Bit Blot Forum

Aquaria => General => Topic started by: Alec on January 26, 2008, 11:51:34 pm

Title: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 26, 2008, 11:51:34 pm
This is with frame buffer on.
(the stuff needed to support ripples and water surface reflections)


wide:
(http://bit-blot.com/scrap/aquaria-widebars-0001.png)
(is too squashed)

regular:
(http://bit-blot.com/scrap/aquaria-widebars-0001b.png)

wide:
(Menus/overlays work okay, because they're not on the frame buffer)
(http://bit-blot.com/scrap/aquaria-widebars-0003.png)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 27, 2008, 12:05:37 am
With framebuffer off however, I managed to get stuff to look mostly right:

Here's some shots without black bars.


(http://bit-blot.com/scrap/aquaria-wide-0003.png)


Here are some of the problems that would have to be fixed:

(http://bit-blot.com/scrap/aquaria-wide-0002.png)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 27, 2008, 12:08:35 am
So: what I could do is try to fix those problems, and then force the game to disable frame buffer effects if a non-4:3 resolution is detected.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: PiscesToAquaria on January 27, 2008, 12:10:39 am
Well, the WXGA (16:10)  squash should be (20/15) / (24/15) = 20/24 = 5/6.
The HDTV (16:9) squash should be greater, (12/9) / (16/9) = 12/16 = 3/4.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 27, 2008, 12:12:05 am
The aspect ratio is right. (as you can see in the second post (http://www.bit-blot.com/forum/index.php?topic=916.msg9914#msg9914))

Those were taken at 1680x1050. The game calcs the ratio fine.

The frame buffer messes it up, because its acting as if the input its getting is 4:3.

Plus the frame buffer quad itself gets changed by the aspect ratio.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 27, 2008, 12:22:12 am
Fixed the bg gradient:

(http://bit-blot.com/scrap/aquaria-wide-0004.png)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Gnerma on January 27, 2008, 12:58:15 am
Looking good Alec. What about the static full screen art that the game sometimes displays? Just pillar box it and call it good?
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 27, 2008, 03:00:32 am
Looking good Alec. What about the static full screen art that the game sometimes displays? Just pillar box it and call it good?

Yeah, title and probably some cut scenes would get the black edges treatment. I doubt that Derek's interested in redoing those.  ::)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 27, 2008, 09:23:33 am
Fixed blackout and minimap...

(http://bit-blot.com/scrap/aquaria-wide-0005.png)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 27, 2008, 09:57:57 am
Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot

(got frame buffer effects to work)

(http://bit-blot.com/scrap/aquaria-wide-0006.png)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 27, 2008, 10:04:37 am
Here's a big-ass screen to celebrate (click image for full size)

(http://bit-blot.com/scrap/aquaria-wide-0007.png) (http://bit-blot.com/scrap/aquaria-wide-0007-big.png)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 27, 2008, 10:18:55 am
lol:

(http://bit-blot.com/scrap/aquaria-wide-0008.png)

(1680 x 300)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Gnerma on January 27, 2008, 11:02:06 am
Not a bad result for a day's work. It seems you've underestimated your own coding ability and/or the flexibility of your previous code.

So ummm.... are you looking for testers ;)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alphasoldier on January 27, 2008, 11:51:49 am
Like I said before on the IRC, That is AWESOME.

I wish I had alot of screens next to eachother now. =[
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: borderking on January 27, 2008, 03:27:19 pm
Wait, what does this mean?  Does this mean a widescreen version of Aquaria is not too far off?

Really?
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Zam on January 27, 2008, 06:54:49 pm
Hahahahah!

Excellent!
So when it comes out for mac, my 1680x1050 will look O-so sexy..
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 27, 2008, 08:45:03 pm
You'll need a pretty powerful machine. With my last gen mac book pro, (ATI X1600) I can run 1680x1050 generally alright with framebuffer effects off. When there's a lot of alpha blending going on (like big particles covering large portions of the screen) I get some chugging.

With frame buffer effects on at that res, things get slooow. :]
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: durrem on January 27, 2008, 10:38:49 pm
This is good news.   Widescreen support would be a requirement to getting the game on PSN or Xbox :)  (16:9 in particular)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: ryos on January 28, 2008, 12:07:33 am
Hmm...I have a current-gen MBP (Nvidia 8600M GT), so...not much hope for native rez. ;)

For me, the important thing is not necessarily running at native resolution, but *no stretching*. So, this is fantastic news either way. Great work!
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 28, 2008, 12:10:36 am
Hmm...I have a current-gen MBP (Nvidia 8600M GT), so...not much hope for native rez. ;)

Well, that should be better than mine, right? And what is your native res?
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: ryos on January 28, 2008, 01:51:31 am
Hmm...I have a current-gen MBP (Nvidia 8600M GT), so...not much hope for native rez. ;)

Well, that should be better than mine, right? And what is your native res?

Native on the lappy is 1440x900, but I also have a 20" LCD plugged in most of the time that I use as my primary display, and it runs at 1680x1050.

I've played a bit of the demo under Boot Camp, and with the framebuffer effects on the game slowed down quite a bit in places. This wasn't at native rez--I don't remember what I set it to, honestly. :|
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 29, 2008, 09:55:50 am
working on a new config screen

enumerates resolutions

(http://www.bit-blot.com/scrap/aqconfig-new-0002.png)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: PiscesToAquaria on January 29, 2008, 02:01:32 pm
Oh, so you went ahead and it full screen.  That was quick!  I thought you would have more problems with the radical shape change.  I guess since the game display scales in and out, you can keep the sides from extending out too far fairly easily in all cases.

I assume you'll be supporting both 16:10 and 16:9.  I actually use a small HDTV as a monitor (16:9).  1366x768 native res on the panel, with 1360x768 PC resolution (multiples of 8, drops 3 pixels on each side).  These are becoming fairly common, and they all seem to support "VGA" input anymore.  This is also one resolution a lot of Xbox 360 owners clamored for, in order to get native res on their HDTVs through the 360's VGA cable.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 29, 2008, 02:26:39 pm
Derek's going to edit the maps to fix the edges.

16:9 and 16:10 should work. Right now 1.25:1 is broken.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: PiscesToAquaria on January 29, 2008, 02:36:10 pm
Good God, man.  When do you sleep?  :)

5:4 is broken (like 1280x1024)?  I wouldn't think going the other way would present problems.  That's odd.  Eh, who cares about 5:4?   ;D

Wonderful work.  Thanks!
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 29, 2008, 02:44:56 pm
Eh well its shrinking stuff and I guess it doesn't know how to handle it properly for all cases yet. I'll look into it at some point. :P
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Lim-Dul on January 29, 2008, 03:45:48 pm
Well - 5:4 is actually the only thing I care about - just like most LCD users with non-widescreen monitors. =)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Drift on January 30, 2008, 12:21:59 pm
this is awsome! I assume you've tried to make aquaria scale to any res more then fix widescreen specifically? Cause you do have that insanely wide pic on the first page :P

I really wanna try this, got myself a HD3870, so I'm hoping to run it at 1680*1050 without lag :)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: shinygerbil on January 30, 2008, 12:28:15 pm
Score one more for 1.25:1 here.

o/\o
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: IceD on January 30, 2008, 09:13:28 pm
I think so  ;D

Great job Alec! This looks fantastic and in moments like those I wish I'd had a wide-screen HD supporting lcd monitor  :D (got a card that supports the Pure video HD, but don't have a monitor and waits for dx10 for xp, dangit >O).
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: GrimDanfango on January 31, 2008, 03:37:45 pm
There seems to be a general feeling that the higher resolutions are going to be horrendously laggy with frame-buffer effect.
Thought I'd just relate my experience - I'm running at 1600x1200 on a (decidedly last-gen) x1900xtx... and it flies along with all the effects on.  110% perfectly smooth.
Looking forward to getting the full 1920x1200 up on my widescreen :-)

Fantastic game by the way... between you guys and Moonpod, the soul of PC gaming might just be saved :-P
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on January 31, 2008, 05:36:16 pm
Fantastic game by the way... between you guys and Moonpod, the soul of PC gaming might just be saved :-P

:-*

Fixed some cursor problems for > 4:3 resolutions. (16:10, 16:9)


For < 4:3 (i.e. 5:4), new solution = expand vertically, then add black boxes. Works great, even for 1:1 resolutions...

(http://bit-blot.com/scrap/aquaria-54fix.png)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Hiro on January 31, 2008, 10:39:14 pm
Man, that looks so cool. (and that insane pic on the front page made me lol!)

When can we expect to be able to play with that?
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alphasoldier on January 31, 2008, 11:02:56 pm
Progress is going fast, is this also being published with the update that comes out with the Mac version we get in a few months, or you think this will be out sooner?
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on February 01, 2008, 01:46:24 am
I think the best bet is to make a bunch of changes now, get them tested with the mac beta testers, and then release the 1.1.0 patch and the mac version around the same time.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Hiro on February 01, 2008, 01:31:09 pm
Mmk, sounds like a good plan. A few months then? Thats decent. I'll schedual my replay of the game for then...in full widescreen glory. ;D
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Tahnit on February 02, 2008, 08:07:18 pm
WOOT!.

This is what ive been waiting for. As soon as that patch comes out you'll have my 30$. :)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Hiro on February 02, 2008, 11:10:48 pm
I just had a thought, what if someone was to play fullscreen with a really high aspect ratio, wouldn't it be possible to show the whole map and exploit or something?
Although I assume you've already thought of that and put something in to stop it...
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on February 02, 2008, 11:49:35 pm
I think we're going to have the max ratio be 16:9, and the min ratio 1:1.

Things tend to break down at stuff beyond that point anyways.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Tahnit on February 03, 2008, 02:58:31 am
Why 16:9? Most widescreen monitors are 16:10. Oh well ill just run with the bars i guess. Still widescreen is better :)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Gnerma on February 03, 2008, 03:10:49 am
16:9 is "higher" than 16:10 in the way Alec phrased that sentence. Think of it like this, 16:9 is as wide or rectangular as will be allowed and 1:1 is as narrow or square as will be allowed. This is only a bummer to dual display or triple head to go users because they use super wide resolutions. For the other 99.99% of the world, 4:3, 5:4, 16:10 and 16:9 are the only ratios that matter and they will all be supported.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Hiro on February 03, 2008, 03:57:38 am
Ah, good idea.  O0
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: PiscesToAquaria on February 04, 2008, 07:29:22 pm
Yes, 16:9 is wider than 16:10, so they're both covered.  The reason to support both is that an increasing number of people (myself included) are using an LCD HDTV as a PC monitor.  The VGA input is becoming standard on these, with native resolutions ranging from 1280x720 to 1920x1080.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Molbork on February 07, 2008, 08:51:07 am
I've been visiting these forums waiting for this widescreen patch to hit,  so I could buy this game. 

I see the options screen with different resolutions and sometimes a single drop down box for the ratios of 1:1 to 16:9 can be quite confusing.  Valve uses 2 drop down boxes one for which ratio your monitor is(default 4:3) and than another for that ratio's supported resolutions.

Thanks for the hard work can't wait to play! I've been itching for 2 months thankfully this gaming season has filled this void.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: DSProgrammer on February 08, 2008, 09:24:21 am
You should get the game now anyways :)  I played the entire game on my widescreen TV, at 1366x768 (you can edit a file to get any resolution you want).  Yeah, it was stretched a bit, but it still looked amazing.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: PiscesToAquaria on February 09, 2008, 05:31:57 pm
You should get the game now anyways :)  I played the entire game on my widescreen TV, at 1366x768 (you can edit a file to get any resolution you want).  Yeah, it was stretched a bit, but it still looked amazing.

My native res is the same, but I used 4:3 mode, which in effect makes the PC display 1024x768 native.  I absolutely hate horizontal stretching.  It has become ubiquitous in widescreen-TV viewing habits.  You can't go anywhere without seeing stretched scenes and faces, and some TV stations have started to broadcast 4:3 content stretched out into HD, so that the TV owner doesn't even have the option to view the correct aspect ratio.  This mass stupidity has hyper-sensitized me to aspect anomalies.  I do not tolerate them. [/rant]
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Cliftor on February 09, 2008, 08:43:46 pm
Well, it may sound arbitrary, selfish, and maybe even a little bit silly, but I'm gonna wait to buy until the widescreen patch comes out.  It's just that this game is so visually stunning I'm compelled to play the whole thing that way.  This game looks really fun.

Speaking of which, where should I go if I want to ask curiosity questions about the technology behind this game?  I'm especially interested in the graphics.

Oh, btw, hi everyone.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alphasoldier on February 09, 2008, 10:28:23 pm
What do you want to know about the graphics?

So far as I know Derek has done all the graphics, no clue how he did it, propably a tablet or just paper and scanner.

Further this game uses VSync which makes it look better and the rest are just pictures on multiple layers in the game.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: ryos on February 10, 2008, 03:03:53 am
You should get the game now anyways :)  I played the entire game on my widescreen TV, at 1366x768 (you can edit a file to get any resolution you want).  Yeah, it was stretched a bit, but it still looked amazing.

My native res is the same, but I used 4:3 mode, which in effect makes the PC display 1024x768 native.  I absolutely hate horizontal stretching.  It has become ubiquitous in widescreen-TV viewing habits.  You can't go anywhere without seeing stretched scenes and faces, and some TV stations have started to broadcast 4:3 content stretched out into HD, so that the TV owner doesn't even have the option to view the correct aspect ratio.  This mass stupidity has hyper-sensitized me to aspect anomalies.  I do not tolerate them. [/rant]

100 times agreed. It always bothers me when games don't have the option to render in widescreen, or even pillarboxing at the very least. I typically don't buy such games; I can't play the game with the stretching getting in the way.

("How hard could it be to draw in a differently-sized rectangle?" I tell myself. It must be harder than it looks or more game developers would do it...no, actually, I just don't see it. Apathy is the only explanation that makes sense. For instance, whenever I suggest to my family that we switch the TV away from horrid stretchovision, they just look at me like I'm crazy and ask, "How can you tell it's stretched?"

Are you kidding me? But, I suppose, if you don't even notice when video is horizontally stretched, you won't place a high priority on writing your game engine to render flexibly.)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on February 10, 2008, 03:21:25 am
("How hard could it be to draw in a differently-sized rectangle?" I tell myself. It must be harder than it looks or more game developers would do it...no, actually, I just don't see it. Apathy is the only explanation that makes sense. For instance, whenever I suggest to my family that we switch the TV away from horrid stretchovision, they just look at me like I'm crazy and ask, "How can you tell it's stretched?"

Are you kidding me? But, I suppose, if you don't even notice when video is horizontally stretched, you won't place a high priority on writing your game engine to render flexibly.)

In my case, my video card / LCD aren't crap; so I can actually play the game as centered 4:3. So it never seemed like a big deal to me.

While widescreen now works visually, it still messes with the game design in ways that have yet to be fixed.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on February 10, 2008, 03:22:46 am
Speaking of which, where should I go if I want to ask curiosity questions about the technology behind this game?  I'm especially interested in the graphics.

OpenGL is used to employ 3D acceleration for 2D graphics.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: ryos on February 10, 2008, 03:44:27 am
In my case, my video card / LCD aren't crap; so I can actually play the game as centered 4:3. So it never seemed like a big deal to me.

While widescreen now works visually, it still messes with the game design in ways that have yet to be fixed.

Hmm...tell me more about this "not crap" video card and LCD. My interest is piqued.

See, some games don't let you select non-stretched resolutions. I would happily play any game in centered 4:3, if it would let me. In such cases, the only recourse is to play in a window. I never thought to blame my video card/LCD for this; the system will let me select these resolutions, and my video card and LCD render them just fine, so what's stopping games from using them?
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on February 10, 2008, 03:56:36 am
Actually, the game didn't let you select widescreen resolutions, for the reason that resolutions other than 4:3 were not yet supported. (and that is also made clear on the config app)

They are supported now (http://www.bit-blot.com/forum/index.php?topic=916.msg9973#msg9973), but the patch hasn't been released yet.

Depending on your video card and LCD monitor combination, you can set an option in your video card settings to preserve the 4:3 resolution in full screen. (by adding black boxes on the side)

e.g. my Mac Book Pro running boot camp can do this. I've used other computers that also can do this, although I forget the exact specs.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on February 10, 2008, 04:01:08 am
I managed to obtain a rare photograph of this setting in its natural habitat:


(http://www.bit-blot.com/scrap/ati_settings.png)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Molbork on February 10, 2008, 04:39:26 am
well what do you know, like the people that followed me above horizontal stretch-o-vision disturbs me.  I have no problems with black bars since I've been watching widescreen movies on my old TV for long enough. 

hmmm, I must find and test this on my nvidia card! and at the same time slowly reach towards my credit card! bbl
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on February 10, 2008, 04:48:04 am
well what do you know, like the people that followed me above horizontal stretch-o-vision disturbs me.  I have no problems with black bars since I've been watching widescreen movies on my old TV for long enough. 

hmmm, I must find and test this on my nvidia card! and at the same time slowly reach towards my credit card! bbl

FYI, if centering doesn't work, proper widescreen support is on the way.

Visually it works now, but I have to fix a few game play things.

(mouse controls were based on the center of the screen, so if the screen now locks further out, naija won't be centered and things will get confusing for the player. also have to add built-in black bars to certain cut scenes that were only built to support 4:3. also have to do a full play-through to check for any unexpected weirdness.)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Hiro on February 10, 2008, 05:05:21 am
Ehhh....if you play games in stretched at first, then you wont notice that it is stretched since you wont know what it's supposed to look like.
I just played it windowed, no biggie anyway. I'm looking forward to the widescreen, but its not a game killer.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: inkblob on February 10, 2008, 05:43:36 am
were the levels and layouts designed for a certain screen width? what I'm meaning is if you are in an area and see something far off in the distance due to having a super widescreen, will that in any way skew the intended story line? there were a few areas where I had to middle click to see and you got a tantalizing look at a treasure or an obstacle that you couldn't get to at that current point ( energy temple Krotite armor corridor and Mithalis stuffy come to mind right away )   I have a mammoth 21" CRT ( by choice, for real, don't care much for flatscreens ) so it dosn't make that much difference to me unless I got another monitor for dual purposes. mostly curious if this impacts the overall game design?
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on February 10, 2008, 07:42:09 am
were the levels and layouts designed for a certain screen width? what I'm meaning is if you are in an area and see something far off in the distance due to having a super widescreen, will that in any way skew the intended story line?
mostly curious if this impacts the overall game design?

This'll probably affect the way the level design is perceived, yeah. I'm not sure to what extent yet... I have to replay the whole game and see.

I could also try limiting the "look" function on the x-axis when in widescreen to try to compensate, if it becomes a problem.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: ryos on February 10, 2008, 10:49:27 pm
I guess I should have clarified from the beginning that I'm a Mac user, waiting for the Mac version of Aquaria. I tried the demo in Boot Camp, but didn't play very far for fear of getting hooked and just buying the Windows version (besides the plus of not having to boot into Windows, I want to support Mac native game development wherever it happens).

Here's a fine specimen of an options dialog, captured in far-away Maclandia:
(http://bestblinds4u.com/ryansjunk/rezzes.png)

(you've probably already seen it; don't you have a summer house in Maclandia or something?) The resolutions that don't have (stretched) next to them appear in centered 4:3 mode. BUT...many games on the Mac have a predefined subset of resolutions they allow, and they often don't include the non-stretched versions.

Ideally, all games that don't support rendering to anything but 4:3 would include the ability to pillarbox the output. Ahh, dreams of an ideal world...

I've only just started to get into Windows gaming, so I don't really know what the situation there is like. Are you telling me that I can set an option in my video card driver utility and all games will respect it? Interesting...
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Hiro on February 11, 2008, 04:16:05 am
Yeah, apparently some video cards let you specify that all resolutions are drawn without streatching. My doesn't have it (I looked).
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Gnerma on February 11, 2008, 06:31:49 am
First of all many "nice" LCD displays have the option in their internal setup to pillar or letter box non native aspect ratio signals. My BenQ 241W has such an option. Of course, many "nice" LCD displays do not have this. This is something you should really consider when buying a display. I know I wouldn't buy one without this functionality. You can never trust a source to be able to do it's own pillar/letter boxing.

If you have a Nvidia video card and are using recent drivers you can go to Nvidia control panel -> Display -> Change flat panel scaling -> and select "Use Nvidia scaling with fixed aspect ratio". This may not be available if your card is x number of generations old, I don't know. It also may not be available in OSX. I'm not aware if ATi has anything similar in their recent drivers.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: PiscesToAquaria on February 11, 2008, 07:31:44 pm
In my case, my video card / LCD aren't crap; so I can actually play the game as centered 4:3. So it never seemed like a big deal to me.

While widescreen now works visually, it still messes with the game design in ways that have yet to be fixed.

That's what I was afraid of, and is why I suggested early on that you handle widescreen resolutions by centering the 4:3 display, with black or Aquaria art on the sides.  OpenGL sort of forced your hand the other way, didn't it?  It's probably just as well, since the perception anymore is that widescreen is better.  You're probably going to need to play with scaling to get the best compromise at different aspects.

Your first sentence I could have written myself verbatim.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on February 11, 2008, 07:44:01 pm
We could easily add bars on the side all the time. (we already have bars that are toggled on in widescreen for certain cutscenes that weren't built for 16:9)

But yeah, I've fixed a number of oddities since then. One was a mouse input problem near the edges of the screen, I came up with a good solution for that.

I'll fix stuff as I play through.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Wonko on February 12, 2008, 03:55:22 am
If you have a Nvidia video card and are using recent drivers you can go to Nvidia control panel -> Display -> Change flat panel scaling -> and select "Use Nvidia scaling with fixed aspect ratio". This may not be available if your card is x number of generations old, I don't know. It also may not be available in OSX. I'm not aware if ATi has anything similar in their recent drivers.

No such option here on my Nvidia Control Panel (with advanced options), using the latest drivers for my 8600GT on Windows XP. :(
Could it be because of my crappy monitor doesn't have a DVI input, only VGA? (Samsung SyncMaster 740nw)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: grandchampion on February 12, 2008, 09:50:30 am
So glad to hear you are addressing this issue Alec! 

I'm sure many widescreen users would be happy to play in 1280x800 if they have an older video card.  I was playing in 1024x768 on my 24" 1920x1200 monitor because anything higher has graphical glitches.  The lower quater of the screen flickers black and I think the background is offset also .  This is on a GeForce 8800GTS.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Gnerma on February 12, 2008, 11:38:21 pm
No such option here on my Nvidia Control Panel (with advanced options), using the latest drivers for my 8600GT on Windows XP. :(
Could it be because of my crappy monitor doesn't have a DVI input, only VGA? (Samsung SyncMaster 740nw)

It could be a lot of things, the OS, the GPU, the interface. I'm using Vista, DVI-D & a 8800 GT and it's available. I'll look into this further and post back with info on just where it's available and where it isn't.

EDIT: You were right. This requires a digital interface (DVI/HDMI).
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Cliftor on February 14, 2008, 05:34:06 am
What do you want to know about the graphics?

OpenGL is used to employ 3D acceleration for 2D graphics.

Sorry I was gone so long.  Actually what I meant was something a little more general.  It's about traditional raster graphics vs 2D vector graphics.  At gamefaqs we sometimes argue about the future of 2D gaming.  The common complaint I hear is that traditional hand-drawn raster sprites and backgrounds are too time consuming to make for HD resolutions and with enough frames of animation to look smooth and enough level of detail to be appealing.

Some argue that 2D vector graphics is a solution to the smoothness issue, and I say so too half-heartedly, but afaik you can't get the same level of detail in your objects.  The best compromise I could think of was Viewtiful Joe's approach: Make it 2.5D, then apply intelligent filters (like celshading) to make it look hand drawn.

So, what I was wondering was, from that point of view, how is Aquaria done?  What are the basic objects, and how did you decide how to balance the time/detail aspects and the system resources aspect (I'm not certain celshading is the most system efficient way to achieve that look)?  Because I was awed by how smooth Naija's movement is and how clean the rotations are.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Hiro on February 15, 2008, 04:25:24 am
Hmm, all I know in that regard is that all the parts of Naija are 'bones'. And each bone has its own sprite and pivot points and stuff. 'Bones' are attached to eachother by pivot points like in your body. Or something like that. Does that help?
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alphasoldier on February 15, 2008, 08:07:42 am
Hiro's kind of right... Naija has "bones" the multiple part of her body and she uses simple animations that moves and rotates the parts of her body, not only pivoting from one certain point, which makes things VERY smooth.

This game's graphics is not near Viewtiful Joe, it's really purely 2d.

And I can't really answer the balance question cause I don't know. I do know that Alec did the scripting and Derek did the Drawing, but how far that is mixed, is also something I don't know.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on February 15, 2008, 04:51:28 pm
The animation system is 2d skeletal. But it also has some additional options, like being able to deform parts. (Naija's body section has a subtle breathing deformation animation on it)

I'd say I did about 90% of the animations for the game. Brandon and Derek also animated and scripted some creatures later on.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Cliftor on February 16, 2008, 03:12:36 am
Oh I know they're not 2.5 celshaded (I played the demo and it's beautiful), but I was just using that as an example as a possible future of HD 2D gaming.

So the sprites are all hand-drawn raster?
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on February 16, 2008, 06:16:25 pm
Yeah, its like a bunch of sprites. There aren't any vector-based graphics.

(there are things are texture mapped to 2D meshes for deformation purposes, etc)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Hiro on February 26, 2008, 04:52:05 am
Any news on the widescreen front? Or the new patch?  ^-^
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Cebidae on March 02, 2008, 11:11:26 pm
Hi I'm new! :)

Loved the demo. Really, it was fantastic!

You can have my $30........ as soon as its widescreen compatible! I want to enjoy the beautiful visuals with all my screen. :)

Don't suppose you could put a date on the update? Is it a matter of days, or weeks? 
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alphasoldier on March 03, 2008, 07:46:57 am
I don't think they want to set a date, purely because they don't want to be stressed or that they want to dissappoint you when it doesn't come out on thatdate. As afar as I've heard, it's nearing with a month but I could be totally wrong.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on March 03, 2008, 03:17:09 pm
The widescreen changes are going to be released with a bunch of other tweaks and fixes as version "1.1.0". This will also be the same version # as the Mac release. So we won't release the patch until after the Mac version is done and out.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Hiro on March 04, 2008, 04:41:41 am
Um, ok. In that case, I'm looking forward to the Mac release almost as much as a Mac user would. ^-^
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: ryos on March 04, 2008, 04:45:16 am
...and, Ambrosia has announced that Aquaria/Mac will be released in the "first quarter" of this year. I think they actually meant the second quarter, which any sane person would call the first, but anyway, it ends on March 31. Unless the date has slipped, that places the widescreen patch no more than a month out.

I'm excited!  8)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Glamador on March 04, 2008, 05:32:30 am
wouldn't the quarters be 1/4 of the year?  Isn't the end of march nearly 4 months?  Making it 1/3 of the year?  Of course that's assuming it began in January.  Soooo...not so insane after all is it?
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: ryos on March 04, 2008, 07:28:08 am
wouldn't the quarters be 1/4 of the year?  Isn't the end of march nearly 4 months?  Making it 1/3 of the year?  Of course that's assuming it began in January.  Soooo...not so insane after all is it?

March is the third month of the year. At the end of March, three months of 2008 will have elapsed, or a quarter of a year.

Fiscal years are pretty weird IMO, but then, most concepts in finance are mysterious and hard to grasp. Q1 2008 isn't even in 2008. It starts 10/1/2007 and ends 12/31/2007. Q2 2008 is 1/1/2008 to 3/31/2008. Wiki link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_Year).

So, when Ambrosia announced that Aquaria/Mac would be released in Q1 2008, they were saying it would be released by December 31 in 2007. I don't think that's what they actually meant, hence my aside. I suppose they could have been speaking in regular quarters and not financial quarters, but the "Q#" notation typically denotes fiscal quarters rather than sane ones.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on March 04, 2008, 07:42:22 am
The reality is that it'll be out when its done. :)

There's still a lot of annoying picky details to deal with.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: ryos on March 04, 2008, 08:08:37 am
...which is why Ambrosia doesn't traditionally announce release dates for their products. ;) I was frankly a little surprised when they did for Aquaria.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on March 04, 2008, 08:15:18 am
...which is why Ambrosia doesn't traditionally announce release dates for their products. ;) I was frankly a little surprised when they did for Aquaria.

Well, they've been trying to change things up. Like their image and approach, I think.

i.e. How they changed their logo. (now its practically invisible)

But yeah, they have high standards and it'll take time to meet all of them.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Gnerma on March 06, 2008, 12:45:57 am
AMD/ATi have added in driver fixed aspect ratio scaling in the 8.3 catalysts they released today. The same rule applies though, you need a digital interface to your display.

Quote
Digital Panel GPU image scaling

This release of Catalyst™ introduces a new setting that allows users to enable GPU accelerated scaling for Wide aspect LCD displays. The new setting Maintain aspect ratio improves the display resolution image quality when scaling is enable by maintaining the wide panel aspect ratio (stops the image from looking distorted)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Hiro on March 06, 2008, 04:26:47 am
Um, cool. I'll have a look but I don't think I'm using a digital interface...

And still, a native widescreen would be cooler.  ^-^ Keep at it Alec (And Derek, if you have anything to do with making the widescreen).
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Gnerma on March 07, 2008, 04:27:05 am
Yeah, I'm just following up on something I wasn't too clear on earlier in the thread. I'm eagerly awaiting the widescreen patch as well.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: dg10050 on March 09, 2008, 03:41:48 pm
Well, I just stumbled across this thread after being absent from the forum for a while. This is awesome news. This'll definitely be worth a replay of the game.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Aërendyll on March 11, 2008, 10:33:08 am
I'm definitely looking forward to this, so I can play this game on the laptop I'm going to buy next year. Laptops are all widescreen in here and that laptop'll be more powerful than the computer on which I play Aquaria right now, so I'd love to get a fullscreen version. :)

Be honest: this game needs to be played fullscreen.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: iisdev on March 12, 2008, 05:01:51 am
Somehow I totally overlooked this thread in my weekly check-to-see-if-the-patch-is-out visits. Apparently I missed all of the great progress and screenshots! I just wanted to say thank you Alec for continuing to work on it. :)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Xilon on March 17, 2008, 11:34:28 am
Awesome, I was wondering when this widescreen issue would be fixed, looks like it's almost (already?) there!
Speaking of the Mac version, wouldn't the Linux port also be ready? The platform is very, very similar. I doubt any changes would be required.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: ancestral on March 18, 2008, 08:20:16 am
Awesome, I was wondering when this widescreen issue would be fixed, looks like it's almost (already?) there!
Speaking of the Mac version, wouldn't the Linux port also be ready? The platform is very, very similar. I doubt any changes would be required.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Oh, I wish that was the case — other than they are both UNIX and some of the code can be recycled, I'm pretty confident the platforms really are not all that similar with all the different technologies Bit-Blot has to leverage to get this out the door. My guess is, between the two, the graphics and sound are going to be very dissimilar.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on March 18, 2008, 08:50:35 am
We used FMOD (audio library) specifically because it also supports Linux. So we wouldn't have to do any extra work for sound. (beyond buying another license)

We also used OpenGL (graphics library) which is supported across all 3 platforms.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=iTRJVhrvwLg (http://youtube.com/watch?v=iTRJVhrvwLg)
(old video of aquaria running native in ubuntu)

I also already rewrote a lot of the code to deal with case sensitivity.

The main thing involved in a Linux port would be that I'd want to get a Linux box and then do some in-depth testing. After that, we'd need to do some more widespread testing.

This would be after the Mac version is done and provided we have enough time/energy to spend.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: beemer on March 19, 2008, 02:53:33 am
I'll help test now :)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alec on March 19, 2008, 02:54:12 am
I'll help test now :)

Need to finish 1.1.0 first.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Bloup on February 04, 2009, 05:50:21 pm
Would you care for a gold medal ? ;)
>Aquaria gets WSGF certification (http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=151800)<
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Chibi on February 04, 2009, 05:54:30 pm
This is the type of resurrection I actually like in a forum - relevant additions to a major topic.  :)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: silverflagon on February 04, 2009, 08:08:09 pm
Damn after seeing those screenshots I have decided that widescreen is definitely top of my want list that looks fantastic. Congratulations Alec and Derek  :D
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alphasoldier on February 05, 2009, 01:14:20 am
Pure awesomeness, but of course, it already was before it got the gold medal. ^^

Though those screens make me awe in awesomeness. I don't make sense now.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Titch on February 08, 2009, 04:46:09 pm
Those  (15:4) ratio screens are insane. I want to play where I can see two screen lengths all the time XD.
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: silverflagon on February 09, 2009, 12:02:17 am
Yes it would sure stop the enemies creeping up on you unawares lol
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Alphasoldier on February 09, 2009, 02:17:29 am
Maybe from the sides, but not from the top and bottom. XD
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Chibi on February 09, 2009, 06:41:38 am
It would be like a set of blinkers then - especially troublesome in the Gauntlet.  :o  :)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: silverflagon on February 09, 2009, 06:23:40 pm
I think I could cope looking up or down and leave the side to my peripheral vision loll
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: Chibi on February 10, 2009, 07:22:41 am
A blurry shape looms out of the darkness ... it's only a rock. Relieved, Naija continues on, not realizing that the rock had a set of eyes. Dun dun dunnnn.  ;) Adding a blurry effect at the edges would be a neat idea for Hiro's second mod ... though don't continue this line of thought (it would throw the thread way off topic).  :)
Title: Re: The Widescreen Thread
Post by: silverflagon on February 10, 2009, 05:48:38 pm
A blurry shape looms out of the darkness ... it's only a rock. Relieved, Naija continues on, not realizing that the rock had a set of eyes. Dun dun dunnnn.  ;) Adding a blurry effect at the edges would be a neat idea for Hiro's second mod ... though don't continue this line of thought (it would throw the thread way off topic).  :)
lol