Method to bullet hitbox madness?

[Moniker]

This has been a problem for me with cave for some time: bullets are often bigger than their hitboxes. Is there some sort of visual cue I'm missing that tells you how big the bullet really is? Or do you just have to experiment and learn on a case-by-case basis?

The question mostly arises from trying to train in Futari. Obviously this extends to most cave titles - it also gets me in DDP/DOJ, DS, etc. I'll sometimes survive even when my ship becomes entirely obscured by a bullet wave. Would be nice to harness this power for intentional use.

[Erppo]

All cave bullets only check collision by the center pixel. No matter how much their sprite sizes may differ.

[Moniker]

Wow - I would've never guessed. Very helpful, thanks.

[AntiFritz]

Wow - I would've never guessed. Very helpful, thanks.

I thought that was common knowledge? I know some shmups like touhou project have bullets of various size with various hitbox sizes.

[Deca]

Wait, seriously? Even giant weird ones like the 4th boss of Futari and 2nd boss of Muchi Muchi Pork?

[Bananamatic]

you must feel the hitbox

[Erppo]

Wait, seriously? Even giant weird ones like the 4th boss of Futari and 2nd boss of Muchi Muchi Pork?

Those don't really count as bullets. There is some stuff like that with actual hitboxes but they are rare exceptions and should always be pretty obvious. Other examples that come to mind are the DDP stage 5 boss fireballs and the laser spheres in DFK.

[Moniker]

you must feel the hitbox

To date, this method has not worked to my advantage.

[RNGmaster]

In most games with actual bullet hitbox sizes, the hitbox roughly coincides with a center area that is either lighter or darker than the rest of the bullet (see Eden's Aegis, Touhou).

RNGmaster Fan X! ^-^~

[ncp]

All cave bullets only check collision by the center pixel. No matter how much their sprite sizes may differ.

lol wut

all cave bullets, except like half of them

[Blackbird]

I think the only way to know for sure is simple trial and error. Pretty tedious, but it's the only way to be certain.

[stryc9]

I would say the Yagawa games would be the exception, as there are plenty of projectiles in those games which are not standard bullets. Plenty of long narrow rockets, green spheres etc.

[Erppo]

All cave bullets only check collision by the center pixel. No matter how much their sprite sizes may differ.

lol wut

all cave bullets, except like half of them

I assume you have some counterexamples. These for example don't count:


I did forget Yagawa games though, they use a lot of non-standard stuff.

[Sumez]

One pixel hitboxes are hell a lot easier to collision detect on

[dunpeal2064]

All cave bullets only check collision by the center pixel. No matter how much their sprite sizes may differ.

lol wut

all cave bullets, except like half of them

I assume you have some counterexamples. These for example don't count:


I did forget Yagawa games though, they use a lot of non-standard stuff.

Damn, there go all the counterexamples

It almost seems like Yagawa got tired of people complaining that they couldn't see his bullets, so he made them way oversized in MMP/PS

[Udderdude]

And here I thought the all big fluffy marshmallow bullets had hitboxes of their own. :3

Well, personally, I made different sized hitboxes for all of the bullets in XOP .. although they do tend to be on the small side >_>

[Dave_K.]

Wow - I would've never guessed. Very helpful, thanks.

You might want to read this thread (particularly Barfhappy's post). Not only are cave bullets one pixel in size, they only perform collision detection once every 2 frames. Meaning, bullets can actually pass through you on rare occasions.

LOL @ Cave making us feel like we are better than we actually are!

In contrast, Yagawa's Pink Sweets use real hitboxes of various sizes. Some bullets (and projectiles) even have multiple hitboxes.

[Sumez]

In contrast, Yagawa's Pink Sweets use real hitboxes of various sizes. Some bullets (and projectiles) even have multiple hitboxes.

I'd been wondering how those angled "pointy" bullets in Yagawa games managed to do their hitboxes, since I can't imagine legacy arcade hardware doing trigonometry very effectively with a billion bullets on screen to check, so I figured it was probably something lazy like that - it feels good to actually see it confirmed. Thanks.