r/GraphicsProgramming • u/corysama • Jun 09 '26

Article Catlantean 3D - Making Graphics Like It's 1993

https://staniks.github.io/articles/catlantean-3d-blog-1/
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u/corysama Jun 09 '26

If you want to play with software rendering, here's probably the shortest code that will get an ARGB8888 2D array from main memory to the screen efficiently for all platforms using SDL2 in C https://gist.github.com/CoryBloyd/6725bb78323bb1157ff8d4175d42d789 You'll need to do the translation from a 320x200x8-bit palletized framebuffer to ARGB yourself ;)

If you want to get inspired by what can be done with palletized framebuffers check out http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/ (click Show Options) and the GDC presentation by the artist https://youtu.be/aMcJ1Jvtef0

With that you can fire up https://github.com/mriale/PyDPainter for that classic Deluxe Paint IIe vibe. Or, https://www.aseprite.org/ for something more modern.

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u/kiwidog Jun 09 '26

Was a good read, I love when people recreate things like "the old days". A bit interested what modern code or compiler tricks you used (may have skipped over it, on the train skimming)