I had no idea that the Model 1, 2 and 3 also used quads. I thought it was just a Saturn thing. This means that all SEGA polygon hardware before the Dreamcast/Naomi used quads.
@@calebr908 quads weren't exactly unheard of very early on in the 3D rendering days. I'm pretty sure 3DO did use them as well, and Sega wasn't exactly out of their minds for using quad based rendering on the Saturn when you take into account the time of development and release. They just backed the wrong horse.
@@slashrose3287nope do some research Sega Model 3 also used quads. It was the Sega Naomi the first to use Triangles in Sega Arcade hardware. Its also the reason why porting model 3 games to the Dreamcast wasn't straight forward
Dont normally comment but im enjoying this breakdown. May I suggest a deeper dive into hacks and tricks used on the Saturn. One includes using the sound processor to assist in polygon math.
Hi once I get through my list (which may take a while) I will go through interesting games etc, for example I was thinking of one on some of the tricks in 16 bit fames that Im aware of like thunder force 4
Interesting fact Saturn is the first hardware from sega that support color texture mapping, model 2 support texture map but not in color so they need to shade the polygon to add color on the applied texture map. Hence why the color in Model 2 looks more dimmed compared to the same game in saturn
Newcomer here. I found your first Saturn video genuinely interesting and appreciate this follow up one (I'll be checking out your other ones at the weekend as I'm sure they'll be as interesting). That you're doing it because you want to speaks volumes - Keep doing it as long as you're enjoying it. :)
What I don't understand is why they just didn't offer their arcade hardware directly to the consumer as a home console. I understand that the cost would go up, but you would be getting the real arcade hardware at home which is a dream come true. Sega's arcade hardware at the time was more capable than the Sega Saturn was and if you are offering arcade hardware to the home consumer it should have blown away the PS1 and have SEGA more market share.
Retro48K, again you are wrong : as already pointed in the previous SS video comment, Model 1 & 2 are based on primitive quads (same as SS), so they have all have the same the "transparencies" (missing alpha blending) problems. The Model 3 is the first arcade board with triangle primitive (like PSX/PSone) and all advanced 3d effects like Environment mapping (something possible even in hw by the very same SS, as demostrated by Hellslave and Sonic Z-treme programmer, the mighty XL2) and so on. For more just take a look at my previous post in the other SS video you did.
I didn’t say anything about transparencies in model 1 and 2, I said they did quads because I was correcting my first video where I thought it was just model 1 doing quads. And for environment mapping I state exactly what you have said it wasn’t thought possible at the time but a recent hack or hardware trick has shown it to be possible in Hellslave
Do some research the Sega Model 3 uses quads. Geometrizer : 1,000,100 polygons/s for square polys, 2,000,200 for Triangle polys It tells you on "System 16" Arcade museum website
@@WWammyysquare poly is not a quad. Square polies we’re avoided because researchers feared that their warping on roll would be super unaesthetic. XL2 still either uses software rendering or Gouraud + palette for environment mapping. But this is slow / low quality. A polygon renderer would offer environment mapping without the drawbacks. Yeah and software? So why even buy a console then? Software is zx spectrum, Archimedes, Dos games on PC.
Im not sure to be honest, but my guess would be as the shapes they needed to make got more complex, tracking 3 points of geometry rather than for was more efficient but that is purely a guess
How do you clip a quad to the screen borders? Especially large quads like the floor and ceiling of a room? How do you deal with unaligned textures down stairs ? How about reflection mapping?
I think it's the direction of mapping. With triangles, you take a pixel within the triangle and then figure out what part of the texture to draw. The Saturn draws quads the opposite way, by taking a point on the texture and figuring out what pixel on the screen should be drawn. This is inferior because: - In order to avoid leaving holes, you have to draw many pixels 2 or more times. This is inefficient, and also breaks transparency. - You never figure out the exact texture coordinates for the pixel, so the texturing quality is worse. Now the texturing on the PS1 was also a bit janky, but from N64 onwards, triangle texturing was rock solid.
@ I would love to see clean vector balls. Maybe some FPGA or emulator can show that. The 30 MHz of the Saturn mean something like 1280 px horizontal resolution. So instead of a blurry N64 texture, we would store the positions of the balls on screen with like 5120 resolution and then sample over a sphere. Interlacing is interesting because it Scans over the balls slightly shifted. I only don’t understand Mipmaps with balls. And how to attach them tightly to a flat or Gouraud polygon ? Balls would be stored like pixels, but 32 bit: 24 bit color and 3 bit per ordinate shift. I need a flat polygon to erase balls behind. I envision a linebuffer like in Atari VCS or genesis to keep active balls. Like an active edge list, but they don’t change places.
I had no idea that the Model 1, 2 and 3 also used quads. I thought it was just a Saturn thing. This means that all SEGA polygon hardware before the Dreamcast/Naomi used quads.
Yeah I actually didn't know that either!
Model 3 is triangle primitive, Retro48K has wrong info.
3do used quads as well iirc
@@calebr908 quads weren't exactly unheard of very early on in the 3D rendering days. I'm pretty sure 3DO did use them as well, and Sega wasn't exactly out of their minds for using quad based rendering on the Saturn when you take into account the time of development and release. They just backed the wrong horse.
@@slashrose3287nope do some research Sega Model 3 also used quads.
It was the Sega Naomi the first to use Triangles in Sega Arcade hardware.
Its also the reason why porting model 3 games to the Dreamcast wasn't straight forward
Much better intro than the static from the other one 😂.
Keep em coming!
Thanks! Will do!
Dont normally comment but im enjoying this breakdown. May I suggest a deeper dive into hacks and tricks used on the Saturn. One includes using the sound processor to assist in polygon math.
Hi once I get through my list (which may take a while) I will go through interesting games etc, for example I was thinking of one on some of the tricks in 16 bit fames that Im aware of like thunder force 4
Both Saturn videos were excellent. Such a good explanation on the difference between programming effort vs difficulty
Thank you, glad you enjoyed both of them
Sega Model 3 supported both quads and triangles. Early Model 3 games used quad, whereas later Model 3 games used triangles.
Interesting fact Saturn is the first hardware from sega that support color texture mapping, model 2 support texture map but not in color so they need to shade the polygon to add color on the applied texture map. Hence why the color in Model 2 looks more dimmed compared to the same game in saturn
Newcomer here. I found your first Saturn video genuinely interesting and appreciate this follow up one (I'll be checking out your other ones at the weekend as I'm sure they'll be as interesting). That you're doing it because you want to speaks volumes - Keep doing it as long as you're enjoying it. :)
Well done on responding so quickly and not getting remotely defensive. Looking forward to the next one!
That new intro is so much nicer on the ears. Good call!
Glad you like it!
The flame effects in Burning Rangers is another example of transparency on Saturn.
I cover that in my first video
I can't remember which, but there's a 2d game with fantastic transparency effects on it's waterfalls.
Was it 100% cotton maybe?
@@BackToTheGame.98 Keio Flying Squadron 2?
@@pukalo Yeah I think its that one!
@@BackToTheGame.98Cotton Boomerang have a lot of transparency going on, but I think the best example of transparencies on a 2D game is Astal.
Flying Chris, crazy how a vid just re-uploaded goes mental like that, it was great then its great now!
I've always heard that the Saturn used voxels. Were people confusing that with quads?
Good stuff mate
Not going to lie. When I saw the title of the video, I thought it was gonna about the Saturn being used in prisons and an offices...lol 😂
What I don't understand is why they just didn't offer their arcade hardware directly to the consumer as a home console. I understand that the cost would go up, but you would be getting the real arcade hardware at home which is a dream come true. Sega's arcade hardware at the time was more capable than the Sega Saturn was and if you are offering arcade hardware to the home consumer it should have blown away the PS1 and have SEGA more market share.
Retro48K, again you are wrong : as already pointed in the previous SS video comment, Model 1 & 2 are based on primitive quads (same as SS), so they have all have the same the "transparencies" (missing alpha blending) problems. The Model 3 is the first arcade board with triangle primitive (like PSX/PSone) and all advanced 3d effects like Environment mapping (something possible even in hw by the very same SS, as demostrated by Hellslave and Sonic Z-treme programmer, the mighty XL2) and so on. For more just take a look at my previous post in the other SS video you did.
I didn’t say anything about transparencies in model 1 and 2, I said they did quads because I was correcting my first video where I thought it was just model 1 doing quads. And for environment mapping I state exactly what you have said it wasn’t thought possible at the time but a recent hack or hardware trick has shown it to be possible in Hellslave
Do some research the Sega Model 3 uses quads.
Geometrizer : 1,000,100 polygons/s for square polys,
2,000,200 for Triangle polys
It tells you on "System 16" Arcade museum website
@@WWammyysquare poly is not a quad. Square polies we’re avoided because researchers feared that their warping on roll would be super unaesthetic.
XL2 still either uses software rendering or Gouraud + palette for environment mapping. But this is slow / low quality. A polygon renderer would offer environment mapping without the drawbacks. Yeah and software? So why even buy a console then? Software is zx spectrum, Archimedes, Dos games on PC.
Might you do the 32X?
Subbed, keep it up chum
Thanks for the sub! Will do
Are we getting a "How The ZX Spectrum Worked"? Asking for a friend 😉
Yes but most likely post Xmas
@Retro48K526 outstanding!
I remember watching videos from you awhile back but all your videos are recent uploads. Did your channel get deleted? Great work btw
Hi yes I removed my channel a while back and took a break and recently just started fresh again, thanks for watching again lol
@Retro48K526 lol I thought I was going crazy. Well great to have you back.
Wonder why polygons stuck around and not quads. 🤔
Im not sure to be honest, but my guess would be as the shapes they needed to make got more complex, tracking 3 points of geometry rather than for was more efficient but that is purely a guess
How do you clip a quad to the screen borders? Especially large quads like the floor and ceiling of a room? How do you deal with unaligned textures down stairs ? How about reflection mapping?
@ you’re right man thanks for the info.
I think it's the direction of mapping. With triangles, you take a pixel within the triangle and then figure out what part of the texture to draw. The Saturn draws quads the opposite way, by taking a point on the texture and figuring out what pixel on the screen should be drawn. This is inferior because:
- In order to avoid leaving holes, you have to draw many pixels 2 or more times. This is inefficient, and also breaks transparency.
- You never figure out the exact texture coordinates for the pixel, so the texturing quality is worse. Now the texturing on the PS1 was also a bit janky, but from N64 onwards, triangle texturing was rock solid.
@ I would love to see clean vector balls. Maybe some FPGA or emulator can show that. The 30 MHz of the Saturn mean something like 1280 px horizontal resolution. So instead of a blurry N64 texture, we would store the positions of the balls on screen with like 5120 resolution and then sample over a sphere. Interlacing is interesting because it Scans over the balls slightly shifted.
I only don’t understand Mipmaps with balls. And how to attach them tightly to a flat or Gouraud polygon ?
Balls would be stored like pixels, but 32 bit: 24 bit color and 3 bit per ordinate shift. I need a flat polygon to erase balls behind.
I envision a linebuffer like in Atari VCS or genesis to keep active balls. Like an active edge list, but they don’t change places.
I'm still confused 🤪
sega hardware is the most interesting and always will be
make them parallelograms..
Did you get Ackchyually by someone. I thought your coverage was fairly on point
By a lot so I thought this was better than individual responses
@@Retro48K526make sense..good follow up video, none the less.