[REQ] 256 colors palette

Parasite03

Hi guys! In my opinion Ares should have implementer simething like a generic palette that will be used for all buildings if its defined and if some tag is set to yes. Like this:
[General]
GenericPalette=genpal.pal; name of palette including the .pal extension
GenereiacPaletteOn=yes; defaults to no. Enables the generic palette for all images icnluding theatre-specific images and all other images ingame. Is ignored if generic palette is not set and is the file is invalid.

[TechnoType] or [OverlayType] or [TerrainType] or [WhateverType]
UseGenPalette=yes ;defaults to no. if set to yes - enables the generic palette for this unit/building/something else

And the generic palette should be windows 256-colors palette.

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Atomic_Noodles · Defense Minister **Joined**: 05 Oct 2011

This was the case for Red Alert & Tiberian Dawn where everything was under palette.pal

Besides you can specify custom palettes now...

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4StarGeneral · General **Joined**: 14 Sep 2006 **Location**: Limbo

IMO, custom palettes make this redundant, not to mention you can get BETTER colors with custom palettes than with a generic palette.

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Parasite03 · Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 4:04 pm Post subject:

Custom palettes can't be applied to most of the stuff like UI, terrain and overlay.
Well, if RA2 uses 6bit, then the coders should be able to make it be either 6bit as it was or 24bit which is perfect because it contains enogh colors to draw anything you want.
So it's like RA2 that uses RBG. That would be awesome cause no need for making palettes is awesome.

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CCHyper · Defense Minister **Joined**: 07 Apr 2005

Parasite03 wrote:

Custom palettes can't be applied to most of the stuff like UI, terrain and overlay.
Well, if RA2 uses 6bit, then the coders should be able to make it be either 6bit as it was or 24bit which is perfect because it contains enogh colors to draw anything you want.
So it's like RA2 that uses RBG. That would be awesome cause no need for making palettes is awesome.

It's as easy as changing one byte!

Graion Dilach · Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 4:13 pm Post subject:

A color on a RA2 palette uses 6 bits per channel, which means that the RA2 palette can theoretically support 6^3 amount of colors.

On the other hand, the actual amount is different, because the game uses 5B red 6B green and 5B blue output, as having 16 bit for color depth.

On yet another hand, a generic palette which uses 256 colors for everything is as Jem have said it already a stepping-back, which you honestly should do on your own, there's not many pals to replace with the same one for perfect result to achieve that.

Another note is that noone will gonna bother upscale the output of YR from 16bit to 32bit or throwing in 24 bit support for anything. 16 bit depth is already enough for this game, and 24bit would just increase the amount of wasted shades on palettes.

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Nikademis Von Hisson · Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 5:34 pm Post subject:

Parasite03 wrote:

Custom palettes can't be applied to most of the stuff like UI, terrain and overlay.
Well, if RA2 uses 6bit, then the coders should be able to make it be either 6bit as it was or 24bit which is perfect because it contains enogh colors to draw anything you want.
So it's like RA2 that uses RBG. That would be awesome cause no need for making palettes is awesome.

you can make your own pal for terrain, Mig did for DDay. Besides each terrain type needs its own pal. If you create a new pal for the public to use that would screw up all the maps made from day 1 till now, would it not?

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Parasite03 · Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 6:41 pm Post subject:

It wouldnt. If the terrain looks the same with the new pal - the map would look fine too cause maps never had their own palettes!

About the upscaling, it would be useful to have many colors for stuff like UI. In this topic http://www.ppmsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36926
there is a very good UI but some stuff in it looks very wrong because of not enogh colors. Also, have you ever thought that particles do not have their own custom palette system and lots of other things dont have it too. Generic palette would not make people mess with palettes - they draw what the want in photoshop, drop it into a png(RGB)>shp(new format) converter and voila! They drop it ingame and see a perfect smooth image without having to create a palette for it and mess with it when there are not enough colors. Also, you cant speciafy a custom palette, for example, for all units or all buildings. Making a custom palette for each buiolding is not less unconvenient.

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Graion Dilach · Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2014 6:59 pm Post subject:

So... you're asking for a shared palette between everything to fix color bleeding?

Tell me how the hell can you expect that one single universally applied palette can have more colors than individual made-for-specific-asset palettes?!

Because all palettes can only contain 256 colors, no more.

I'm amazed now. You're more stupid than I ever expected.

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"If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more...

ApolloTD · Commander **Joined**: 19 Nov 2003

Parasite... Just stop talking please, you don't understand shit what you talk of.

There is no standard for higher than 256 colors in actual palettes particularly and if there was then SHP Format would need to be rewritten for new version and game coded to handle the advanced version too and make editor too and no chance on that work load being done by alexb...

If you want 24bit... that is no longer using any Palette and frankly 24 bit tells every color directly via its pixel data which is quite filesize demanding compared to palette using and retooling this game to use 24 bit art is not something to wait for like ever?

Best thing is really expanding on custom palettes usability, anything else is nonsense.

FurryQueen · General **Joined**: 24 Jul 2010 **Location**: Liyue

Graion Dilach wrote:

Tell me how the hell can you expect that one single universally applied palette can have more colors than individual made-for-specific-asset palettes?!

Actually, one 24-bit palette would have enough colors available to cover pretty much anything. The request is pretty much useless for sure, but there is some merit to the idea. At least in the sense of creating more vibrant maps or something, but not much else.

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ApolloTD · Commander **Joined**: 19 Nov 2003

Yes it would have but 24 bit is not indexed palette like C&C and current framework can't support more without like all new system entirely atleast not with current SHP as is due to not being able to tell higher value than 255 in single byte.

Else it would sure solve any color issues for good.

Gangster · Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 9:24 am Post subject:

I wonder, if it possible, at least to extend amonut of colours for terrain tiles? Can it be made probably with secondary terrain palette? Be cause even +255(or +510) aditional idexes would be fine. Something like:
lava01-12.TM2 beeing using in-game palette isotem.PA2
iceberg01-12.TM3 with isotem.PA3

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Droke · Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2014 9:29 pm Post subject:

I also would like a way to utilize more palettes for terrain. Converting to temp is always a sad moment with the current limits. Sad

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Mig Eater · Posted: Fri Jan 31, 2014 9:31 am Post subject:

I've been asking for custom terrain pals since RockPatch but I've always been alone in the request, until now it seams...

Alex has said in the past that the terrain code hasn't been touched yet, he would first need to expanded that section of the engine before he can add new parts. There are only 1 or 2 terrain feature he would like to add tho so it's been a very low priority.

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ApolloTD · Commander **Joined**: 19 Nov 2003

Might be best if could add CustomPalette under each Tileset section part, that would solve any terrain palette limits very nice while else defaults to normal theater palette.