Some games from the 90s that supported both VGA and SVGA graphics mode (or were released as DOS VGA games but then ported to another platform with high-resolution options like Mac) have a separate set of menu graphics and fonts for high resolutions. The hi-res fonts are not a polished double-sized version of VGA fonts but take into account aspect correction of the VGA mode screen. A good example of this is
Descent II.
From what I read
here, the current version of ECWolf does not perform aspect correction on the menu screens and the
Read This! pages (at lower resolutions) precisely for the reason that nearest-neighbour scaling would result in a very distorted, uneven shape of the letters. I believe that the only proper solution to this is to use a high-resolution font that accounts for aspect correction, just like authentic games from the 90s would do.
With this in mind I have thrown together a mockup of the
Wolf3D main menu:
This is the result of manual editing of a DOS version screenshot that has been resized to 640x480 using nearest neighbour scaling.
Initially I wanted to try polishing a high-resolution, aspect-corrected version of the "Options" title as well, but this Gothic styled font would need to be completely redrawn to look good in high resolution, which is something beyond my ability. However I checked out the Mac version of the game and it doesn't scale up or correct the "Get Psyched!" message during level loading (
screenshot), which actually is good enough on its own. In fact, it might very well be the case that this font was not created with aspect correction in mind.
The pistol could use some re-drawing by an artist as well, but I just smoothed the edges for now.
Do you think this could be implemented in ECWolf as an optional mod at least?
Some games from the 90s that supported both VGA and SVGA graphics mode (or were released as DOS VGA games but then ported to another platform with high-resolution options like Mac) have a separate set of menu graphics and fonts for high resolutions. The hi-res fonts are not a polished double-sized version of VGA fonts but take into account aspect correction of the VGA mode screen. A good example of this is [url=http://www.mobygames.com/game/descent-ii]Descent II[/url].
From what I read [url=https://bitbucket.org/Blzut3/ecwolf/issues/214/pixel-aspect-of-read-this-episode-complete]here[/url], the current version of ECWolf does not perform aspect correction on the menu screens and the [i]Read This![/i] pages (at lower resolutions) precisely for the reason that nearest-neighbour scaling would result in a very distorted, uneven shape of the letters. I believe that the only proper solution to this is to use a high-resolution font that accounts for aspect correction, just like authentic games from the 90s would do.
With this in mind I have thrown together a mockup of the [i]Wolf3D[/i] main menu:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/xMNIYfz.png[/img]
This is the result of manual editing of a DOS version screenshot that has been resized to 640x480 using nearest neighbour scaling.
Initially I wanted to try polishing a high-resolution, aspect-corrected version of the "Options" title as well, but this Gothic styled font would need to be completely redrawn to look good in high resolution, which is something beyond my ability. However I checked out the Mac version of the game and it doesn't scale up or correct the "Get Psyched!" message during level loading ([url=http://i.imgur.com/vqCCy1d.png]screenshot[/url]), which actually is good enough on its own. In fact, it might very well be the case that this font was not created with aspect correction in mind.
The pistol could use some re-drawing by an artist as well, but I just smoothed the edges for now.
Do you think this could be implemented in ECWolf as an optional mod at least?