Mode 7? Isn't that the graphics engine used in the original F Zero (on the SNES)? If I remember correctly, that was the only game they ever advertised that graphics system for (and perhaps the only game they ever used it in...lol)

I believe that it involves a graphic for the "map", which is laid "flat", and then it is populated with "standing" sprites for all objects (as if the map was laid out on the X-Y plane, and the sprites rise up along the Z axis)...

F Zero worked by rotating the "map" as you turned your car... The car itself remained stationary (aside from some sprite changes for turning, damage, boost, etc animation) and the map was moved under it...

I put "mode 7 graphics explained" into a Yahoo! search, and came up with some decent results... Try that for more info (one of them even gave a bit of code to handle mode 7 graphics)

[Edit:] Actually, although I'm not sure that I'm entirely correct, here is how I believe it works:

The graphic for the map is "squashed" into the bottom portion of the screen, most likely by scaling it disproportionately in height (like resizing a picture in an image editor, and shriking it more in height than in width)...

This will make it look as if it is laying flat under the sprites... "Perspectivized" as one of the sites I read puts it...

To simulate a horizon, any part of the map that is a certain number of pixels above the level of the player's view is not shown... Then, when the player moves forward, more of the map in that direction is revealed... Scrolling, basically...

When the player turns, the map must be rotated... This is probably the hardest part of the whole thing, since you've got to rotate the unsquashed image, then resquash it each time...lol

AbyssDragon wrote:

It was used in quite a few SNES games, actually. Mario Kart used it, and FF6 used it when you flew around the airship. There were probably some more I'm not remembering right now.

-AbyssDragon

I might be misremembering, but I think that it was used for other scaling/rotating/warping effects, too. I've heard it mentioned in conjunction with Super Mario World 1 & 2, for example.