newbie creating genesis graphics

Eke · Post by **Eke** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:00 pm

this document is the scanned official sega programmer guide, I think the wellknown sega2.doc is only a manual copy of this one

the problem with sega2.doc, as I previously said in another thread, is that it is missing some chapters (the one about sprites and the one about color palettes) and also have some typing error and missing/inverted pages which the scanned doc does not have

the scanned doc can be found here, I thought you already know this site as someone gave me the link for saturn doc when I was looking for infos about teamplayer

http://www.antime.org/sega/files/Sega_G ... Manual.zip

(warning, it's 28MB !)

Stef · Post by **Stef** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 9:07 pm

weird, i didn't have it !
thanks a tons !

Eke · Post by **Eke** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 8:11 am

I think most people only had a look at the first pages and thought it was exactly like sega2.doc
in fact, I initially thought the same thing, but was recently wondering why there wasn't any infos about sprites pattern in sega2.doc and remembered about this scanned doc

by the way, the appendums and technical bulletins are also quite interesting, there is one especially which gives some technical infos about Vint and Hint managment and timings... you could perhaps confirm this to me when you read it but it seems that whereas Hint always remain pending as long it has not been acknowledged by the CPU, Vint occurence is only valid for a short time
another thing is that the VDP can not make the difference between Hint ack and Vint ack from the CPU

sorry to be a little off-topic

Stef · Post by **Stef** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 7:53 pm

Eke wrote:I think most people only had a look at the first pages and thought it was exactly like sega2.doc
in fact, I initially thought the same thing, but was recently wondering why there wasn't any infos about sprites pattern in sega2.doc and remembered about this scanned doc

by the way, the appendums and technical bulletins are also quite interesting, there is one especially which gives some technical infos about Vint and Hint managment and timings... you could perhaps confirm this to me when you read it but it seems that whereas Hint always remain pending as long it has not been acknowledged by the CPU, Vint occurence is only valid for a short time
another thing is that the VDP can not make the difference between Hint ack and Vint ack from the CPU

sorry to be a little off-topic

All you said is totally right ! And it tough me a long long time to figure all that. I didn't have these technical bulletins, only a few but not these ones... I was searching for them sometime ago but now i figured almost stuff, it's not anymore important

bastien · Post by **bastien** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 5:28 pm

hi all.
my objectif is a add a sprite in my MD roms.
So i converted my bmp to a C code with gentile.
and with the Stef's compilateur i compiled my code but in finish my sprite was corrupted?

so that is my code if you can help me:
http://fandeconsoles.free.fr/prog/dbz_test.rar

Jorge Nuno · Post by **Jorge Nuno** » Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:01 pm

bastien you can only be french (LOL)

const unsigned char dbz_tiles[512]? Those are the sprite tiles?

They weren't well converted...

If you look at:

Code: Select all

const unsigned char dbz_tiles[512]={
0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,
[...]};

and select the first 8*8 pixels of your bitmap, you will see that your first tile is completely white, but the block you selected in the bitmap has some black pixels in it...

bastien · Post by **bastien** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 3:47 pm

yes i am a french

.
thanks for your help I will test this

bastien · Post by **bastien** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 4:33 pm

ok so what 's programme can i use for convert my BMP to a valid C Code?

TulioAdriano · Post by **TulioAdriano** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 4:55 pm

Genitile should work... that's the one converting tiles for Tavern RPG...

But if you want an alternative, that's the one I use for my personal projects: Imagenesis 4000.

http://devster.monkeeh.com/sega/imagenesis/

It supports multiple modes color modes, more than one plane, even modes for 32X.

And you can export in C, Assembler, Binary, etc...

If it doesn't work at first, just download the runtimes as instructed in the webpage.

tinctu · Post by **tinctu** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 11:57 am

Is there any crossplatform paint for PC???I mean paint tool that will be able to save in SEGA MD/GENESIS format???And small viewer for run that pictures on SEGA MD/GENESIS???
(It is not bad idea for future - for game pictures ,pixelart scene...)

Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Fri Nov 16, 2007 5:39 pm

tinctu wrote:Is there any crossplatform paint for PC???I mean paint tool that will be able to save in SEGA MD/GENESIS format???And small viewer for run that pictures on SEGA MD/GENESIS???
(It is not bad idea for future - for game pictures ,pixelart scene...)

GIMP will dump paletted images to C, but it assumes the image to be 256 color, even when it's not, so it would require a slight bit more work to get it into a form the Genny can use. It would be good for that one mode of the SEGA CD that requires the nibbles to be in separate bytes. So GIMP can be used straight for that one CD mode (and the 32X of course), but would need one more step for regular Genesis graphics.

bastien · Post by **bastien** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 11:16 am

very thanks tulio for this tools thats a real good tools!.
Ok so i take a new bmp image this image:

Now i think my Vram is OK

ok now i search the fonction for set the sprite it in Gens

rodolforg · Post by **rodolforg** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 3:12 am

tinctu wrote:Is there any crossplatform paint for PC???I mean paint tool that will be able to save in SEGA MD/GENESIS format???And small viewer for run that pictures on SEGA MD/GENESIS???

Chilly Willy wrote:GIMP will dump paletted images to C, but it assumes the image to be 256 color, even when it's not, so it would require a slight bit more work to get it into a form the Genny can use. It would be good for that one mode of the SEGA CD that requires the nibbles to be in separate bytes. So GIMP can be used straight for that one CD mode (and the 32X of course), but would need one more step for regular Genesis graphics.

I've just made a GIMP plugin for save on megadrive (genesis) format. It exports tiles and, optionally, the palette.

Chilly, I don't know anything about SEGA CD/32x format. If you could help me to complete my plugin....

By now, you can choose tile size (8x8, 16x16, 32x32) and export format: gnu asm, c code or binary.

Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 8:18 am

rodolforg wrote:
tinctu wrote:Is there any crossplatform paint for PC???I mean paint tool that will be able to save in SEGA MD/GENESIS format???And small viewer for run that pictures on SEGA MD/GENESIS???

Chilly Willy wrote:GIMP will dump paletted images to C, but it assumes the image to be 256 color, even when it's not, so it would require a slight bit more work to get it into a form the Genny can use. It would be good for that one mode of the SEGA CD that requires the nibbles to be in separate bytes. So GIMP can be used straight for that one CD mode (and the 32X of course), but would need one more step for regular Genesis graphics.
I've just made a GIMP plugin for save on megadrive (genesis) format. It exports tiles and, optionally, the palette.

Chilly, I don't know anything about SEGA CD/32x format. If you could help me to complete my plugin....

By now, you can choose tile size (8x8, 16x16, 32x32) and export format: gnu asm, c code or binary.

Cool! I'd love a GIMP plugin for SEGA export. That would make things much easier.

You should probably look at the CD and 32X manuals for good descriptions of the graphics. The main thing you want to look at with the SEGA CD is making stamp maps. The 32X is pretty much "regular" graphics - you have a 256 color paletted mode, and a 15bit direct color mode. It also has an RLE mode, that being the odd-ball as far as 32X graphics go. As I said, it would be best if you refer to the manuals. You can find those on Fonzie's web page here:

http://www.genny4ever.net/index.php?page=docs

Fonzie · Post by **Fonzie** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 8:25 am

Yeah. Like i said a bit before, better not bother about the 32x... Because each "new game" might have its own file format, size and compression. Top of that, all the drawing softwares already handle 256 paletized and 16bit true color... So...