[Link Posting] How DOOM fire was done

[Rich]

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<URL:http://fabiensanglard.net/doom_fire_psx/>

The text below is a quotation from the URL above:
>
> The Game Engine Black Book: DOOM features a whole chapter about DOOM
> console ports and the challenges they encountered. The utter failure of
> the 3DO, the difficulties of the Saturn due to its affine texture
> mapping, and the amazing "reverse-engineering-from- scratch" by Randy
> Linden on Super Nintendo all have rich stories to tell.
>
> Once heading towards disaster[1], the Playstation 1 (PSX) devteam
> managed to rectify course to produce a critically and commercially
> acclaimed conversion. Final DOOM was the most faithful port when
> compared to the PC version. The alpha blended colored sectors not only
> improved visual quality, they also made gameplay better by indicating
> the required key color. Sound was also improved via reverberation
> effects taking advantage of the PSX's Audio Processing Unit.
>
> The devteam did such a good job that they found themselves with a few
> extra CPU cycles they decided to use to generate animated fire both
> during both the intro and the gameplay. Mesmerized, I tried to find out
> how it was done. After an initial calling found no answer, I was about
> to dust off my MIPS book to rip open the PSX executable when Samuel
> Villarreal replied on Twitter to tell me he had already
> reverse-engineered the Nintendo 64 version[2]. I only had to clean,
> simplify, and optimize it a little bit.
>
> It was interesting to re-discover this classic demoscene effect; the
> underlying idea is similar to the first water ripple many developers
> implemented as a programming kata in the 90's. The fire effect is a
> vibrant testimony to a time when judiciously picked palette colors
> combined with a simple trick were the only way to get things done.
>
> ...

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Rich <ri...@example.invalid> wrote:
>
> <URL:http://fabiensanglard.net/doom_fire_psx/>

I found this article at the same site quite interesting as well:

How the Dreamcast copy protection was defeated
http://fabiensanglard.net/dreamcast_hacking/index.html

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