Sprite Scaling

As game hardware improved, sprite scaling became a popular technique, first for arcade games in the 1980s and then console games in the 1990s. Scaling allowed for characters, items or other sprites to smoothly grow or shrink on the fly, creating a 2.5D effect.

The first games to use sprite-scaling were arcade driving/racing games, by companies such as Sega and Namco; some of the earliest examples included Sega's Fonz (1976) and Turbo (1981), Namco's Pole Position (1982), and Sega's SubRoc-3D (1982) and Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom (1982). Sprite-scaling was later popularized by Sega's powerful Super Scaler arcade graphics boards, which were capable of scaling thousands of sprites every second; some of Sega's popular Super Scaler arcade games included Hang-On (1985), Space Harrier (1985), Out Run (1986), After Burner (1987), Thunder Blade (1987), and Galaxy Force (1988).

Among home systems, the Neo•Geo arcade-based console was notorious for utilizing sprite scaling in its fighting games to simulate a camera "zooming" in and out of the actions depending on how close the combatants were to each other. Another popular type of sprite-scaling was Mode 7, used to scale and rotate backgrounds for various SNES console games. The ray casting method was yet another popular form of sprite-scaling, most commonly used for first-person shooters on the PC during the 1990s.