From: entity@nsq.uucp (cybernetworx)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: Euro hackers & Wing Commander Demo.
Summary: Wing Commader SUCKS on the amiga!
Date: 17 Aug 92 14:36:48 GMT
Organization: NSQ

In article <92228.234649K50CC@CUNYVM.BITNET>, K50CC@CUNYVM.BITNET writes:
> In article <273@nsq.uucp>, entity@nsq.uucp (cybernetworx) says:
> >writes:
> >raphics.  WHAT THE HELL DID THEY USE FOR CONVERTING THE GRAPHICS?!  I think
>
> Funny that you say this,since it's a fact that the grafx were MADE on the
> Amiga!You can check around!

You're right!  The original animations WERE designed on the amiga, but all teh
rest of the graphics were done on the PC.  I remember reading an interview
with the art team working on Wing Commader (actually, it was with the main
artist) and he was saying that the reason he did it on the amiga was that
there was nothing like Disney Animation Studio for the PC.  (that's what he
used.. I guess because of the onionskin feature)

Now what I meant by conversion is taking the 256 color actual game shots.. ie
cockpit, enemy ships etc.   Note in the demo that a lot of it looks fine even
in terms of graphics (the areas where the animation is happening) but as soon
as it gets to the actual game, it SUCKS!  They used some ridiculously LAME
convertor that dithered the whole damn thing.. there isn't a pure color in
sight!  I have nothing against dithering as a method of increasing color
palette -- as long as it's done properly.. by hand!  If they aren't going to
do it by hand, it would have looked infinitely better if they had simply used
AdPro or something to simply convert the images directly from 256 to 16 or
whatever colors they are using.

> As for Sierra,Origin,etc, If they need good code for the Amiga,send them MI2
> and tell them to study it for a while!PC clone games seem to be getting
> pretty sloppy in the coding lately.The speeds will bypass these slow sections`
> and there's no problem.Just look at how many bugs have shown up on the SALES
> version of Ultima 7!Sure hope that when we require '030s foir games that people
> will code as tightly as ever.(Then again,there are companies like Tiertex
> still hanging around...)

Yeah, All of the lucasfilm games have always been VERY well converted to the
amiga.  Graphics are always top notch, code is also very good in terms of
speed, and they never lose features during the conversion from PC to amiga. 
What's good is that they've written specific game engines which they can
modify and re-use between games.  Lucasfilm's good amiga conversions is the
reason that they sell so many copies of their games as opposed to lame-ass
companies like Sierra.
 
There's 2 reasons for PC clone software being sloppily written.  1) They write
almost everything in C these days..  I can understand this because if you've
ever done any assembler programming on the PC, you'll see much hell it is! (as
opposed to assembler on the 68000 etc).  OF course, this accounts for slower
code.. virtually all games on the amiga (fast ones anyhow) are written 100% in
assembler for speed.   Secondly, on the PC, they're more interested in just
pumping the games out for money and so they don't take the time to fully
optimize their code (even in C)  Since they're assured that the minimum base
system is a 386/33 w/ VGA,  they're not worried too much about writing good
code.   On the amiga, on the other hand our base system is a 512k or 1 meg
amiga with no HD. :-(   This imposes a lot of restrictions on game programmers
on the amiga.. which in a way is good because it forces us to write good code.
 If it runs fast on a 68000, then it sure as hell will run fast on a 68030 or
whatever.  On the PC, their mentality is like:  "well hell, sure 50% of the
market doesn't have a 386/33 with HD and extra RAM, *BUT* there are still 20
million people who do.. so let's make it work at a reasonable speed on this
system setup and just ignore the rest".   On the amiga you don't have that
luxury ;-(