Glowing vector Blitzmax example.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

This is a little method I came up with to draw Vectrex style graphics. Pretty close to the real thing. Really slow but the lines are smooth, also by varying the alpha channel you can adjust the contrast of the additive blur.

There is a readme file, the source and a win32 executable. There is probably a lot of room for improvement here.



I've just made a little different type of line sprite. You can try this too.

[benny!]

Looks very good indeed. I am a sucker for those retro glowing lines.
The best game I know using retro lines is the remake of the game Thrust.
It was made with BlitzBasic I think.

Have a look at this thread:
http://www.blitzmax.com/Community/posts.php?topic=60874
Maybe there are some more information about glowing lines in it.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

I actually thought his result was good but not smooth enough. Owning a vectrex, I had to get the effect just right, but speed is always a consideration.

Here is a little more complete effect with some extra motion  blurring.

[zawran]

On my computer it seems plenty fast. And it sure looks the part. It could be cool for an asteroids type game.

[rdc]

Very cool.

[benny!]

Awesome!

[hellfire]

Great!
Now please throw a bit more complex geometry at it

[Shockwave]

My favourite shapes here are the smaller objects, they really glow quite wonderfully

Like Hellfire said it would look excellent with some more complicated shapes, what would really put the icing on the cake would be if the glow was organic, so kind of pulsing a little in it's intensity. It would give the lines a nice neon look.

If you're going for the vectrex look you should read Franck Chevassu's blog, he made a vectrex emulator in Java, here's the link;

http://vectrex-emu.blogspot.com/

[Clyde]

Pixel Outlaw looks amazing mate, just need to fix the appearing on at the bottom of the screen. why not turn this into a gfx demo!

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Thanks guys.

I have that emulator to ensure my vectrex lasts forever. I don't play mine much because it is so old and fragile.
Actually the overlays don't work on that emulator and even the anti-aliased lines are too rough and not additive blended. It is a solid emulator but I feel that graphically it does not produce a realistic look. There is only really one way to describe graphically Vectrex games. They look like milky lines drawn on a pitch black screen. My attempt above falls short but it is slightly more dramatic.

I would like to make a demo out of this honestly. Maybe when I finish my MySQL tutorials for my computer class I will have time to do so. This is in no way just for me, if anyone here wants to use the technique or my textures go ahead. I actually lost about a day of homework time designing this little effect. So I stayed home today to work on homework for my degree. I probably won't have time to work on this soon so please feel free to take/use and abuse this technique and my texture. Just about anything can draw textured lines so it is pretty transferable.