Talk:Sprite (computer graphics): Difference between revisions

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== Terrible article ==
For example, the sentence "... how many can be displayed per scan line (often a lower number) ..." doesn't even make sense.
 
== Article quality is poor, and scope is too wide. ==
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No kidding. This thing needs to be butchered like livestock. The beef will be an article on real hardware sprites, the workings and history of the hardware devices, and maybe a little info on how it lead to the development of software sprites. The beef -byproducts will be separate pages about spritesheets, web-based sprite-designed subcultures, spritesheets, and a list page for that badly designed table of various machines' graphic capabilities. Hope that this doesn't piss off the Mario fans; I'm guessing that it will be an uphill battle undoing the reverts from editors that prefer this muddled page as it is.--[[User:Drvanthorp|Drvanthorp]] ([[User talk:Drvanthorp|talk]]) 01:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 
== Should horizontal/vertical mirroring count as rotation? ==
 
Horizontal/vertical mirroring is included for Atari 2600 and NES under 'Rotation', but other systems that are currently listed as having no rotation support probably support mirroring as well. Should mirroring be included? [[Special:Contributions/85.228.198.150|85.228.198.150]] ([[User talk:85.228.198.150|talk]]) 15:22, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 
Mirroring is not rotation.performing a horizontal and a vertical mirror is equal to 180 degree rotation. No other form of rotation is accomplished by mirroring. [[Special:Contributions/74.211.58.201|74.211.58.201]] ([[User talk:74.211.58.201|talk]]) 07:56, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 
== Split ==
 
I propose the material about "sprites" in [[Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]] should be moved to a separate article called [[Sprite (CSS)]] or similar. All these "sprites" have in common with traditional sprites, which this article is mostly about, categorised as, and pretty much referred to in all incoming links, is that they're small rectangular pictures. The CSS material even talks about cutting down HTTP loading time, when sprite graphics doesn't exactly have anything to do with network communications at all. If this trend continues, this article will become a jumble that throws the word "sprite" around to mean any kind of small picture. [[User:JIP|<span style="color:#CC0000;">J</span><span style="color:#00CC00;">I</span><span style="color:#0000CC;">P</span>]] &#124; [[User talk:JIP|Talk]] 19:29, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 
:Comment: I think splitting is a bad idea. Contra many of the other comments, I think it's very useful to have a single point of entry that talks about hardware, software, CSS, etc. The idea surely transcends its implementation, and that's why the name rolls along as the techniques change. If you're interested in animation, it's all interesting. Frankly I think it's v usable as is, so thanks to its authors. BenM 18:42, 7 December 2014 (UTC) benm <small><span class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Wordmatter|Wordmatter]] ([[User talk:Wordmatter|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Wordmatter|contribs]]) </span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
 
::Support. The page is just too long to read. [[User:Stranger195|Stranger195]] ([[User talk:Stranger195|talk]]) 07:46, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
 
== What is "analog scaling"? ==
 
I saw it here first: [[List_of_Sega_arcade_system_boards#VCO_Object]] and it seemed nonsensical to me. Googling "Sega VCO object analog" is not helpful, I get few results and they (all?) seem to be from here. [[User:Comp.arch|comp.arch]] ([[User talk:Comp.arch|talk]]) 10:21, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
 
== External links modified ==
 
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I have just modified {{plural:2|one external link|2 external links}} on [[Sprite (computer graphics)]]. Please take a moment to review [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=748941578 my edit]. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit [[User:Cyberpower678/FaQs#InternetArchiveBot|this simple FaQ]] for additional information. I made the following changes:
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== Smooth X/Y movement. ==
 
One thing I've never been able to understand about sprites is how smoothly they can move across a screen. Even if the display resolution is quite low (like the blocky Atari 2600 graphics), they can translate from one coordinate to another in a much finer resolution than I would think possible. Why is this? --[[User:Navstar|Navstar]] ([[User talk:Navstar|talk]]) 23:21, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 
It's all a matter of resolution. Atari 2600 backgrounds can be very low res, but that doesn't affect the sprite resolution at all, and it can jump to any coordinate. they also can be animated, which causes the transition to look more realistic. [[Special:Contributions/74.211.58.201|74.211.58.201]] ([[User talk:74.211.58.201|talk]]) 18:58, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 
:: That's an absurd answer that doesn't address the question.
 
Not sure what the machines did. If Sprites are merged into the screen's frame buffer, then they can't move more smoothly than anything else (they're still bound by frame buffer resolution). However, the hardware Sprite processor is focused only on sprites, so isn't slowed down by other stuff running on it like the CPU is, which might give the illusion of being smoother because it doesn't have to skip pixels to maintain speed while other operations hog the CPU.
 
I could imagine smoother movement to work if sprites are just "tiny separate frame buffers" that override the info from the main frame buffer, and are composited at the same time the video chip selects the pixel value to send to the CRT. In that case, given a CRT is analog along the horizontal axis, and had probably 2x-4x what most PCs had memory for at the time in vertical scan lines (NTSC has 480 lines, PAL even 576, computers only had memory for e.g. 240 pixels height), the cathode ray might visit each frame buffer pixel several times. It would therefore be possible to store the sprite position with a higher resolution than the actual image, and position sprites on half pixels or even finer granularity. Not sure if any computer actually did that, though. -- [[User:Uliwitness|Uliwitness]] ([[User talk:Uliwitness|talk]]) 13:52, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 
:: OK, a friend just pointed out to me that the 480 lines are split into half-frames of course, so that means at 60Hz, each individual frame contains only 240 lines. Also, apparently no computer ever actually sent different images in half-frames like TVs did, they just sent the same picture twice (effectively 30fps with double-height pixels), as they weren't fast enough for 60fps. So my theory is nonsense. No idea what [[User:Navstar|Navstar]] was referring to with smoother scrolling. -- [[User:Uliwitness|Uliwitness]] ([[User talk:Uliwitness|talk]]) 14:14, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
 
== External links modified ==
 
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== Hillis and TI ==
 
The text says "It was also used by Danny Hillis at Texas Instruments in the late 1970s."
 
I believe that "at Texas Instruments" should be "for Texas Instruments."
 
According to [[Danny Hillis|his bio]], Danny Hillis apparently never worked at Texas Instruments. The cited source ("Never Mind the Laptops: Kids, Computers, and the Transformation of Learning") says Hillis designed the chip for sprites, and it was for a TI project, but it never says he did it ''at'' Texas Instruments.
 
Quoting R. W. Lawler<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lawler |first1=Robert Walter |title=Learning with computers. |date=1996 |publisher=Intellect Books |location=Exeter, England, United Kingdom |isbn=1-871516-57-9 |pages=83 |url=https://archive.org/details/learningwithcomp0000lawl/page/82/mode/2up?q=hillis}}</ref>:
 
{{Blockquote|text=Texas Instruments supported the development of Logo for the TI-99 at the MIT Logo Project. The turtle geometry component of the system was quite inadequate. The sprite graphics system, which originally had been an uninteresting feature of the hardware, proved in the end to be a liberating addition to the repertoire of tools which could be used for educating children with computers.}}
 
And according the section [https://logothings.github.io/logothings/The70s.html TI Sprite Logo 1978-9]:
 
{{Blockquote|text=Seymour was approached by Texas Instruments founder Cecil Green. Green had a grandchild in the Lamplighter School in Dallas. He wanted Logo on the new personal computers TI was building. Ed Hardebeck became the chief implementer of Sprite Logo – color and sprites (turtles).}}
 
This seems very much like TI worked with MIT to product TI Sprite Logo, and Hillis was involved through the MIT connection, working ``at`` MIT rather than working ``at`` TI.
 
===Follow-up===
According to this video of Hillis (https://www.webofstories.com/play/danny.hillis/111), he was working for Milton Bradley on electronic toys and was sent to TI to "design a chip for a video game." So he was '''at''' TI, but not working for them. [[User:Dgpop|Dgpop]] ([[User talk:Dgpop|talk]]) 21:07, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
 
{{reflist-talk}}
 
== [[Impostor (computer graphics)]] needs its own article not a redirect into nonsense ==
 
Impostors are not just sprites and are definitely not a part of 2D engines, which is what this article is exclusively about. Impostors need their own article as it is a 3d technique for 3d engines using sprites, which are in this case called imposters. This article doesn't even mention the Impostors in the text!
I therefore suggest editing the redirect [[Impostor (computer graphics)]] and making it its own article. The computer game Trespasser was btw. one of the first 3d games, that used this technique. [[Special:Contributions/93.229.163.76|93.229.163.76]] ([[User talk:93.229.163.76|talk]]) 05:05, 26 October 2023 (UTC)