you’ve been WIREFRAMED
The Playstation’s graphical hardware was a major step change from previous generations – here’s how 2D and 3D scenes were constructed
Even though Playstation sprites are defined as rectangular objects with four points, the Playstation GPU can only draw triangular polygons and thus internally draws every sprite as two polygons joined together.
It’s easy to mix 2D and 3D elements on the Playstation, and you can see that the sea, sky and clock tower in the background are all true polygonal objects, albeit simple ones.
Playstation sprites are basically just rectangular objects with a texture mapped onto them, and they can’t be shaded but are very quick to draw. They can be 8x8, 16x16 like the foreground tiles or free width and height like Richter.
Here’s a scene from Croc: Legend Of The Gobbos. Key elements to focus on in this scene are Croc, the collectable items, the path on the ground and the objects further in the distance.
Shading and colour are used to provide extra environmental detail in the background, around the lava and on the crate, walls and well. Gouraud shading is utilised, giving a smoother appearance than flat shading.
The huge white surfaces here show how heavily texture mapping is used to add environmental detail. Even in arcades, this was a new form of technology – the first textured 3D games had only appeared in 1993.
Croc himself is largely intact, as his cartoonish appearance allows for most of his detail to be conveyed in colour alone. However, his backpack and tail are missing their details, which were added with textures.
The wireframe shows us that the flat, repeating grass areas are made up of regular polygons. The irregularly shaped stone path is achieved by distorting the polygons, altering the path without needing extra textures.
These flat boxes representing the items are always facing the camera directly, as they’re 2D objects drawn in a 3D space. As each object is represented with minimal polygon usage, this approach allows extra detail elsewhere.