Star Wars VII - The Force Awakens, on BluRay and Dvd April 5th, 2016

[Mommar]

Looks like someone else who's confused pixel art for a computing technical term.

[taksraven]

Listen to all the console boys. Could easily be a C64 or Amiga.....

[JB0]

I'm sorry, but the very first frame exceeds the C64's color capabilities, and it's all downhill from there. Most of the colors used in the trailer simply don't exist in the C64's single 16-color palette.

And I'm pretty sure the neXt-Wing scene would cause a C64 to spontaneously combust if you tried it, to say nothing of the Falcon.

There's simply no way it can be done on a C64.

MAYBE an Atari 8-bit computer. Atari had really good color depth, though it'd need reworking.

But I'm certain that several of the effects seen are beyond the reach of that poor overburdened 6502 without a more feature-rich VDP than the ANTIC/GTIA combo. Equally serious issues with the neXt-Wing and Falcon.

Lesser challenges, which are likely surmountable, but still stick out at me, include

1. the parallax scrolling behind soccerbot and jetbike. The jetbike is only problematic because it has to be part of the BG layer, it exceeds sprite capabilities for both platforms. That's why it can't be a sprite over a single BG like it seems.

2. the Stormtrooper shot, all of it, but especially the first and last parts. That loading ramp descent is WAY harder than it looks.

3. the trees in the lightsaber scene. They can be assembled from sprites, and indeed have to be, but both platforms will have issues with the scene as drawn due to sprite limitations.

Even ignoring the Falcon spin and available colors, both systems wind up being greatly hindered by having only a single background layer to work with. They need far more processor time than is available to render those effects in software. A crapton of RAM would help in some places, so the Atari XEs fare better than the original A8 and XL machines, but... it's not enough.

These issues are also why I'm not considering an MSX2, despite it's delicious color capabilities.

And while it COULD easily be done on an Amiga, it SHOULDN'T be. I don't know a huge amount about the Amiga, but I know it had FAR better color and resolution than that. It should look far better than that if it was targeted at Amiga.

If one did this on an Amiga, it would be for the same reason they did it on a modern IBM-compatible. Which is to say it would be an attempt to create dated-looking CG without actually considering any of the hardware restrictions that would make it believable.

And that's what bugs me about this sort of thing. It doesn't take a lot of effort to make it at least LOOK right, and no one ever expends it. Considered color selection and no parallax gets you most of the way.

I'm still tending towards Genesis as the most likely sweet spot between inadequate and too capable, though the Falcon scene is still all kinds of problematic.

And yes, I'm still thinking too hard about this.

Edited January 17, 2015 by JB0

[anime52k8]

The vast majority of people who are watching that video either never actually owned any of the pieces of hardware you're naming, or haven't used them since they where 10 years old.

[Keith]

I'm sorry, but the very first frame exceeds the C64's color capabilities, and it's all downhill from there. Most of the colors used in the trailer simply don't exist in the C64's single 16-color palette.

And I'm pretty sure the neXt-Wing scene would cause a C64 to spontaneously combust if you tried it, to say nothing of the Falcon.

There's simply no way it can be done on a C64.

MAYBE an Atari 8-bit computer. Atari had really good color depth, though it'd need reworking.

But I'm certain that several of the effects seen are beyond the reach of that poor overburdened 6502 without a more feature-rich VDP than the ANTIC/GTIA combo. Equally serious issues with the neXt-Wing and Falcon.

Lesser challenges, which are likely surmountable, but still stick out at me, include

1. the parallax scrolling behind soccerbot and jetbike. The jetbike is only problematic because it has to be part of the BG layer, it exceeds sprite capabilities for both platforms. That's why it can't be a sprite over a single BG like it seems.

2. the Stormtrooper shot, all of it, but especially the first and last parts. That loading ramp descent is WAY harder than it looks.

3. the trees in the lightsaber scene. They can be assembled from sprites, and indeed have to be, but both platforms will have issues with the scene as drawn due to sprite limitations.

Even ignoring the Falcon spin and available colors, both systems wind up being greatly hindered by having only a single background layer to work with. They need far more processor time than is available to render those effects in software. A crapton of RAM would help in some places, so the Atari XEs fare better than the original A8 and XL machines, but... it's not enough.

These issues are also why I'm not considering an MSX2, despite it's delicious color capabilities.

And while it COULD easily be done on an Amiga, it SHOULDN'T be. I don't know a huge amount about the Amiga, but I know it had FAR better color and resolution than that. It should look far better than that if it was targeted at Amiga.

If one did this on an Amiga, it would be for the same reason they did it on a modern IBM-compatible. Which is to say it would be an attempt to create dated-looking CG without actually considering any of the hardware restrictions that would make it believable.

And that's what bugs me about this sort of thing. It doesn't take a lot of effort to make it at least LOOK right, and no one ever expends it. Considered color selection and no parallax gets you most of the way.

I'm still tending towards Genesis as the most likely sweet spot between inadequate and too capable, though the Falcon scene is still all kinds of problematic.

And yes, I'm still thinking too hard about this.

SNES or Genesis with additiomal super expensive chips im the cart itself, like Chrono Trigger, or Phantasy Star IV.

[Black Valkyrie]

The color pallete is FAR too limited for Super Nintendo. Those sand dunes should have like eight shades of brown.

Incidentally, the Millenium Falcon scene could ALMOST be done in mode 7. The only thing that kills it is the end when the Falcon and sand dunes are both rolling. The Falcon moves independently of the dunes during that roll.

If it was affixed, you could do it. And that it's ALMOST doable bugs me more than when I thought it wasn't remotely doable.

The BG color is sky blue, the clouds are drawn as sprites. The dunes are offscreen, you're in mode 7. Falcon is the only BG layer(BG color doesn't count as a BG layer, hardware-wise), and can be scaled and rotated freely across the entire screen.

The Falcon STOPS rotating before the dunes come into view on the top of the screen. THIS is when you shift back out of mode 7, and raise the dune BG layer in from the top.

Now, here's where it gets tricky, and where the demo fails the mode 7 test. You subsequently load an image that is both dunes AND Falcon on one layer. Then shift to mode 7 again. It can be freely rotated, but the Falcon has to stay on the same pixels of the dune, which it doesn't.

Onve the roll finishes, come out of mode 7 again. You have one BG laye loaded, it's Falcon and dunes. Load the TIE fighter on a second layer. This is where things get a little weak, because the Falcon's dodge-roll can't really be done. What I'd do is jerk the entire Falcon+dunes layer to the side. You might could load separated dunes and Falcon layers and have the Falcon move independently of the dunes, if there's enough time to pump all the tiles into RAM.

Yes, I've thought too hard about this.

Remember first releases of SNES games, some of the games had similar effects.

[JB0]

Remember first releases of SNES games, some of the games had similar effects.

Similar, yes. And some games continued to use fancy mode 7 scenes very late into it's life, including, coincidentally, the Super Star Wars trilogy.

But as-presented, it's impossible. Which is frustrating because it wouldn't take MUCH of a change to make it work.

Which was why I spent more time than I care to admit breaking the scene down from a Super Nintendo capabilities perspective to figure out how to MAKE it work.

And why it frustrated me.

The vast majority of people who are watching that video either never actually owned any of the pieces of hardware you're naming, or haven't used them since they where 10 years old.

True. But that doesn't mean I can't expect them to try anyways!

SNES or Genesis with additiomal super expensive chips im the cart itself, like Chrono Trigger, or Phantasy Star IV.

Neither Chrono Trigger nor PS4 used a coprocessor, actually. Both of them are running on just the internal system resources.

(Actually, the only Genesis cartridge with a coprocessor was Virtua Racing. It was a big deal at the time.)

And yeah, coprocessors would help, but... that's cheating.

Yoshi's Island is a great example of what the Super Nintendo could do with a SuperFX strapped in, but... WAY too much color depth available for this to be a reasonable SNES product.

But now that I think about expansions and coprocessors... SegaCD could be a viable platform.

It's got a math coprocessor to help with scaling and rotation that would help a lot on the Falcon sequence. In fact, most SCD boot demos(the exact show changed with model and region) have it scaling and rotating two large objects simultaneously, which as it happens is EXACTLY what we would need to do. Replace the SegaCD logo with sand dunes and the SEGA logo with a Millenium Falcon, and BAM.

And that's really the only place in the sequence where I'm worried about the Genesis' capabilities.

As a bonus, it also gets us the audio via the power of redbook!

32x rises back into the "too capable" territory. It could do it, but you'd have always be left wondering WHY.

Without a compelling argument to the contrary, I'm going to call it a SegaCD movie trailer.

Edited January 17, 2015 by JB0

[areaseven]

[JB0]

As if we needed more proof that Goofy is a terrifying monster.

[azrael]

They forgot to put in, "Disney's Star Wars..."

[ErikElvis]

Man I hope Carrie fisher doesn't sound like she did last night at the sag awards in the movie.

[Agent ONE]

Man I hope Carrie fisher doesn't sound like she did last night at the sag awards in the movie.

Why, she was great. I mean, she sounds older, but she is older. Sure looks good after losing 40lbs.

[ErikElvis]

I didn't think she sounded crazy but her speech does sound like its effected by psych meds.

[areaseven]

Why, she was great. I mean, she sounds older, but she is older. Sure looks good after losing 40lbs.

So does this mean she'll fit in her slave outfit again?

[Agent ONE]

So does this mean she'll fit in her slave outfit again?

fit, probably... I don't think that made the wardrobe cut for this film however.

[F-ZeroOne]

Carrie was recently a guest panelist on the British T.V. comedy quiz "Q.I.". They managed to go a whole ten minutes before mentioning "Star Wars" and then... lets just say, you really don't want to know where the Rebel Base is hidden...

Edited January 26, 2015 by F-ZeroOne

[Mommar]

Carrie was recently a guest panelist on the British T.V. comedy quiz "Q.I.". They managed to go a whole ten minutes before mentioning "Star Wars" and then... lets just say, you really don't want to know where the Rebel Base is hidden...

I saw that. Not the greatest episode of QI really.

[Jefuemon]

Not SW 7, but seemed like the best place.

Went to the Sapporo Snow Festival last night. If you don't know yet, there’s a huge all Imperial Star Wars sculpture.

[mechaninac]

^

[mickyg]

I don't know, they got the colors all wrong on Vader...

[Dobber]

Awesome! Though they missed the obvious choice of using the AT-AT and Snowtroopers instead.

Chris

[raptormesh]

And a snow speeder - thanks for the pics regardless.

[F-ZeroOne]

Ah, please ignore.

Edited February 8, 2015 by F-ZeroOne

[peter]

[Dynaman]

Didn't R2 have his memory wiped along with 3PO so never knew in the original movies?

[mechaninac]

Bail Organa orders the protocol droid's memory erased; I don't recall any such directive concerning R2, but I could be wrong.

[David Hingtgen]

That is an excellent segue into this:

(NSFW, but mildly):

[peter]

Bail Organa orders the protocol droid's memory erased; I don't recall any such directive concerning R2, but I could be wrong.

Yeah, didn't R2 laugh when they said to wipe the protocol droid's memory?

[peter]

[mickyg]

LOL

[Black Valkyrie]

Po in his X-Wing.

[peter]

Po in his X-Wing.

Teletubbies creep me out.

[peter]

[troyness]

So I guess that rumour of a trailer #2 in Feburary ...was a rumour?

[Mommar]

So I guess that rumour of a trailer #2 in Feburary ...was a rumour?

JJ was just interviewed by MTV and he said that since they have a year until release they're taking their time and finishing up scenes before showing anything.