This is a Work in progress page to list interesting articles on 2D graphics techniques to create cool effects.

2D Graphics effects

Mega Drive graphics tricks

GameHut explains how a Mega Drive graphics glitch could be used to produce an image effect. This is an example of software deliberately exploiting hardware behaviour.

How Doom’s Melting Screen Works

The YouTuber decino has created an excellent video explaining how the 2d melting screen transition works in the original Doom. It is well worth a watch!

Pseudo 3d Roads

For information on how to create 2D games that look pseudo 3d (e.g outrun) Check out: Lou’s Pseudo 3d Page

3D Graphics effects

Sonic special stages

GameHut examines the rendering tricks behind Sonic’s special stages. The explanation is useful when distinguishing an apparent 3D scene from the operations used to draw it.

Mickey Mania’s chase sequence

GameHut breaks down the 3D-style chase in Mickey Mania. The sequence provides another example of creating depth within a 16-bit console’s graphics limits.

Toy Story’s pseudo-3D rendering

GameHut explains how Toy Story produced a 3D-style sequence on the Mega Drive. It is a useful companion to the other examples of building depth from limited rendering hardware.

Sonic R’s “Impossible” Fading transparency

The video by GameHut provides a technical breakdown of a challenging graphical achievement on the Sega Saturn: implementing transparent object fading despite the hardware’s limitations.

The Saturn’s sprite-based polygon rendering caused transparency corruption when polygons were distorted, leading to objects popping in, as seen in Daytona. The solution involved a clever two-step process called “twelve layer transparency”: first, stripping away the polygon’s Gouraud shading by storing and calculating three additional sets of lighting data [03:43], and then using the Saturn’s eight available color calculation ratio hardware registers to fade the now-unlit texture over the background [04:07].