6 ms·

Lou's Pseudo 3D Page (2013)

160 points by whereistimbo 2y ago

gnabgib 2y ago
Popular in 2016 (115 points, 12 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14017574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14017574 2015 (148 points, 26 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8847063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8847063
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
a1o 2y ago
I implemented this in Adventure Game Studio following that page seven years ago.
purple-leafy 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
blackfur 2y ago
This page is such a gem. I stumbled upon it many years ago, when making a classic pseudo-3D racing game for a hacked (and very underpowered) graphing calculator. Never ended up finishing it though. Turns out without debugging, floating point calculations or any real knowledge of C you struggle.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
komadori 2y ago
As far as old-school 3D effects go, I like this tutorial on ray casting: https://permadi.com/1996/05/ray-casting-tutorial-1/ https://permadi.com/1996/05/ray-casting-tutorial-1/ It's great to see something similar on the effects used in driving games, which I always imagined to be akin to raycasting's vertical slices drawn horizontally.
Netcob 2y ago
I love the ingenuity, I also love youtube documentaries on this topic, but... as a child (in the 90s), I did not like these pseudo 3D racing games at all! Mode 7 on the SNES was usually fine. I don't know how accurately it rendered a single flat surface in 3D, but it felt real enough and responsive enough. Except for the very rare cases where they simulated non-flat surfaces (Speed Racer, Super Off-Road), even though that was technically much more impressive. The effect just didn't work for me - it didn't feel like turning, it just felt like what it was: The game displaying a "left turn" animation and telling you that your car will now start drifting to the right if you don't press left. And that felt more like playing a Game&Watch toy.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  IMO it greatly depends on the game. Very advanced games that used this technique, like OutRun in the arcade, really almost feel like you're driving on a road with real turns. Lotus Turbo Challenge on the Amiga also does a pretty good job giving you the illusion that you're actually approaching turns, i.e. that there is a turn ahead of you and it is coming towards you. But most games that implemented this technique were much more primitive, and just amounted to "bending" the road to indicate turns, which never feels like there's actually a turn coming towards you. It just feels like the road is suddenly changing its shape. But that's not an inherent fault of the technique, it's just a poor implementation. I do agree that Mode7 games, which effectively display an almost correctly rendered 3D plane, are generally a much better experience.
  - rzzzt 2y ago
    Pit Stop II on the C64 felt like you had force feedback on a digital joystick, no less!
  - duskwuff 2y ago
    > But most games that implemented this technique were much more primitive, and just amounted to "bending" the road to indicate turns, which never feels like there's actually a turn coming towards you. It just feels like the road is suddenly changing its shape. After looking at a couple videos, I think the "secret sauce" was having objects along the sides of the road to reinforce the illusion of movement. Even in OutRun, sequences where the player drives past objects like trees or road signs feel more convincing than ones in open areas.
elevationapi 2y ago
I remember Vroom killing the game on Atari ST : https://youtu.be/Z-RELFjDu_8?si=giyiDpRqUPNSNEK9 https://youtu.be/Z-RELFjDu_8?si=giyiDpRqUPNSNEK9 Insane depth of view with fluidity for the time
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Excellent.
- mysterydip 2y ago
  There's a new racing game that just came out for the ST that achieved 50FPS: https://retroracing.itch.io/faster-atari-ste https://retroracing.itch.io/faster-atari-ste
- TapamN 2y ago
  Also on the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive as F1 World Championship, and a sequel, Kawasaki Superbike Challenge.
erickhill 2y ago
Prepare to qualify...
MaximilianEmel 2y ago
When does Pseudo 3D cross the threshold into Real 3D?
- duskwuff 2y ago
  What makes these techniques "pseudo" 3D is that they can only render one very specific type of scene (a road), and even then only under various constraints (road must be in front of the camera, road must continue to the horizon, etc). "Real 3D" typically implies a more general scene renderer.
- anilakar 2y ago
  Back in the day it was probably easy to move goalposts as techniques advanced. Do remember that Duke 3D's Build engine did not draw a true 3D environment by today's standards, and Novalogic's Voxel Space did not use voxels but a heightmap with painter's algorithm. My personal opinion is that to qualify as 2.5D the game engine must internally use a 3D coordinate system even if the render process is 2D, and 3D requires a true 3D to 3D conversion.
zackmorris 2y ago
Kinda cool, I've never seen these techniques all in one place before. Growing up, I thought that SNES mode 7 scaling was so cool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_7 The article mentions about halfway down the page that what made the 80s road rendering technique possible was racing the beam. Where say an Atari 2600 would toggle the color at certain pixel counts as the TV's electron beam swept the screen, producing graphics that seemed otherwise impossible from such underpowered hardware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_the_Beam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_the_Beam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJFnWZH5FXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJFnWZH5FXc Some engines allowed for say 8 hardcoded sprites this way by toggling colors at each sprite's position, with various rules about overlapping, so sprites would flicker sometimes when they were next to each other.
toolslive 2y ago
The screenshots are a blast from the past. Outrun, Space Harrier... Those were really good games back in the day (1980s)
TacticalCoder 2y ago
You cango pretty far with fake 3D.For example you can take the same type of technique but then additionally move vertical "bars" of eight pixel (going along the entire screen) and it feels like the car/bike is turning more. Here's an example from the early 90s in a PC DOS game (Word Rally Fever, heavily inspired by Power Drift): https://youtu.be/tn4lK2-pUxw https://youtu.be/tn4lK2-pUxw FWIW it was made by friends of mine, got published by Team 17, and I was a beta-tester of that one :)
- ch_sm 2y ago
  Very cool, thanks for sharing! I’m a huge fan of this Super-Scaler inspired style, and had never heard about this!

160 points by whereistimbo 2y ago

Popular in 2016 (115 points, 12 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14017574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14017574 2015 (148 points, 26 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8847063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8847063

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

a1o 2y ago

I implemented this in Adventure Game Studio following that page seven years ago.

purple-leafy 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

blackfur 2y ago

This page is such a gem. I stumbled upon it many years ago, when making a classic pseudo-3D racing game for a hacked (and very underpowered) graphing calculator. Never ended up finishing it though. Turns out without debugging, floating point calculations or any real knowledge of C you struggle.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

komadori 2y ago

As far as old-school 3D effects go, I like this tutorial on ray casting: https://permadi.com/1996/05/ray-casting-tutorial-1/ https://permadi.com/1996/05/ray-casting-tutorial-1/ It's great to see something similar on the effects used in driving games, which I always imagined to be akin to raycasting's vertical slices drawn horizontally.

Netcob 2y ago

I love the ingenuity, I also love youtube documentaries on this topic, but... as a child (in the 90s), I did not like these pseudo 3D racing games at all! Mode 7 on the SNES was usually fine. I don't know how accurately it rendered a single flat surface in 3D, but it felt real enough and responsive enough. Except for the very rare cases where they simulated non-flat surfaces (Speed Racer, Super Off-Road), even though that was technically much more impressive. The effect just didn't work for me - it didn't feel like turning, it just felt like what it was: The game displaying a "left turn" animation and telling you that your car will now start drifting to the right if you don't press left. And that felt more like playing a Game&Watch toy.

InsideOutSanta 2y ago
IMO it greatly depends on the game. Very advanced games that used this technique, like OutRun in the arcade, really almost feel like you're driving on a road with real turns. Lotus Turbo Challenge on the Amiga also does a pretty good job giving you the illusion that you're actually approaching turns, i.e. that there is a turn ahead of you and it is coming towards you. But most games that implemented this technique were much more primitive, and just amounted to "bending" the road to indicate turns, which never feels like there's actually a turn coming towards you. It just feels like the road is suddenly changing its shape. But that's not an inherent fault of the technique, it's just a poor implementation. I do agree that Mode7 games, which effectively display an almost correctly rendered 3D plane, are generally a much better experience.
- rzzzt 2y ago
  Pit Stop II on the C64 felt like you had force feedback on a digital joystick, no less!
- duskwuff 2y ago
  > But most games that implemented this technique were much more primitive, and just amounted to "bending" the road to indicate turns, which never feels like there's actually a turn coming towards you. It just feels like the road is suddenly changing its shape. After looking at a couple videos, I think the "secret sauce" was having objects along the sides of the road to reinforce the illusion of movement. Even in OutRun, sequences where the player drives past objects like trees or road signs feel more convincing than ones in open areas.

elevationapi 2y ago

I remember Vroom killing the game on Atari ST : https://youtu.be/Z-RELFjDu_8?si=giyiDpRqUPNSNEK9 https://youtu.be/Z-RELFjDu_8?si=giyiDpRqUPNSNEK9 Insane depth of view with fluidity for the time

actionfromafar 2y ago
Excellent.
mysterydip 2y ago
There's a new racing game that just came out for the ST that achieved 50FPS: https://retroracing.itch.io/faster-atari-ste https://retroracing.itch.io/faster-atari-ste
TapamN 2y ago
Also on the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive as F1 World Championship, and a sequel, Kawasaki Superbike Challenge.

erickhill 2y ago

Prepare to qualify...

MaximilianEmel 2y ago

When does Pseudo 3D cross the threshold into Real 3D?

duskwuff 2y ago
What makes these techniques "pseudo" 3D is that they can only render one very specific type of scene (a road), and even then only under various constraints (road must be in front of the camera, road must continue to the horizon, etc). "Real 3D" typically implies a more general scene renderer.
anilakar 2y ago
Back in the day it was probably easy to move goalposts as techniques advanced. Do remember that Duke 3D's Build engine did not draw a true 3D environment by today's standards, and Novalogic's Voxel Space did not use voxels but a heightmap with painter's algorithm. My personal opinion is that to qualify as 2.5D the game engine must internally use a 3D coordinate system even if the render process is 2D, and 3D requires a true 3D to 3D conversion.

zackmorris 2y ago

Kinda cool, I've never seen these techniques all in one place before. Growing up, I thought that SNES mode 7 scaling was so cool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_7 The article mentions about halfway down the page that what made the 80s road rendering technique possible was racing the beam. Where say an Atari 2600 would toggle the color at certain pixel counts as the TV's electron beam swept the screen, producing graphics that seemed otherwise impossible from such underpowered hardware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_the_Beam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_the_Beam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJFnWZH5FXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJFnWZH5FXc Some engines allowed for say 8 hardcoded sprites this way by toggling colors at each sprite's position, with various rules about overlapping, so sprites would flicker sometimes when they were next to each other.

toolslive 2y ago

The screenshots are a blast from the past. Outrun, Space Harrier... Those were really good games back in the day (1980s)

TacticalCoder 2y ago

You cango pretty far with fake 3D.For example you can take the same type of technique but then additionally move vertical "bars" of eight pixel (going along the entire screen) and it feels like the car/bike is turning more. Here's an example from the early 90s in a PC DOS game (Word Rally Fever, heavily inspired by Power Drift): https://youtu.be/tn4lK2-pUxw https://youtu.be/tn4lK2-pUxw FWIW it was made by friends of mine, got published by Team 17, and I was a beta-tester of that one :)

ch_sm 2y ago
Very cool, thanks for sharing! I’m a huge fan of this Super-Scaler inspired style, and had never heard about this!