This thread is about glorious Mode 7 on the SNES, not some rubbish on the Mega Drive.
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Favorite Mode 7 use in a SNES game
- Thread starter Celine
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This thread is about glorious Mode 7 on the SNES, not some rubbish on the Mega Drive.
I never really liked the mode. It was used in a very gimmicky way that didn't really enhance gameplay I think. Excluding F-Zero and Mario Kart. The overhead levels in Contra 3 always sucked.
I did like how Demon's Crest did it even though it could have simply used a Mega Man-style level selection but it's interesting to see such an early game where you can fly around and land.
I did like how Demon's Crest did it even though it could have simply used a Mega Man-style level selection but it's interesting to see such an early game where you can fly around and land.
Demon's Crest rearmed please.
GitarooMan
Member
Yup, this was the first thing that came to mind. I can hear the music in my head as I watch the gif.Actraiser
Terranigma!
First thing I thought about!
slightly tilting the background is not the same as full rotation and scaling; there's a bunch of limited hacks you can do to achieve that with much less processing power.
and the piers solar thing looks like it's running at half the resolution and god knows what framerate.
We all know the Megadrive CPU was more powerful, but don't kid yourself into thinking it could just bruteforce the SNES PPU effects in any comparable manner.
anotherVegan
Member
This!
And this:
That boss was awesome! And made me dizzy.
F-Zero and Super Mario Kart are my favorites.
SeventhSon
Member
That's like mode 7 goatsee.
protomouse
Member
LMAO at claiming what I just showed wasn't comparable. Talk about hyperbole.
spookyfish
Gold Member
Porcile
Member
Mode 7 looks like it was a real a pain to implement on SNES hardware. Can someone give an explanation or show a video describing how it works? Are backgrounds or sprite layers flipped on an axis and then character sprites etc placed on top? Like, I understand the F-zero cars are entirely made of different 2D sprites, but how did they get courses to be more than just scrolling backgrounds?
For fun, I'd be interested in trying to emulate the effect in a modern 3D software package, Just wondering how I might go about it. The Yoshi's Island one is very simple to replicate, as the sprites just face the camera the entire time while rotating on a turntable, but I'm more curious about Mode 7.
PM if need be.
For fun, I'd be interested in trying to emulate the effect in a modern 3D software package, Just wondering how I might go about it. The Yoshi's Island one is very simple to replicate, as the sprites just face the camera the entire time while rotating on a turntable, but I'm more curious about Mode 7.
PM if need be.
Sapiens
Member
Castlevania 4 was the king. Never dethroned IMO.
I loved mode 7 though. It was limited, but devs made creative use of it. I remember loving the skydiving challenges in aero the acrobat( only goo part of the game) and the various uses in the super Star Wars series.
It truly is the snes defining feature. If only the snes would have capable of better sprite manipulation.
I loved mode 7 though. It was limited, but devs made creative use of it. I remember loving the skydiving challenges in aero the acrobat( only goo part of the game) and the various uses in the super Star Wars series.
It truly is the snes defining feature. If only the snes would have capable of better sprite manipulation.
...the Starfox Demo isn't 64 megs.
crankypants
Member
I was always kind of surprised that Namco never produced a Super NES port of its 1988 arcade game Assault. It's almost like it was made specifically to be ported to the Super NES and its Mode 7.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6buBpXy6uUQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6buBpXy6uUQ
Mode 7 is limited to a single background layer. Any time you see "sprites" being rotated/scaled/skewed on the SNES, they are either being rotated/scaled/skewed by a secondary co-processor like the Super FX chip, or they are actually a background layer being treated like a sprite. Notice how the rotating/scaled bosses in Super Mario World all take place on black backgrounds? It's similar to how the Dragon and Yellow Devil bosses in the NES Mega Man games were actually giant scrolling backgrounds that behaved like sprites.
Yoshi's Island never runs in mode 7.
Why would you do that?
Member
My answer is Super Castlevania IV, especially that rotating room. Such an amazing game musically and visually, and it was pretty much an SNES release game! This was back in the era when Konami was the king. Add Contra Hard Corps and Castlevania Rondo of Blood and you pretty much have the best game on each 16 bit console.
Uhh... But as far as Mode 7 goes, sometimes it is hard to tell if it is actually Mode 7 or not. In Yoshi's Island, for instance, pretty much every single piece of graphics in the game was augmented by the Super FX 2 chip.
Note that in Mode 7 the only thing you can have is one background layer (which can be split into two pieces horizontally I guess via scanline stuff) and one sprite layer. In Super Mario World, the platform you stand on when fighting Bowser is actually made of sprites.
Uhh... But as far as Mode 7 goes, sometimes it is hard to tell if it is actually Mode 7 or not. In Yoshi's Island, for instance, pretty much every single piece of graphics in the game was augmented by the Super FX 2 chip.
Note that in Mode 7 the only thing you can have is one background layer (which can be split into two pieces horizontally I guess via scanline stuff) and one sprite layer. In Super Mario World, the platform you stand on when fighting Bowser is actually made of sprites.
Natureboy99
Banned
Secret of Mana Flammie overworld for me
Graphics Horse
Member
This probably doesn't help but Mode 7 is basic 2D background rotation, like you can do in Photoshop with the standard rotate tool.
The perspective tricks come from changing the rotation matrix every horizontal line while the screen is being drawn.
Old systems don't draw an image to a 2D buffer, they just draw one line at a time, which is already being sent to the TV once it starts the next line.
Changing things on scanlines requires very precise timing but the SNES has a feature that can be set up to copy a few bytes each time a line is done.
Terranigma!
I didn't know this was a thing, I looked up some videos it looked amazing, I shall have to find it now!
Sometimes a thread is awesome.
spookyfish
Gold Member
Why would you do that?
Member
They are comparable in the sense that they are both achieving the same goal of having a scene with a perspective view. However, the quality of graphics shown from the Genesis video clearly doesn't match the quality of Mode 7 from the SNES GPU at all. The Genesis video has a much lower resolution and a smaller color palette. It also has plenty of vertical lines either for dithering or as some technique to speed up rendering.
Something the Genesis video is doing that Mode 7 can't, however, is the reflection of the sky on the water. That's a nice touch.
I am a bit surprised that the Raphael the Raven boss (the spinning moon boss in the gif above) isn't Mode 7. It seems like it would make logical sense to do, considering you can rotate a whole screen. But I guess they used the Super FX for that, too.
eXistor
Member
Terranigma!
My choice as well. It looks shitty in a still pic, but in motion it's a cool effect.
A link to the effect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nsb2eFt7BCs=39m15s (wait a few seconds for it, timestamp is off. It starts at 39:15)
Graphics Horse
Member
I guess as he can move about, the raven would have to be built into the background tileset if it was Mode 7, which would make it a nightmare to do.
On the Game Boy Advance you can have two independent rotatable background layers and rotate all sprites, which is nice, although you can only use 32 unique rotations at once for sprites, because reasons.
My words exactly!
Member
True dat.
FYI, the arcade release is available on the Japanese Virtual Console for the Wii.
It's a good game, although it controls a bit sluggish, you have to use a clasic controller with it's dual analogs to control the tank.
Porcile
Member
Tah for the info! I've always had a rough idea but never looked it up or thought about the nuances of how the SNES would actually actually handle the pseudo-3D perspective in 2D. The line-by-line manipulation makes a lot of sense, though I suppose technically un necessary these days if someone was to go about re-creating the effect with modern tools.
Are there any indie or modern games out there which approximate the effect?
Terranigma!
came to post this.
Terranigma being one of the last snes games was pretty advanced overall.
The mode 7 used for flying and the credits was also pretty nifty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GWScEnVqKk
Show me a game with a fully rotating scene with perspective in fullscreen 240p with 60fps and we can talk comparable. Limited tech demos with crappy framerate in reduced resolution, utilising various hacks does not make it comparable to 100s of snes games doing it effortlessly
Came in to post Castlevania IV tunnel as well. This guy knows what it's all about.Super Castlevania IV! The rotating stages and the stages with the tube background.
Edit: dammit, beaten.
For a more traditional usage of M7:
F-Zero was good times.
Axelay effect definitely not mode 7, a lot of Sega Genesis games do the same effect. Some examples:
http://youtu.be/bNHFba0hgFQ?list=FLLJDv_v8Vxj7UC37MHQKujQ
http://youtu.be/fQ_OsgU1NUk
http://youtu.be/aEOEHs7zO4I?t=34m18s
Neoriceisgood
Member
This always made me wonder, is there any easy way to replicate the mode 7-style graphics/feeling just for still images?
I've always liked the idea of doing a mode 7-esque worldmap mockup ... but wouldn't know where to start.
I've always liked the idea of doing a mode 7-esque worldmap mockup ... but wouldn't know where to start.
Graphics Horse
Member
Have you got photoshop? I don't have it here but I remember there was a setting in preferences that lets you select nearest neighbour filtering for perspective/rotation transformation, so that would give you the right pixelated look if you start with a top down image.
Actraiser
Where is my next gen Actraiser. Man I loved that game.
Another SNES which relied heavily on mode 7 was the cult classic Septentrion (AKA SOS in US):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGB67bCy914
While another sport game, this time based on a popular manga, mode 7 heavy is Ace wo Nerae:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMMxTmLq1lg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGB67bCy914
While another sport game, this time based on a popular manga, mode 7 heavy is Ace wo Nerae:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMMxTmLq1lg
Graphics Horse
Member
That's awesome. Looks like they are doing something very clever to draw the net in another layer as a polygon.
Honestly, I think the mode 7 map is even very distracting on Demon's Crest and I would have rather performed a more traditional overworld map comparable to Gargoyle's Quest II.
manzo
Member
This:
Yoshi's Island title screen and map.
Simply hypnotic.
Not mode 7. That's a polygon mesh with a texture. Yoshi's Island used SuperFX2.
Like Mario Kart, Ace wo Nerae used DSP-1, so that's a bit cheating..
This!
And this:
Beautiful.
F-Z... ugh... Axe...uh...Secret o... hmmm... Super Mar... dammit. All good mentions are already taken.
Hrm.
Oh! Lufia wasn't mentioned, I think. Lufia 2 had a particularly awesome part where you assault a (endgame spoilers)
(spoiler)It was damn nice to watch. (Bonus DS hilarity included 8U)
But yeah, you're not wrong per se.
There's just something about the sound system, color palette and resolution* that simply works for me. Also, I've always preferred sprites over polygons. That's just the way I'm wired, no matter how photorealistic or stylish lovingly handcrafted 3D rendering becomes I'll always gravitate towards lovingly handcrafted 2D artwork.
*
Hrm.
Oh! Lufia wasn't mentioned, I think. Lufia 2 had a particularly awesome part where you assault a (endgame spoilers)
floating island with a flying Zeppelin-ship-rocket-hybrid, with Lasers zipping around and everything.
Oh, I'd miss one hell of a lot of games, given hindsight and everything - e.g. Rez, which is simply not possible on SNES, no matter how you massage the hardware.
But yeah, you're not wrong per se.
There's just something about the sound system, color palette and resolution* that simply works for me. Also, I've always preferred sprites over polygons. That's just the way I'm wired, no matter how photorealistic or stylish lovingly handcrafted 3D rendering becomes I'll always gravitate towards lovingly handcrafted 2D artwork.
*
Same with Mode 13h / Mode X on PC. Damn, those were the times.