Ye old purpose and disclaimers
The Window Mask and Color Addition/Subtraction registers are pretty poorly documented, so here's what I've figured out through trial and error. Note that my trial and error was in an emulated SNES environment, so if ZSNES has it wrong then I probably do too. Also, I've probably not found all of the special cases and features, so don't consider this the authoritative guide.
Mask Windows
Each Background layer in the SNES can be clipped using the Window Mask registers. The SNES has two of these mask windows, and the left and right sides of each mask window can be controlled independently. The top and bottom edges cannot be set at all (see section on IRQ tricks for a work-around). When a mask is enabled, the contents of the background covered by the mask is not drawn. Each mask window can be enabled for each background individually, ie BG1 could have windows 1 and 2 enabled while BG2 has window 1 only and BG3 has no windows enabled. The window's right and left edges are in absolute screen X coordinates, in other words the scroll settings of the backgrounds do not affect the mask region.
The two mask windows can be combined to form a "supermask". The areas of the windows can be ORed, ANDed, XORed, or XNORed together. For example, if Window 1 and 2 are XORed together, any area where the windows overlap will be "unmasked" while areas with no overlap are masked. XNOR is even stranger, since overlapping areas and areas that neither window cover are masked while areas covered by a single window are unmasked. It is left as an exercise to the reader to find a use for these modes. There is an additional bit that swaps the covered area of a window; ie instead of the window's area being masked, the window's area is unmasked while uncovered area is masked. Confused? How about some cute ASCII images to illustrate the modes (+ is unmasked space, # is masked space, assume a 10x4 pixel screen for the examples):
Window Mask 1: On, non-inverted, Left=2 Right=4
Window Mask 2: Off
OR mode
0123456789ABCDEF
++###+++++++++++
++###+++++++++++
++###+++++++++++
++###+++++++++++
Window Mask 1: On, inverted, Left=2 Right=4
Window Mask 2: Off
OR mode
0123456789ABCDEF
##+++###########
##+++###########
##+++###########
##+++###########
Window Mask 1: On, non-inverted, left=2 Right=4
Window Mask 2: On, non-inverted, Left=8 Right=12
OR mode
0123456789ABCDEF
++###+++#####+++
++###+++#####+++
++###+++#####+++
++###+++#####+++
Window Mask 1: On, non-inverted, left=2, Right=9
Window Mask 2: On, non-inverted, Left=7 Right=12
OR mode
0123456789ABCDEF
++###########+++
++###########+++
++###########+++
++###########+++
Window Mask 1: On, non-inverted, left=2, Right=9
Window Mask 2: On, non-inverted, Left=7 Right=12
AND mode
0123456789ABCDEF
+++++++###++++++
+++++++###++++++
+++++++###++++++
+++++++###++++++
Window Mask 1: On, non-inverted, left=2, Right=9
Window Mask 2: On, non-inverted, Left=7 Right=12
XOR mode
0123456789ABCDEF
++#####+++###+++
++#####+++###+++
++#####+++###+++
++#####+++###+++
Window Mask 1: On, Inverted, left=2 Right=12
Window Mask 2: On, non-inverted, Left=9 Right=10
OR mode
0123456789ABCDEF
##+++++++##+####
##+++++++##+####
##+++++++##+####
##+++++++##+####
Get the idea? Good. The mask OR/AND/XOR/XNOR mode is set independently for each background layer, so BG1 could be XOR while BG2 is OR, etc. This is a good place to note that the OBJ layer and the fixed color add/subtract value can also be masked with win1 and win2. The fixed color value is explained in the section on Fixed Color Addition/Subtraction later in this document.
The registers controlling the mask windows are pretty simple once you've figured out the above diagrams:
$2126 w1 Window 1 Left [WH0] -- Obviously, Window 1's left X coordinate
$2127 w1 Window 1 Right [WH1] -- Obviously, Window 1's right X coordinate
$2128 w1 Window 2 Left [WH2] -- Obviously, Window 2's left X coordinate
$2129 w1 Window 2 Right [WH3] -- Obviously, Window 2's right X coordinate
$2123 w1 ABCDEFGH Window mask settings for BG1 and BG2 [W12SEL]
A=Enable Window 2 on BG2
C=Enable Window 1 on BG2
E=Enable Window 2 on BG1
G=Enable Window 1 on BG1
B=Invert Window 2 on BG2
D=Invert Window 1 on BG2
F=Invert Window 2 on BG1
H=Invert Window 1 on BG1
$2124 w1 ABCDEFGH Window mask settings for BG3 and BG4 [W34SEL]
A=Enable Window 2 on BG4
C=Enable Window 1 on BG4
E=Enable Window 2 on BG3
G=Enable Window 1 on BG3
B=Invert Window 2 on BG4
D=Invert Window 1 on BG4
F=Invert Window 2 on BG3
H=Invert Window 1 on BG3
$2125 w1 ABCDEFGH Window mask settings for OBJ layer and Fixed Color +/- [WOBJSEL]
A=Enable Window 2 on Color
C=Enable Window 1 on Color
E=Enable Window 2 on OBJ
G=Enable Window 1 on OBJ
B=Invert Window 2 on Color
D=Invert Window 1 on Color
F=Invert Window 2 on OBJ
H=Invert Window 1 on OBJ
$212A w1 AABBCCDD Mask Combination Logic for BG1 to BG4 [WBGLOG]
A=BG4 (00=OR 01=AND 10=XOR 11=XNOR)
B=BG3 (00=OR 01=AND 10=XOR 11=XNOR)
C=BG2 (00=OR 01=AND 10=XOR 11=XNOR)
D=BG1 (00=OR 01=AND 10=XOR 11=XNOR)
$212B w1 0000AABB Mask Combination Logic for OBJ and Fixed Color +/- [WOBJLOG]
A=Color (00=OR 01=AND 10=XOR 11=XNOR)
B=OBJ (00=OR 01=AND 10=XOR 11=XNOR)
$212E w1 000ABCDE Window Mask Enable for Main Screen [TMW]
**These Bits must be set for windows to work at all**
A=OBJ
B=BG4
C=BG3
D=BG2
E=BG1
$212E w1 000ABCDE Window Mask Enable for Main Screen [TMW]
**These Bits must be set for windows to work at all**
Sub-screens are used in color +/- as explained later in this doc
A=OBJ
B=BG4
C=BG3
D=BG2
E=BG1
Fixed Color Addition / Subtraction
One of the color addition/subtraction modes allows a fixed color value to be added to either the whole screen or the area covered (or the inverse of the area covered) by the window masks defined for "Fixed Color +/-" as listed above. The fixed color value is set by register $2132, which has a bit for Red, Green, and Blue, and a 5-bit luminance value. This limits the hue of the fixed color to one of the 8 primary and secondary colors, but allows 32 levels of intensity of these colors. Don't ask me why, I sure didn't design it. The "color window" can be enabled for the Main screen or the Sub screen (but I can't figure out why, since the sub-screen is useless in fixed color mode as far as I can tell) Each background layer can have color +/- enabled or disabled individually. Some applications of this mode are to darken or lighten a particular region of a background layer. I've personally used it to create shadow and lighting effects; I set up HDMA transfers to alter the left and right position of a window every scanline to create non-rectangular shapes. I've also used it to darken the backgroundsbehind text, creating a sort of translucent text window; I set vertical IRQs at the top and bottom scanline of the window and in the handlers enable and disable the color subtraction, creating a box that does not extend to the top or bottom of the screen like the windows normally do. See IRQ tricks later in the document for more detail.
$2132 w1 BGRDDDDD Fixed Color Data for Fixed Color +/- [COLDATA]
B=Blue bit
G=Green bit
R=Red bit
D=Luminance value
$2131 w1 MRGSABCD Addition/Subtraction Enable per Layer [CGADSUB]
M=1/0:Add/Subtract mode
R=God only knows what this is supposed to do
G=backdrop area (ie no background covers it)
S=OBJs
A=BG4
B=BG3
C=BG2
D=BG1
$2130 w1 AABB00EF Fixed Color/Sub-Screen add/subtract enables [CGWSEL]
A=Fixed Color Reportedly Sub-Screen mode, but makes no sense
B=Fixed Color Main Screen Mode (00=Always, 01=Window masked 10=inverted window masked 11=Never)
E=0/1:Enable Fixed color/Enable Sub-Screen add-subtract (thus sub-screen and fixed color can't be combined?)
F=Something unknown, related to 256-color "VGA style" drawing mode in screen modes 3,4, and 7
Sub-Screen Color Addition/Subtraction
Ever wanted to make some transparent bubbles or clouds or something? Use Sub-Screens to do it. A sub-screen can have background layers and window masks just like the main screen. However, the sub-screen is not directly displayed; instead it can be added or subtracted from the main screen just like the Fixed Color mode. To enable this mode, set $2130 to $02 and enable some background layers for the sub-screen. The $2131 register works just like Fixed mode.
$213D w1 000ABCDE Sub-Screen Layer enables [TD]
A=OBJs
B=BG4
C=BG3
D=BG2
E=BG1
IRQ Tricks
The window mask registers by themselves are of damn little use; they can trim unwanted edges of playing fields (for example to hide garbage from the game field decompression algorithm) or do some simple wipe/pan effects. The lack of control over the top and bottom edges is annoying, as is the fixed rectangular shape. Well, there are clever ways around these problems if you don't mind a little extra complexity in your program.
To control the top and bottom of a window, you can set the Vertical IRQ to go off at the appropriate scanline. In the first interrupt, turn on the window mask and setup the scanline for the next IRQ. In the second IRQ, turn off the window mask and reset the scanline for the first IRQ. Poof, you now have a fully relocatable mask window.
It is even easier to do the same thing using HDMA, actually.
To create a mask window of arbitrary shape (for example a circular view that shrinks like the end of a Loony Toons cartoon or something) you can setup HDMA transfers to the window left and right registers; setup the left and right data in memory and setup HDMA to update the left and right from this table every scanline. Congrats, you now have a non-rectangular mask region.
Complete Source Code: HDMA-Sub-Screen-Mask-Window-Tutorial.7z
© 2001 Realtime Simulations and Roleplaying Games By Grog