Friday 8 May 2009

Scrolling Map Project (Part 1)

I have always been a big fan of large scrolling map games, where the play area is much larger than the screen. Sonic the hedgehog is a good example. I suppose even Lunar Jet man could be classed as one of this games.

I then played a game on the spectrum called “Maze Mania” by Hewson Consultants and thought “How did they do that?”.

Discussion

There is an “animated” thread discussing this here: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=24788

Basically, I observed that the main screen is 28 chars by 16 chars in size, moving 1 char (8 pixels) in all directions. Moving 1 char avoided any colour clash and looked really good. The game ran at 12.5 Frames per second, and looked pretty smooth.

Investigating the code using a disassembler I noticed

1. They drew the tiles to a back buffer
2. Drew the sprites in their correct positions over the top of the back buffer tiles
3. Copied the buffer to the main screen

The following diagram showed how I planned to implement this (I was aiming for 24x16) where Diagram 1 is the back buffer, 2 is the region to copy and 3 is the end result on the screen.

Back buffer

Region To Copy
Display

Copying the Back Buffer

In Maze Mania, in order to copy the back buffer to the screen I think they have a table for each of the lines (18 x 8 = 144 lines) containing the source address and the destination screen address. The SP is pointed to this table, and the values are "popped" into HL and DE. Then 28 x LDI's are done to copy from the source to the destination.


Here is my suggested code based on 16 rows (128) x 24 columns

HALT            ; Wait for Top Of Scanline, in reality would set up IM2 or something
DI ; Disable Interrupts
LD (spstore),SP ; Store Stack Pointer
LD SP,table_of_source_and_dest_addresses ; Point SP to our table of source and destination (display) addresses

; Wait for scan line
LD BC,$0320 ; 800
loop:
DEC BC
LD A,B
OR C
JR NZ,loop

LD A,$80 ; 128 (16 Rows of 8 bytes)
line_loop:
POP DE ; Get DESTINATION (Display) from our table
POP HL ; Get SOURCE address from our table
LDI ; Copy Contents of (HL) to (DE) 24 times (24 columns)
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI
LDI

DEC A ; Move to next row
JR NZ,line_loop ; repeat until all done

LD SP,(spstore) ; restore Stack Pointer
EI ; enable interrupts



An example of the "table_of_source_and_dest_addresses" then looks like this:



Code:



table_of_source_and_dest_addresses:
; Destination (Display), Source
defw $4000,$E500,%4100,$E600..... for all 144 lines (18 Rows)


Where the first 2 bytes are the screen destination, the next 2 are the back buffer (in this case starting at $E500)


This takes about 140,000 T-Cycles, so I reckon with some optimised Tile Writing and Sprite Code I could get 50/4 = 12.5 Frames per second, or at least thats my goal.

Writing Tiles

We need to write tiles to the back buffer. For starters, I have written code that writes them straight to the display.

The code reads from a map, converts to a graphics address and writes the tile to the display. The map is 16 x 16 squares (256). The Clear square is Tile 0, the Lines are Tile 1 and the solid block is Tile 3.

The following code when assembled will produce the following:


image

If you move the screen address around (de), or the map position (bc) you will see the tiles react accordingly.

; draw03.asm

; Draw a 4x4 block and fill the screen


; de = Screen address


; Takes about 100,000 cycles to do this (8 columns * 4)



org 08000h


; Turn border black

xor a ; a = 0

out (254),a ; send out of port to set border


di ; disable interrupts


ld de,04000h ; de points to screen (top left) ld bc,map ; bc points to map position (0,0)


ld a,5 ; 5 Rows x 4 = 24 rows

loop1: push af ; store counter push de ; store screen address (First column)


ld a,8 ; 8 columns to draw

loop2: push af ; store column counter

push de ; store screen address


ld a,(bc) ; Get Map TILE at map Position


ld l,a ; e = tile

ld h,0


; Multiply by 128 to get tile gfx address



rl l

rl h


rl l

rl h


rl l

rl h


rl l rl h


rl l

rl h


rl l

rl h


rl l

rl h



; add address to base gfx address

ld a,h add a,gfx/256

ld h,a


push bc ; store map position

call drawblock ; draw the block

pop bc ; get map position back


inc c ; increase map position (column)


pop de ; retrieve screen address

inc e ; Move screen address along 4 characters to next column

inc e

inc e

inc e


pop af ; get column counter

dec a ; and decrease


jr nz,loop2 ; repeat until all columns drawn


pop de ; get original (first column) screen address back


ld a,80h ; 4 lines (32 * 4 = 128) add a,e ; add to screen address (e) ld e,a


jr nc,loop3 ; If we have not crossed the 256 byte border, ok to draw


ld a,d ; Move to next 2048k screen third

add a,8 ; By adding 8 to d, 001000 = 2048

ld d,a



loop3:

ld a,c ; We have drawn 8 columns so move to next row (16 by 16 map) add a,8 ; add 8 columns to get to next row ld c,a



pop af ; get counter back

dec a ; decrease counter


jr nz,loop1 ; repeat if we are not at the bottom row



ei



ret



drawblock:



; Start



ld (spstore),sp ; Store Stack Pointer



ld sp,hl ; SP = Graphics Block



ex de,hl ; hl now has screen address



ld a,4 ; 4 Rows of Chars

a1:



; Store Counter

ex af,af'



;-------------------------------------

;This code is repeated 8 times



; Get 4 bytes from GFX

pop de


pop bc



; Store in screen position

ld (hl),e


inc l


ld (hl),d


inc l


ld (hl),c


inc l


ld (hl),b



; Next screen line

inc h



; Get 4 more and work back

pop de


pop bc



ld (hl),b

dec l


ld (hl),c


dec l


ld (hl),d


dec l


ld (hl),e



inc h



;-------------------------------------



pop de

pop bc



ld (hl),e

inc l


ld (hl),d


inc l


ld (hl),c


inc l


ld (hl),b



inc h



pop de

pop bc



ld (hl),b

dec l


ld (hl),c


dec l


ld (hl),d


dec l


ld (hl),e



inc h

pop de


pop bc



ld (hl),e

inc l


ld (hl),d


inc l


ld (hl),c


inc l


ld (hl),b



inc h



pop de

pop bc



ld (hl),b

dec l


ld (hl),c


dec l


ld (hl),d


dec l


ld (hl),e



inc h

pop de


pop bc



ld (hl),e

inc l


ld (hl),d


inc l


ld (hl),c


inc l


ld (hl),b



inc h



pop de

pop bc



ld (hl),b

dec l


ld (hl),c


dec l


ld (hl),d


dec l


ld (hl),e



inc h



; Work out next screen line

NextPixelLine:



ld a,h

and 7


jr nz,npl_ok


ld a,h


sub 8


ld h,a


Next_Char_Line: ld a,l


add a,32


ld l,a


and 224


jr nz,npl_ok


ld a,h


add a,8


ld h,a



; loop

npl_ok:



ex af,af'



dec a

jr nz,a1



; restore SP and return

ld sp,(spstore)



ret



spstore: defw 0000



org 0e400h



map:



defb 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0

defb 1,1,1,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0


defb 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0



org 0e500h



gfx:

defb %11111111,%11111111,%11111111,%11111111


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001



defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001

defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001



defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001

defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001



defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001

defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %10000000,000000,000000,000001


defb %11111111,%11111111,%11111111,%11111111



defs 128,128



defs 128,255



end 08000h


Conclusion

So far, we have worked out in theory how the map will work and have developed code to

1. Copy the back buffer to the screen
2. Draw tiles to the back buffer (The above code is direct to the screen)

The next step (Part 2 to follow) will add colour to the tiles and draw attributes as well as left, right, up and down controls to allow you to scroll through the map.

Further parts to this series will then draw masked sprites on top of the background.

My goal is to document the complete development of this game, so stay posted and constructive comments are always welcome.

You can download the source and “tap” image for the spectrum for this article here

*** ADDITION ***

You can download a work in progress of step 2 here. Use Q,A,O & P to navigate the map.