Hellslave (Saturn Homebrew)

Nesh

Double Agent
Legend
This project is so unique and interesting it deserves its own thread.
It came along a long way since lats year. We always had the question what the Sega Saturn might have been able to do if it succeeded in the market and devs put a real effort to bring out the possibilities.
It is interesting that the draw distances are just huge, and some environment objects like columns seem to cast some pseudo-shadow on the opposite site of the light direction. Lighting doesnt appear baked as it changes by projective lights.
I wonder how he achieved effects like real time reflections. He is probably calling it "a reflection" but it could be just a polygon duplication?

Here is a list of the things it achieved:

-Complete deathmatch experience, including against humans or bots, with up to 8 players.
-Fully 3D engine, the Z-Treme Engine, expanding on the Sonic Z-Treme engine from 2018 - but almost everything was rewritten, so at this point it's not the same thing at all - which makes uses of both SH2 cpus, SCU DSP, VDP1 and VDP2.
-4 players splitscreen deathmatch!
-Gouraud shading lighting everywhere, with realtime lighting supporting up to 9 dynamic light sources per vertex.
-Fully 3D weapons and enemies with AI, animation and lighting - Even the flying body parts have realtime lighting applied to them!
-High res 64x64 textures (for the Saturn)
-Brand new original 3d rendering code, matrix, vertex transformation, lighting system, polygon creation, collision, AI, etc.
-Fully 3d engine using binary space partition (BSP) with a PVS+portals occlusion culling system : somewhat similar to the technology used in Quake on PC, but fully running on the Saturn!
-Real transparency : water, light flares, clouds, windows, etc.
-Realtime reflections
.
-Realtime reflections + dynamic lighting + realtime transparency : Look at a window, and you might see yourself and the room you are in... and also see the outside world! Try that on the PS1!
-Volumetric fog (faked, but still...)
-Depth shading
-Way improved culling and low distortion (no more polygons disappearing in your face, no more polygons dancing in your face à la PS1).
-No draw distance limit : the engine doesn't even have a far plane for frustum culling!
-New and fully original matrix, vertex transformation, lighting calculation, polygon creation and polygon sorting code, mostly in C.
-High amount of particles and flying body parts everywhere.
-3d pad optimized. 4 players Mouse and keyboards supported! Just plug your mouses in the mutitap in port 2, while the gamepads or keyboards will go to the multitap in port 1.

 
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I thought that this would have been great material for interesting discussions
 
My god this engine is amazing! Could you imagine the likes of a game with pre-rendered bgs, or a 3d character platformer using this!? 😍🤯 This really shows saturn was truly under utilized in its retail life 😭
 
Certainly sounds and looks like Quake. And Hexen 2 which is Quake based. Also reminiscent of GoldenEye multiplayer perhaps. They targeted the right frame rate for sure.

Doesn't Saturn have a great port of Quake?
 
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Certainly sounds and looks like Quake. And Hexen 2 which is Quake based. Also reminiscent of GoldenEye multiplayer perhaps. They targeted the right frame rate for sure.

Doesn't Saturn have a great port of Quake?
It does. Done by lobotomy software.
 
The "real" transparency looks a bit meshy to me.
Which part?

edit: Oh it seems some transparencies are transparent and some others like the water are meshy.
I wonder what kind of tricks he used.
What else is impressive with this is the HUUUUUGE draw distance. There is no cut off.



I am still curious how he achieved those reflections. Probably duplicate models?


Texture warping is also non existent. I d love to see an actual technical breakdown if possible by @Dictator Digital Foundry retro.
If they could approach the creator and interview him it would be simply AWESOME
 
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