On (10 Aug 97) Brian McCloud wrote to Daniel Moreno...
 DM>  Some effects are simply imposible in modes other than 16-color.
 BM> Really??  Can you give me some SPECIFIC examples?
One technique that's fairly well known is a method of sprite animation.
You basically assign one sprite to each plane, and animate each one
independently.  This way you don't have to worry about one sprite
overwriting another when they overlap or anything like that.  Each is a
completely independent entity in its own private memory region.
However, this requires that you have a planar mode, and 256 color modes
(at least as a rule) are packed pixel instead of planar.  The obviously
weakness of this method is that it limits the number of sprites to the
number of planes (4 in a 16 color mode) and each sprite has to be a
solid color.  You can also get some odd colors when/if sprites overlap.
(However, you can control what each of those combinations will actually
map to by changing the pallette.)
    Later,
    Jerry.
... The Universe is a figment of its own imagination.
--- PPoint 1.90
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