Vilela's Random Laboratory

Oooooooh yeah another C3! This time I don't really have anything solid to release. Touhou Mario 2 is still taking forever to finish, I didn't think on any tool idea, nor into some new stable patch and I already told here that I don't do re-releases of my previous works on C3.

So this time I will bring a new things to show: my "laboratory". It's some experiment that I managed to do but they are not very usable right now in real hacks. It's more for fun, a demonstration.

The first think I'd like to show is a 3D graphics renderer using SA-1. Yes, exactly. I was been working on this for around 2 weeks and I got interesting results. Basically it lets you display simple and rotate 3D models (.obj) files on a SA-1 game. I done it by creating a 256x96 4bpp frame buffer in the RAM, which the SA-1 CPU manually renders polygons to it and later it's converted "on the fly" to SNES graphics by using Character Conversion DMA which the final result is projected into a 256x192 image at 30 fps.




The SA-1 CPU takes a list of 3d polygons, projects them into a 2d plane and rasterizes them. While currently it does not let you have 3D levels, it is not impossible to you make them. But for now, it's just simple 3d models that you can view on it.

VIDEO LINK

Of course it is not perfect. You can't zoom too much on it or it will have weird effects and it goes pretty slow with high amount of polygons. The Mario model for example has 200 polygons and the system runs approximately at 5 FPS. And they're not texture, just solid colors. But still you can have some idea that it's possible to have 3D drawing in SNES (via software) and you can see how powerful the SA-1 is even if it's doing something that is not really designed to do such job.

DOWNLOAD SOURCE CODE and DEMO

Controls:

Left/Right -> Translate (move) around the x axis (left <-> right).
Up/Down -> Translate (move) around the y axis (up <-> down).
L/R -> Translate around the z axis (zoom the screen).

A + Left/Right -> Rotate around the x axis.
A + Up/Down -> Rotate around the y axis.
A + L/R -> Rotate around the z axis.

X -> Change object (four available).

Have a try yourself. I included a program that converts .obj files into .asm that lets you insert in the ROM. And all source code is included if you're curious how everything works. Feel free to use the source code too if you're interested, who knows if we get some real 3D in SMW? While with SA-1 it may not be possible to make something near to SM64, for example, in SMW, you can port the code to ST-0018 or Super FX which have a greater CPU speed and better architecture for graphics drawing.

Anyway that's all. I hope you liked.

Buuuuuuuuuuuut it's not over! Remember the Sound Effects Sample Streaming I did for Super Mario World some months ago? It's released!

Note that I didn't really get it successfully working. First of all, you must insert the BRR files manually with a patch I included (which needs some adjusts like RATS tag and nonSA-1 version), second it can cause of lot slowdown in the game, because the SNES CPU have to constantly be in communication with the SPC700 CPU while a sfx is playing, where it can lead to problems depending on how heavy your level is. SA-1 helps a bit but does not solve the problem.

But as a feature you can have unlimited sound effects (as long the .brrs fits into the ROM), high quality sound effects and you free up lot of space into the ARAM because you no longer need to insert sound effects nor its samples. So some songs like Izuna's Gusty Garden can be inserted into the ROM without losing any quality and still with better sound effects.

For whoever is interested in using or playing with it:

BIG DOWNLOAD LINK

That's all I have to show for now. So, what you thought about my experiments? Comment now!

Also if someone have a tool request to do, feel free to write here and who knows if I can make it a reality for the next C3? Haha!

---

GitHub - Twitter - YouTube - SnesLab Discord

Vitor Vilela, you're a fucking god!

---

Formerly known as nick 139
My YouTube channel

Hey, this is some fine piece of work you got here, if you don't mind, I will be porting the code to Super FX and using to improve the graphics driver I have already been making around these months I have working on the development kit.

As for the SM64 in SNES, who knows... Maybe someone is doing that...
Maybe this someone is me!

The funny thing is that SM64 was originally gonna be on the SNES and it was gonna be called Super Mario FX.

---

Formerly known as nick 139
My YouTube channel

Super Mario FX is the codename of the chip. The name of my project is just that, in order to pay homage this "hoax".

The 3D is some insane stuff right here. It's just the SA-1 handling the 3D and the SNES rendering it. Could this actually be utilized in gameplay? Or is it too much since the remap makes the SA-1 have to deal with sprites?

Also the SFX Streaming. This mean we can have our hacks fully voiced and whatnot! You mention that it has slowdown, but if we make the BRRs smaller in filesize, would that speed things up?

---

Hacks:

Sure, as long you credit me (and specially the code authors where I based this off, it's all on readme).



It can be, you can safely remove all sprite optimizations and SA-1 calls from SA-1 Pack, by just removing the includes from sa1.asm. The main problem is just optimizing the engine to handle bigger models (more polygons) and proper zoom/scrolling and as well interacting with them, because of obvious reasons the sprites and the player can't be 3D or the engine will just blow up of slowdown.



Making the BRRs smaller will just make the slowdown duration smaller. To avoid slowdown you will either: 1. disallow one of the banks have sample streaming, that is, avoid two samples streaming SFXs playing at same time; 2. make the SPC engine faster enough to attend SNES at any time without making it wait forever; or 3. Make the BRR sample rate slower. Currently it's 24 KHz, which is fairly good, but you can reduce to 16 KHz, 12 KHz, 8 KHz, 4 KHz, etc., but the lower the sample rate, the worser the sample quality will be. Consider that 8 KHz is literally you listening the game from a phone.

---

GitHub - Twitter - YouTube - SnesLab Discord

I have an idea for you can make and asm the title in the Super Mario World I find you should work on making it a multiplayer version that could be a good idea if you know

Ps. Is my advice to you

Edit almost forgot. Next thing is please I have 2 players for more than just two player in the multiplayer version forgot to give you that advice as well

That was 8 minutes of 3D. Long video, lol

Still, wouldn't even know where to start from if I were to reach something like this! The fact that a system as old as the SNES is still being "rediscovered" this way is pretty amazing

---

lol. Fixed, probably I ended up together with the .zip when I was doing some last edits on the ROM, because I remember removing it earlier. Oh well.

---

GitHub - Twitter - YouTube - SnesLab Discord

I kept messing values like a silly with that .ips you showed, that 3D thingy is really fancy. I hope you'll keep developing, who knows, we'll maybe get to a point where hacks using 3D objects could be a thing!

That's some pretty impressive work getting the SA-1 to draw polygons. Given how much you've been able to get out of the SA-1, I have to wonder what isn't possible to do on it. XD I don't think there is all that much potential for using it for 3D compared to, of course, the SuperFX, but it's still pretty cool to see the SA-1 do something like this.


As for the sample streaming, I've been wanting something like this for quite some time, so great work! I might attempt to use it for one of my hacks, though avoiding the slowdown and V-blank overflow may make it tricky to use. If you're planning on improving the sample streaming code, perhaps you could look at the coding of the SNES version of Earthworm Jim 2 to see how it did sample streaming since that game was able to manage it without slowdown and it doesn't use any enhancement chips. It's method of doing it doesn't work in ZSNES though, but that's not really an issue since ZSNES is no longer supported by SMWC.

---

My Hacks:
Mario's Strange Quest V1.6
Yoshi's Strange Quest V1.3 / V1.3.1 Beta 4.6
Mario & Yoshi's Strange Quests (7/8/2022 Build)

Other stuff:
My SMW/SMAS/SMAS+W disassembly
Yoshifanatic's Discord Server: A place for fans of my stuff and/or Yoshi to chat with others.

SA-1 GPS! (again)

Also, that stuff you're showing off blows my mind. I don't really have words... I never expected 3D to be possible without SuperFX (or that wireframe thing in MMX1/2). Good job on the sound streaming thing too, great to see it being released.

Wow, so, umm. . .3D graphics in the SMW engine. That is kinda insane, probably the first EVER 3D models i've seen done in SMW hacking, because honestly, I don't think it's been done anywhere else.

200 polys at 5 FPS however? That's kinda really sluggish. It might be able to handle more basic objects, like some of the 3D platforms in Yoshi's Island with a very likely chance of slowdown to 30FPS, though.

Also, have you tried pushing out higher resolutions with the more basic objects? (I.E: The cube objects, nothing like the Mario model) Like, just make small increments, like start with 160x120, then 160x144, then 208x176, ETC, until it crashes even trying to render the cube.


EDIT: Just found a SNES tech demo ("2.68 MHz Demo" - by Abandon) showcasing 3D objects being rendered by the SNES itself, no coprocessor, using the 2.68MHz clock speed, not even FastROM.
It even seems to be rendered at the SNES' default screen resolution - 256x224.
(I assume the screen resolution from comparing another emulator window open, running SMW with the same screen size as the other window, which is running the demo.)

2.68 MHz Demo by Abandon (Skips to the 3D objects part)

---

Sometimes, I like to hack SMW. This is rare though, but I always try something new.


-------------------------


~Developer for "Mario Enters the Void", an abandoned hack. The thread for the hack can be found Here ~

About the 3D stuff, DANG! Your asm knowledge level, it's over #$9000!! You have beaten the japanese hacker's asm power. (3D objects suddenly comes out of the screen)

This has to be the #1 asmmer. It HAS to be, because no one ever made a 3D in a smw game.

---

Give thanks to RPG hacker for working on Asar.