[Cooljerk]

This is something I've wondered for a long time but have never bothered asking. Sonic Pocket Adventure, the NGPC Sonic game, take a look:



See that? Sonic is made up of 5 colors. In other NGPC games, sprites are all made up of 3 colors:



Every other sprite in Sonic Pocket Adventure uses 3 colors:



As far as I know, the max number of colors a sprite could have on the NGPC was 3. So how did they color Sonic correctly? Did they lay 2 sprites over each other? There's not a whole lot of info out there about SPA in general, but surely someone must know, right?

[Rika Chou]

Cooljerk, on 25 March 2012 - 11:21 PM, said:

Did they lay 2 sprites over each other?

Yes.

I remember looking at this game in TLP a few years ago and noticed this.

[LordOfSquad]

I believe they also used this technique in certain NES games,

[Cooljerk]

Rika Chou, on 25 March 2012 - 11:25 PM, said:

Cooljerk, on 25 March 2012 - 11:21 PM, said:

Did they lay 2 sprites over each other?

Yes.

I remember looking at this game in TLP a few years ago and noticed this.

Would that also be how they colored Zangeif correctly in MotM?

[tokumaru]

The most notable example on the NES is Mega Man: his face is a separate sprite, which increases his color count to 5.

This is a very simple trick, and the only reason it wasn't used more often is because 8-bit systems can only display a small number of sprites per scanline, and when you start stacking them this limit is reached much faster, which results in more noticeable flickering.

EDIT: BTW, my avatar here is a NES mock-up, with sprites stacked up to give Sonic more than 3 colors.

This post has been edited by tokumaru: 25 March 2012 - 11:44 PM

[SpeedStarTMQ]

Call me retarded, but I only see three actuall colours on Sonic- red, yellow and blue. The white is his gloves and the black for his outline. What am I missing? Are his eyes green? It's kinda hard to tell.

[Rika Chou]

SpeedStarTMQ, on 26 March 2012 - 01:05 AM, said:

Call me retarded, but I only see three actuall colours on Sonic- red, yellow and blue. The white is his gloves and the black for his outline. What am I missing? Are his eyes green? It's kinda hard to tell.

black and white are colors...

1 white
2 tan
3: blue
4: green
5: black
6: red

This post has been edited by Rika Chou: 26 March 2012 - 01:14 AM

[Cooljerk]

WOW! I never knew the SPA sprite had green eyes! I've only played the game on my actual NGPC, and you can't see that detail.

[KingofHarts]

I believe that flamewing uses a similar trick to fit Knuckles' green socks onto him while keeping everyone else's colors intact.

[Knucklez]

I don't think the black outlining should really count, since it's basically a default in any character sprite. Technically, the only thing on Sonic that's black is his nose, but that's besides the point.

[Herm the Germ]

Nevertheless, even I understand that the black on his sprite needs to come from somewhere so, either way, it counts.

[KingofHarts]

Knucklez, on 26 March 2012 - 05:25 AM, said:

I don't think the black outlining should really count, since it's basically a default in any character sprite. Technically, the only thing on Sonic that's black is his nose, but that's besides the point.

That may be true to you and I, but of course, a game's code doesn't see it that way. It sees that black is a color... it doesn't play favorites.
It's not racist you know

[SpeedStarTMQ]

I actually didn't think it would count black either, it's it's the general outline. I also thought White would have been where the game hadn't had been coloured, so didn't know if it counted as a colour on the cart. I'm dumb, it was late, and, well, I'm stupid.

[Skyler]

You're all forgetting the black in his eyes.

This post has been edited by Skyler: 26 March 2012 - 09:20 AM

[Overlord]

To be honest they could have easily left the green out for the eyes, but I suspect they decided to as they had an extra colour at that point =P