Dreamcast game was just a port of that.

[@christopherniewiadomski4075]

+Bluetailvappy Remember to make it an uneven number, because every even press takes away the thumb.

[@benderman1157]

toy story 2 was a decent game

[@SaturnMemories]

Thanks for crediting me for the CK footage, Jon. Love your channel, btw! :)

[@GameHut]

You're welcome. Awesome footage!

[@Larry]

Ha, I always thought Toy Story felt like Clockwork Knight! Sega messed that game up a bit and had to cut it in half for time constraints, releasing the second half as the "sequel".

[@izzieb]

Larry Bundy Jr Hello you!

[@JumboDS64]

Like with Sonic 3?

[@DrRachelRApe]

I hate Larry so much.

[@SaturnMemories]

Kinda. Big difference is that Clockwork Knight was much shorter. Only four levels for each game.

[@gold_lightning]

Clockwork Knight & Knuckles

[@Juganawt]

It’s such a beautifully simple effect. Although I never noticed that the lamp moves until you just pointed it out!

[@3DSage]

Sir, you are a genius. Thank you for sharing these awesome behind the scene tricks that are so interesting to learn about.

[@pacsonic9000]

Oh Hi 3DSage.

[@3DSage]

@@pacsonic9000 Hi there!

[@EleanorDrapeaux]

Man, you keep blowing my mind with every single video

[@bennahum9642]

When people talk about the Genesis' capabilities they always give "Batman & Robin" or "Ranger X" as an example, but I always say "Toy Story". Thank you for doing it right.

[@KuraIthys]

mmmh. Isn't Batman & Robin dependent on the extra hardware in the Sega CD too? Not that it takes away from what it accomplishes, but it does make it a little unfair to use it as an example of what the core system can do...

[@bennahum9642]

KuraIthys I'm referring to the superior cartridge version...

[@axelriviere7605]

Ben is refering to this : kzbin.info/www/bejne/f5vGqIRuqtuXg6Mm52s (its the cartridge Batman & Robin, a totaly different game than the Sega CD one ... really if you dont know it you should take a look its like a "best of" all "Treasure-like" effects. Even today this game amaze me

[@orchid9]

I think because Batman & Robin showed exactly what Genesis was made for - fast, fluid, slightly grimy visuals and dark techno soundtrack (all rage back in the day). 68k + ym 2612 baby. If you want to showcase the system - Batman & Robin is one of the greatest game for that because SNES just wasn't physically capable, it was all Donkey Kong and movie-like soundtracks. And Toy Story had great visuals for a genesis... but it was better suited for SNES. And let's admit it - Toy Story wasn't any good.

[@bennahum9642]

Toy Story was awesome. I had the PC version and we played the hell out of it. The key was the variety, it felt like a next gen game (as this video explains). Batman & Robin for the Genny was a good game, and as good as it was in the technology department I think Toy Story was more impressive. Objectively, this was the most advanced Mega Drive game: 3D FPS? Check. 3D Driving? Check. Fully Integrated MOD Player? Check. 3D Pseudo Scrolling? Check. Huge Digitized Sprites at 60FPS? Check. High Color Mode (Wizardry!)? Check.

[@JohannBosch]

Another excellent video. The coding and visual trickery involved in getting some very unique concepts working on older hardware is amazing. This shows what can be done when thinking outside of the box within a limited environment. I feel that these days, too many programmers just say a game or product needs more memory or a faster GPU to solve their unoptimized code issues.

[@JaredReabow]

I love these technical bodges

[@philrod1]

ReabowRotors - Ahem. Technical *wizardry*

[@Retrovibes]

I was 14 or 15 when I bought this game and was already impressed how it could rival some Saturn titles. I had no idea back then how it was possible to do this on a Megadrive/Genesis. Other games like Street Fighter and Sonic 3 use similar linescrolling but having pseudo3D objects really blew my mind. Amazing channel btw, it's awesome having one of the masterminds behind the great TT share his secrets in such a detailed manner.

[@7awliet]

You manage to explain it all so simply, you were and are a master of your craft! This stuff still blows my mind.

[@LOLitsJono]

Holy crap, you and your coding really did contribute to some fantastic times in my childhood. I’m just awestruck how in this age I can watch you demystify the magic that made up my childhood! Great channel man!

[@tonylancer7367]

Makes you appreciate the amount of work that was put in by Travelers Take and the team! I may not understand some things that you say but heck, you're a fantastic guy with lots of interesting stores to tell.

[@Darxide23]

This stuff *sounds* so simple when you describe it, but knowing what I know about coding and memory constraints of consoles (and very old computers) it is truly a work of genius to pull this stuff off in such a small memory footprint.

[@2l84me8]

This is really some impressive work. Very convincing with the movement and lighting.

[@rlbond]

Game development back then was insane. Some amazing tricks here!

[@IkesDaddelbox]

The different ways you work around the systems limitations belong to the most impressive things I've seen in gaming. As a kid I was blown away by the visuals. And as an adult who understands the hardware a bit more I can marvel at the tech behind the games.

[@Chocice75]

Wow. It's amazing how far you pushed the 16-bit SEGA hardware to its limits.

[@rockyblue92]

The ingenious ways in which the seemingly impossible was achieved, time and time again, is really encouraging and even somewhat motivating. At the same time, your explanations of the techniques and the visuals we are privy to are just so very satisfying to consume. Thank you so much for allowing us this privilege to enjoy your content, I hope you enjoy making these videos as much as I enjoy watching them.

[@Cowables]

toy story on my aging genesis really blew me away as a kid, but now i can really appreciate the tricks as a programmer myself. thanks for these fascinating videos

[@andersdenkend]

Wooonderful! Thank you very much! Small details like these really show how much you actually cared in creating those games. A lot of other people would have called it a day after implementing a linescrolling floor, but not you. Thanks so much for these videos, they are immensely interesting!

[@mikel9292]

"When love was put in making videogames"

[@LustigelGC]

mikel9292 EA the oppisite of travelers tales

[@Kimarnic]

_ Xaveir Does Gaming_ EA BAD PRAISE GERALDO

[@SleepingCocoon]

*some video games. most of them were still absolute trash, lets be honest here! nothing has really changed, on average. actually, given the amount of independent games being created, it's probably safe to say that there's a lot more love in game development now. you'll find just as many technical wonders and passion projects across every platform and generation. no point putting the past on a pedestal and denying the present/future :)

[@OrioPrisco]

Sleeping Cocoon we just tend to remember the good game and forget those bad/cash grabbers games

[@bobdeinterlace]

There was a bunch of garbage on the Mega Drive too. People just forget the mediocre games. Remember Acclaim? They were the modern EA/Activision/Ubisoft of the early 90s. Back then you had no internet either (most people didn't) so if you bought Virtual Bart or something and that was all you had to play for a while you just had to deal with it.

[@nothing5819]

This helps me a lot! Thanks you for showing how Toy Story is made!

[@cheaterman49]

Whoaaa. Genesis? You did that on Megadrive? It's incredible! I knew about scanline interrupts and kinda expected the floor trick, but the parallax sprites + "3D" effects and their memory management, completely caught me offguard! Bravo! That's quite the trick to pull off, taking an effect you see in a next-gen console and retrofitting it into the previous generation!

[@SouthwesternEagle]

I always loved that TT critter for a reason. Now I know why!

[@GV-ij9ib]

Automatically subbed because you made the graphics for one of my favorite games in early childhood. Also, clockwork knight was lit.

[@Agnostic_Asi]

More... I need more of this... your voice with this music and all these informations are so pleasing! I love your videos!

[@johnbewty]

This was a blast to watch. For many years, I'd wondered how you did the sides of the furniture objects! I'd always thought you were horizontally scaling a sprite. After seeing your explanation, it made so much more sense. I also loved hearing that you were inspired by Clockwork Knight. Very cool that you saw a next-gen game and thought: "Pfffft.... I can do that on the 68K!"

[@ravagingwolverine]

I've long been curious how those effects were handled. It's quite an impressive result for the old 16-bit machines. Thank you so much for explaining it here.

[@marcellosilva9286]

Ooooooh, so that's how you did it, one thing I like about these videos is that I feel a little smarter after watching one. Keep up the good work!

[@VenusHeadTrap2]

Your voice and choice of music makes me wanna get down and take up meditative yoga ;)

[@sails9311]

This effect is the first thing I show everyone when I show off how much of a technical marvel this game was at the time. Thank you so much for explaining how it was done, my friends are going to have to suffer through another session of Toy Story

[@DaMan56100]

I honestly found myself shaking my head in admiration while watching these - it's the sort of raw ingenuity that's impossible to bash

[@Lilac_x_angel]

Genesis was great with sprites in general, especially with Yuji Naka's diagonal sprite thing that allowed sprites to tilt.

[@NukeOTron]

Once again, you help prove that art is an illusion. Took a bit of work, but it was probably worth it. Chances are you probably used basic polygons for the legs of the kids in the Pizza Planet level, right? ...or did you use sprites for that, too?

[@MissNorington]

Oh, I wanna know the secrets behind this as well!

[@zobook]

I really admire your intellectual honesty of asking for like and subscribe AFTER the video, and not before, like many do.

[@nicksalvatore5717]

I love these videos, it’s so damn interesting! I’ve always said “optimization” but never really understood it and this really has helped me understand more

[@nicolasrolke3538]

Breaking down childhood games like this is pure magic for me.

[@subrussian]

This game is a masterpiece, thank you for revealing and explaining your secrets, much appreciated!

[@AlfredoAVA]

I can't stress how interesting and incredible learning all of this amazing programming ingenuity is! For us indie devs it's also a really intriguing look into how a lot of things are done. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us Jon! :)

[@bigedwerd]

You've provided us with some pretty awesome childhood games.

[@NintendoTV64]

God, I love this game so much. It really is a solid competitor to Donkey Kong Country deep down inside, and it's based on one of my all time favorite movies, to boot!

[@lol532-t2g]

The amount of tricks you came up with just to make your games look good (summed up from all of your videos) is pretty insane. I wouldn't go for the trouble tbh.

[@Samination]

Somehow this game looks better than Clockwork Knights.

[@WooSungChoi]

Agree!

[@Wahinies]

Jfc these are like the "how it's made" of classics we all grew up with its like the tom savini mcguyvering of special effects. Enthralling.

[@megatrix500]

Woah, I hadn't seen those levels before because I've never played the game, and they are GORGEOUS, and unbelievable.

[@AlexReiterProductions]

I would love to see what would be possible on modern hardware using these kind of programming techniques..

[@yabbaso]

Once again - many thanks for taking the time to demonstrate these technical skills. I love hearing how these dark arts manifested themselves in production.

[@samk8005]

Really impressive stuff. Love that you guys put so much work into it!

[@patrickworking3065]

Love the videos, always so interesting and insightful. Thanks for helping create some of the best games of my childhood and sticking around to teach us about them behind the scenes decades later!

[@johntammaro]

Simply amazing as always

[@rootmew]

I remember at the time of release, I would've been maybe 7 or 8? But this game always stood out in memory, as at the time I believed Pixar themselves made it, due to the graphics just being above and beyond anything I'd seen on the Megadrive to date. Awesome video as always!

[@Gecko1993HogheadIncOfficial]

Jon, your programming genius NEVER ceases to amuse me! EXCELLENT work as always! :D

[@saynotop2w]

Back then the technology improved at such blinding speed that I just accepted it. I never thought about it. It's really clever how you did this.

[@SonnoMaku]

It's really weird to see a game I played a lot as a kid this way. Thanks for the behind the scenes perspective on this game.

[@GameHammerCG]

These videos are brilliant. I’m always amazed at how you guys managed to get so much out of the Mega Drive.

[@fromthegamethrone]

Awesome stuff but now it's painfully obvious that the chest of drawers doesn't have this effect XD

[@ArifDiamanta]

Thank you for sharing how you guys do it back then.

[@christianna3561]

Simply OUTSTANDING work! Thank you again for the passion you put into this game. This is one of the games that made me want to buy back my Sega Genesis and be a retro gamer today. Thanks again for sharing.

[@mikefutcher]

I really like his series. I used to get a C64 magazine that would talk about raster-interrupts: changing colours as the screen was drawn so that the top half of the screen would have one colour set and the bottom half another set, or moving the sprites to they each appear twice to get more than 8 of them. As any generation gets old, some crazy tricks are developed to compete with the next one.

[@MusicIsKnowledge]

Good stuff, always look forward to your videos!

[@ashervonsteinlager]

You are a true genius. And you have a great knack of getting laymen idiotards like me to understand what you are doing. Wonderful channel. It's a shame you didn't work on more games on the megadrive.

[@OscarTorresWork]

So glad you are doing these videos and great work !

[@SorcererLance]

I won't lie, I as a kid I actually stopped to look at the background graphics remarking how interesting it was seeing that kind of depth in a game that's largely 2D, though using pre-rendered graphics for the sprites that Donkey Kong Country popularized... it's nice to finally see the curtains pulled officially on how that was achieved. Also nice touch with the sprite layer for the back legs of those tables and chairs, it's such a simple solution to pull off that effect considering the console's limitations. Also interesting with the whole skewing thing was what I've been using with a lot of my art, closest thing to replicating Mode 7 with the illusion of depth.

[@BAgodmode]

I really really really enjoy this stuff man, keep it up. It’s so interesting. Thanks for making great stuff.

[@Yezpahr]

That maze level was the most interesting level in all of the sega 16-bit games, reminded me a lot about the win95 screensaver at the time. Gonna check that video out right now.

[@rictr7421]

Achieving those tricks with no stack overflow, respect.

[@elementbr]

Bloody impressive. Respect.

[@Datastreamx]

Excellent video as always

[@miltiadiskoutsokeras9189]

Brilliant as always.

[@LKDesign]

Finally I got to know how this awesome effect from one of my favourite SNES-games came to be. Thanks a lot!

[@11vag]

Absolutely amazing

[@jbmaru]

I'd been hoping for this one. Thanks!

[@EricAndre615]

This is just amazing stuff. I remember when this game came out and we thought it was pretty amazing back then. Pushing the limitations of the (even then aging) hardware. I love all the creative solutions people used with such restrictive hardware. Just great.

[@Antonio_Ortiz]

So many clever tips and tricks! This game blew my mind as a kid. Kudos! 👏

[@ScoutCounterAttacks]

you talked about my childhood favorite sega saturn game :D(clockwork knight), great video love your content

[@LiamGoodison]

Love these, so interesting to finally find out how these amazing effects were achieved

[@dhLord64]

This game always blew me away as a kid. Incredible

[@lindsaywheatcroft8247]

I wish we’d had academic gaming media back in the day. I loved when gaming magazines did technical articles that weren’t about the horsepower of this processor and the capacity of that chip, but actual techniques used by programmers and artists

[@paranormalgamesstudios]

Exactly what i was looking for thanks!

[@jago2k]

Great video as always

[@larrytaylor2692]

Amazing work man

[@HarryBallsOnYa345]

Brilliant idea with the floor technique. Also with the box texture, and how it's all able to fit on such a small portion of memory!!

[@InterestingTed]

I love these videos. I played this game a ton growing up.

[@WDeranged]

I was always curious about this effect. Thanks!

[@NicB-Creations]

I love these video's. So interesting to learn about these things I marvelled at as a kid.

[@MarioNintendoh]

You completely blew my mind right there, gamehut.

[@rjmario2234]

this was the first snes game I completed and I remember being amazed at the 3d effect and now you showed us how it worked

[@ExtremeWreck]

rjmario22 Well, this is the Genesis version, & I think the Genesis version looks better.

[@rjmario2234]

Extremewrecker2000 The willer. I haven't played the genesis version but it still looked good

[@mcwooley]

Wow I always wondered how all those SNES backgrounds were so detailed!

[@bangerbangerbro]

Puggsy scaling and rotation would be interesting though other people seem to consider that the most obvious. Good video.

[@edugan97]

Dude. You are brilliant!

[@joedaylight]

I always wondered how the floor effect was made. Thanks for sharing.

[@NoahHornberger]

I remember playing this game and feeling like it had somehow hacked true 3D out of a gaming system that did not have it yet. It felt like getting away with something, like I wasn't supposed to be able to play these kinds of games on my genesis