5 ms·

I also remember 'mars.com', that I guess I found on some bbs, which was basically just the terrain renderer you could roam about in a very basic heightmap that

by scoopr 7y ago

I also remember 'mars.com', that I guess I found on some bbs, which was basically just the terrain renderer you could roam about in a very basic heightmap that was coloured to resemble mars. I think I saw that before comanche, and it was fast on fairly mediocre pc back then. I don't know if it is just me and the appeal to the stuff I grew up with, but I find the style of the visual artefacts a lot more appealing than in many more modern rendering techniques. Perhaps it is just the simplicity of it.

netgusto 7y ago
> I find the style of the visual artefacts a lot more appealing than in many more modern rendering techniques. Perhaps it is just the simplicity of it Looking at the visual artefacts in question, it appears that the big chunks of pixels (the ones closer to the POV) are not regularly aligned on screen, but rather disseminated around, which I guess improves the render quite a bit by giving it a somewhat "fuzzier", more organic look. Maybe this irregularity is a side effect of the algorithm itself, and not something done on purpose?
magoghm 7y ago
After seeing 'mars.com' I decided to write write a game using that terrain algorithm. I never finished the game, but here is a video of one of my tests: https://www.facebook.com/magoghm/videos/10153819968108735/UzpfSTY3NzQ3ODczNDpWSzoxMDE1MzgxOTk2ODEwODczNQ/ https://www.facebook.com/magoghm/videos/10153819968108735/Uz...
- marcusjt 7y ago
  I get "The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed." - likely you've not made the content "public"
  - magoghm 7y ago
    I don't know why you get that message. The content is set to 'public'. I just tested it on another computer, without login into Facebook, and it worked fine.
    - squarefoot 7y ago
      I can confirm it works here. Very low resolution, but watchable.
marcusjt 7y ago
Here's a video of it in action, for those unfamiliar, the poster had also included a link to its location at Pouet https://youtu.be/_zSjpIyMt0k https://youtu.be/_zSjpIyMt0k
JackRabbitSlim 7y ago
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=4662 http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=4662
s-macke 7y ago
mars.exe has only a size of 5.6kB. When you disassemble the code you realize that most of the code consists of just massive loop unrolling. It would have fitted in 2kB easily.
spitfire 7y ago
For anyone wondering what he means by /fast/. mars.com ran at 30+ fps on a 12MHZ 286 with a slow VGA video card. I still remember being impressed by how smooth it was. It was fast fast fast.

by scoopr 7y ago

netgusto 7y ago

> I find the style of the visual artefacts a lot more appealing than in many more modern rendering techniques. Perhaps it is just the simplicity of it Looking at the visual artefacts in question, it appears that the big chunks of pixels (the ones closer to the POV) are not regularly aligned on screen, but rather disseminated around, which I guess improves the render quite a bit by giving it a somewhat "fuzzier", more organic look. Maybe this irregularity is a side effect of the algorithm itself, and not something done on purpose?

magoghm 7y ago

After seeing 'mars.com' I decided to write write a game using that terrain algorithm. I never finished the game, but here is a video of one of my tests: https://www.facebook.com/magoghm/videos/10153819968108735/UzpfSTY3NzQ3ODczNDpWSzoxMDE1MzgxOTk2ODEwODczNQ/ https://www.facebook.com/magoghm/videos/10153819968108735/Uz...

marcusjt 7y ago
I get "The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed." - likely you've not made the content "public"
- magoghm 7y ago
  I don't know why you get that message. The content is set to 'public'. I just tested it on another computer, without login into Facebook, and it worked fine.
  - squarefoot 7y ago
    I can confirm it works here. Very low resolution, but watchable.

marcusjt 7y ago

Here's a video of it in action, for those unfamiliar, the poster had also included a link to its location at Pouet https://youtu.be/_zSjpIyMt0k https://youtu.be/_zSjpIyMt0k

JackRabbitSlim 7y ago

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=4662 http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=4662

s-macke 7y ago

mars.exe has only a size of 5.6kB. When you disassemble the code you realize that most of the code consists of just massive loop unrolling. It would have fitted in 2kB easily.

spitfire 7y ago

For anyone wondering what he means by /fast/. mars.com ran at 30+ fps on a 12MHZ 286 with a slow VGA video card. I still remember being impressed by how smooth it was. It was fast fast fast.