Showcasing my graphics

[XTM]

Your usage of the FLASH bit is amazing.
Also, nice EVA-01

From all of us here, I want to wish you happy painting and God bless, my friend

[Grongy]

Your usage of the FLASH bit is amazing.
Also, nice EVA-01

From all of us here, I want to wish you happy painting and God bless, my friend

Thanks!

[Grongy]

[Grongy]

[Grongy]

[Grongy]

[XTM]

I noticed I had forgotten to reply to this here:

About that Amstrad picture - personally I think that this computer is pretty capable in the right hands and it's possible to do amazing stuff with it. Unfortunately, I noticed that the majority of games released in the mid-late 80's for Amstrad CPC were just lazy ports of Speccy versions (same thing with MSX, I guess), basically the same games, but also slower. So yeah, that's the mind of 80's Spectrum about his rival, basically.

Don't get me wrong, I like the Amstrad CPC. I grew up with it since my brother had one and he was part of the German demo scene in the late 80s/early 90s so I got to see plenty of demos that showed what the machine can do.

On the other hand, I don't like the current CPC scene too much. There's plenty of people in it who like to smack talk the Speccy and keep dredging up that old chestnut how that machine pretty much ruined the CPCs "life" by being the root of those terrible Speccy ports and thus denying it the properly coded software it would have deserved. Yeah, I know, this sucks and I do agree the Speccy ports were crap but that's how history went, what can you do (other than travelling back in time to prevent the creation of the Speccy)? ...

They shouldn't blame Sir Clive's "inferior piece of junk" but the lazy software houses. I think what eats at some of them is how the Speccy appears to have been the more successful computer despite all its flaws. Something you regularly get to read on the internet is from people who didn't grow up with the Speccy (not just CPC people, I mean everyone) who simply can't wrap their head around why anyone would have put up with the colour clash, the P?s?-poor Beep sounds and lack of hardware sprites/scrolling. Yeah, if you look at it objectively, dare I say it on this very forum - the Speccy is a bit crap and certainly not fit for games despite it ending up as a gaming computer. I can totally understand how people who didn't spend all that time with the Speccy as we did (eventaully just getting used to and sorta "accepting" the weaknesses) would not get what people see in this machine ... but to insult it, which is something I regularly get to see/read, is just a bit lame. To me this almost feels like some people want to invalidate our experiences with the trusty ol' Speccy. It's the disrespect that really gets me. Sure, I could just ignore opinions on the internet, but it's not so easy. I mean, I pretty much abandoned the German retro scene entirely due to their ignorance of the Speccy ... thank God for SC

[luny]

I noticed I had forgotten to reply to this here:

About that Amstrad picture - personally I think that this computer is pretty capable in the right hands and it's possible to do amazing stuff with it. Unfortunately, I noticed that the majority of games released in the mid-late 80's for Amstrad CPC were just lazy ports of Speccy versions (same thing with MSX, I guess), basically the same games, but also slower. So yeah, that's the mind of 80's Spectrum about his rival, basically.

Don't get me wrong, I like the Amstrad CPC. I grew up with it since my brother had one and he was part of the German demo scene in the late 80s/early 90s so I got to see plenty of demos that showed what the machine can do.

On the other hand, I don't like the current CPC scene too much. There's plenty of people in it who like to smack talk the Speccy and keep dredging up that old chestnut how that machine pretty much ruined the CPCs "life" by being the root of those terrible Speccy ports and thus denying it the properly coded software it would have deserved. Yeah, I know, this sucks and I do agree the Speccy ports were crap but that's how history went, what can you do (other than travelling back in time to prevent the creation of the Speccy)? ...

They shouldn't blame Sir Clive's "inferior piece of junk" but the lazy software houses. I think what eats at some of them is how the Speccy appears to have been the more successful computer despite all its flaws. Something you regularly get to read on the internet is from people who didn't grow up with the Speccy (not just CPC people, I mean everyone) who simply can't wrap their head around why anyone would have put up with the colour clash, the P?s?-poor Beep sounds and lack of hardware sprites/scrolling. Yeah, if you look at it objectively, dare I say it on this very forum - the Speccy is a bit crap and certainly not fit for games despite it ending up as a gaming computer. I can totally understand how people who didn't spend all that time with the Speccy as we did (eventaully just getting used to and sorta "accepting" the weaknesses) would not get what people see in this machine ... but to insult it, which is something I regularly get to see/read, is just a bit lame. To me this almost feels like some people want to invalidate our experiences with the trusty ol' Speccy. It's the disrespect that really gets me. Sure, I could just ignore opinions on the internet, but it's not so easy. I mean, I pretty much abandoned the German retro scene entirely due to their ignorance of the Speccy ... thank God for SC

I think a lot of the appeal was the challenge of working around those weaknesses and coming back with something pretty awesome. Like some of the later music create using that p!ss-poor beeper and the clever tricks to work around the terrible colour clash (and high resolution that didn't take half your memory). I think this is why it survived as well as the price. It gave a leading start when everyone else was trying to sell 300 pound computers.

[catmeows]

how that machine pretty much ruined the CPCs "life" by being the root of those terrible Speccy ports and thus denying it the properly coded software it would have deserved. Yeah, I know, this sucks and I do agree the Speccy ports were crap

I'm afraid that very often the question was to make speccy port or to not bother at all. It is really much cheaper to reuse 95% of code and all graphics resources than creating game from start. And when I see complains like "we could have this and that and instead we got 1-bit spectrum graphics" I wonder how exactly they want to fit 2-bit graphics into 48KB when same game with 1-bit graphics consumes whole 40KB.

but to insult it, which is something I regularly get to see/read, is just a bit lame. To me this almost feels like some people want to invalidate our experiences ...

It could be worse, you could be an Oric user

[Lee Bee]

Regarding the CPC, to me it's quite simple. I love both Sir Clive AND Sir Alan, love all "simple" retro hardware, and especially love anything with an AY chip! 8-bit rivalry is fine as long as it's playful fun, not mean-spirited Life is WAY too short to argue over such things.

And may I say again how impressed I am with your work, Grongy! You are a true artist! I want ALL your images to be turned into games!

[Timmy]

About that Amstrad picture - personally I think that this computer is pretty capable in the right hands and it's possible to do amazing stuff with it. Unfortunately, I noticed that the majority of games released in the mid-late 80's for Amstrad CPC were just lazy ports of Speccy versions (same thing with MSX, I guess), basically the same games, but also slower. So yeah, that's the mind of 80's Spectrum about his rival, basically.

Now, about that MSX bit...

I also sometimes port my Spectrum games to the MSX, and yes, some UK games are "basically the same games, but also slower".

The real problem there is that, the Spectrum is actually a very fast machine compared to the MSX(1), if you want to make games (not just random pictures). Drawing the screen is much, much faster, 2 pixel scrolling is fast enough, Lots of sprites on the same horizontal line is possible. One of the big problems I find, when porting, is that 4 hardware (single-colour) sprites on the same horizontal line is a big limitation. 4 Sprites is good for games like Pong, but games in the 80s seemed to be lot of horizontal scrolling (or flip screen) games with many enemies on the same line as the player, and that VDP chip was just not very good at it.

My guess for the reason why the Spectrum is faster, is that the MSX used a much older, commodity video chip. Sir Clive of course knew about that chip and therefore they tried, and managed, to make something faster and cheaper (but less colourful).

The MSX1 video chip eventually evolved into a better chip that is used in the Sega Master System, with hardware scrolling, much more horizontal sprites, a 16 bit data bus and other stuff.

[Mpk]

the Speccy is a bit crap

Yes, but in a funky, skillo kind of way.

Seemed to me that the Amstrad was technically better, but not by enough to overcome the draw of the large user groups the C64 and Speccy already had. Kids wanted whatever machine their friends had, which was either a C64 or Speccy round my way. I still don't think I've ever been in the same room as an Amstrad.

[cha05e90]

...It's the disrespect that really gets me. Sure, I could just ignore opinions on the internet, but it's not so easy. I mean, I pretty much abandoned the German retro scene entirely due to their ignorance of the Speccy ... thank God for SC

What sometimes isn't respected as well is the thing called MONEY! Of course here (Germany) was Commodore and Schneider (Amstrad) land - but mostly for the "rich kids".

I think - over here on the continent as well as in UK - the Speccy was AFFORDABLE. Is was cheap. I (or my parents) were able to pay for that thing (16K version, by the way...). And cheap meant of course a somewhat crappy technical design - so it's another thing what's often puzzling me is some kind of arrogance by people who can't really anticipate how some people had to struggle for a ZX81 or the cheapest variant of the ZX Spectrum...

[Grongy]

Participated in zxgfx compo #5, SpecSCII graphics about underwater world, here's my works:

[XTM]

While only one out of the 4 newest pics uses FLASH ... it made me think, Grongy would also be deserving of the title of "Grandmaster Flash"

[Grongy]

While only one out of the 4 newest pics uses FLASH ... it made me think, Grongy would also be deserving of the title of "Grandmaster Flash"

Well, to be frank, there was another picture of mine sent to the graphics compo that uses FLASH, but I thought it's too ugly to show it to anyone. Here it is:


Also here's a little experiment, nothing too fancy, just playing with colored stripes, hope to make more stuff soon:

[Grongy]

An old screen I made back in October 2021 and its shrunk down version, made just for fun:

[Grongy]

[5MinuteRetro]

An old screen I made back in October 2021 and its shrunk down version, made just for fun:

This looked insanely good when I looked at it on my iPhone screen just now. Weirdly, on my bigger PC monitor the effect doesn't feel quite so powerful (to me). Human eyes/brains are weird, huh?

[5MinuteRetro]

And I just love the simple exuberance of this image. Puts me in mind of:

[Grongy]

[XTM]

Grongy, can you grab a DeLorean and travel back to, say, 1983 and make all those graphics/game mockups into real games back then? You'd be a millionaire by now!

[Grongy]

Grongy, can you grab a DeLorean and travel back to, say, 1983 and make all those graphics/game mockups into real games back then? You'd be a millionaire by now!

Well, I'm not sure how this particular art would work as a game, really. I'm a not actually a big fan of that type of games, I can't play them and get lost easily in these mazes. But in case everyone's interested, I did some mockup GIF's with these machines' sprites moving toward camera along with animated floor, so yeah, I suppose there's a potential. Gonna upload it soon.

MEANWHILE... a pretty big one.

[evilpaul]

Well, I'm not sure how this particular art would work as a game, really. I'm a not actually a big fan of that type of games, I can't play them and get lost easily in these mazes. But in case everyone's interested, I did some mockup GIF's with these machines' sprites moving toward camera along with a

I was sat there looking at the screen and trying to figure our how many different "objects" you'd need to draw to make a proper game out of it..

[Grongy]