Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2021 4:54 pm Post subject:
RA2/YR Palette Chart
Help me complete/correct this palette colors chart please, here's what I've found so far:
[0] = transparent
[1] = shadow
[2..15] = pure colors
[16..31] = player color remap
[32..199] = common colors used for vxl and shp
[200..203] = more common colors, useful for enhancing reds
[204..207] = unused
[208..239] = theater color remap
[240..254] = glow colors, unaffected by game lighting
[255] = unused
edit4: updated picture...
ra2-palette-map.jpg
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Last edited by Zorbung on Mon Dec 27, 2021 4:41 am; edited 4 times in total QUICK_EDIT
The pink region near the end is filled in on unitsno, but for whatever reason they left it out of the others. What I and others do is simply overwrite the others with the snow palette so they all match, the rest of the colours are the same.
Ironically each theater version could be slightly different to account for the tonality of being under an overcast vs sunny sky, but they share the VPL so it would require a lot of finessing to make sure the gradient curves still work... and thus no one will attempt it.
But to explain your numbered bands, they aren't meaningful except the remap, blank (0) and shadow (1) indexes. The default VPL considers 2-15 and 240+ to be perma-bright, as in they do not change under rotation on a voxel. There's nothing stopping a modder changing those colours and making their own custom VPL to incorporate them into the lighting schema like the other ranges. However there is some utility in having the last 16 as perma-bright for things like headlights or jet engines on voxels.
There's no range just for voxels, all voxels use the full unit*.pal appropriate for the map theater, as do buildings by default. You'll find the majority of voxels even dip into the perma-bright regions from conversion errors. The way to stop this is to make conversion palettes that pink-out the tonal ranges that shouldn't be converted into. _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
Well again the "unused" part is only true if you use the original palettes, and lately more mods are moving away from the original Westwood limitations. My own palette has almost every field changed, and a vastly different VPL to go with it. So what I'm saying is those shouldn't be treated as special, the editor should be able to use them like any other. Likewise "blood" is just red, do you call a firetruck blood coloured?
There are no limits, I was just charting them for my own interest. As for the 4 reds I read somewhere they are used for infantry blood on some SHP that's why the naming.
Like you did, I'd like to fill up the unused colors, some brown shades for the desert theater etc, but I wasn't sure if some of those indices were usable or reserved. Thanks again! QUICK_EDIT
You know there was a modenc entry for this right?
https://modenc.renegadeprojects.com/PAL _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
Yes, but if you read it it's not very explicit and the only chart I've found is Haydn's jpg on https://xhp.xwis.net > Documents > VXL Palet FAQ which is also a bit messed up.
It's one of those things that advanced modders already know and they assume everyone else knows and never talk about so I was only trying to make things more clear. QUICK_EDIT
Picture and info on first post are conveying wrong information.
[2-15] - There is no highlighting or VPL connection. These are generic indices in unit*.pal, though similar ones in palette.pal are used for building selection box in TS.
[32-239] - These are also generic colors. The gradient, unused or theater differences are just the way original game has used it. Modders can change as needed. VPL is a separate file and it can be edited to make use of the unused ones in the original palette. Calling it blood or theater remap is misleading.
[240-254] - These are not affected by map lighting, so are also referred as glowing color indices. Index 255 is affected by map lighting. QUICK_EDIT
Picture and info on first post are conveying wrong information.
Didn't have room to write a wall of text in a little picture, so the names are just guides but I will update it if it sounds wrong. Btw I see someone put in on Modenc, I can't update that though.
I read that too but is meant for TS and talking in "look at this and this and see how this looks like afterwards" doesn't make it a good tutorial... I also took the "blood" info from there which actually makes sense, why else would there be 4 isolated reds? Sure they can be used for other things, it's just a naming.
E1 Elite wrote:
[2-15] - There is no highlighting or VPL connection. These are generic indices in unit*.pal, though similar ones in palette.pal are used for building selection box in TS.
so what are [2-15] for in YR then? unused? Heritage from TS? Are they safe to change?
E1 Elite wrote:
[240-254] - These are not affected by map lighting, so are also referred as glowing color indices.
how is that different than calling them VPL highlights, isn't the same thing? why is that misleading?
E1 Elite wrote:
Index 255 is affected by map lighting.
what is 255 used for then? just an isolated color? is it reserved for something like [0] and [1]? QUICK_EDIT
the highlight colors arent limited to voxels and work on .shp art, too. _________________ visit my moddb profile for .shp downloads and stuff QUICK_EDIT
The default VPL considers 2-15 and 240+ to be perma-bright
Not true, see the attachment. In the default VPL none of the colors are unlit (well 0 is, but it renders transparent anyway). In addition colors 204-254 are magenta (unused).
Zorbung wrote:
E1 Elite wrote:
[240-254] - These are not affected by map lighting, so are also referred as glowing color indices.
how is that different than calling them VPL highlights, isn't the same thing? why is that misleading?
Associating them with the VPL is misleading, the default VPL does not support these colors like SHPs do. See the attachment. A modder can easily modify the VPL to produce the same unlit color effect though, as I did for TI.
In other words, if you want to be specific, calling them something like "Unlit colors [SHP]" would be more accurate.
Zorbung wrote:
E1 Elite wrote:
Index 255 is affected by map lighting.
what is 255 used for then? just an isolated color? is it reserved for something like [0] and [1]?
Just an isolated color, pure white in many of the palettes. It servers no special function AFAIK.
Thanks Crimsonum, I've updated the picture, let me know if it's still wrong.
One thing I don't get, how can a voxel use temp/snow theater colors while the other palettes are pink? When starting a desert map, does the game checks for that pink and falls back to unittem or what? QUICK_EDIT
When these palettes are used by .shp buildings/units, they do not adjust brightness according to VPL, they obey they map lighting instead. With .shp art those perma-bright colour ranges aren't affected by map lighting.
Again I reiterate, those perma-bright ranges are NOT unused, many voxels use them, whether accidentally or deliberately, they are used. If you open VXLSE or SHP Builder, you'll see they come included with scripts to "kill perma-bright pixels" which just means replacing those with the normal ranges in the middle.
The reason the pink ranges in unittem are unused by voxels is there's no point to use them without something there in every theater. Unlike .shp art there's no theater-specific voxel art, although Ares/Phobos could allow this... _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
Thanks Crimsonum, I've updated the picture, let me know if it's still wrong.
Seems mostly right. The "shadow" color #1 is technically not a special color. It's simply a convention, and maybe some kind of optimization measure, to use it for shadow frames, but you can just as easily use any other color and it'll work fine.
I don't know if colors 2-15 are actually unused in all of RA2/YR, but they're normal colors as well.
G-E wrote:
Again I reiterate, those perma-bright ranges are NOT unused, many voxels use them, whether accidentally or deliberately, they are used. If you open VXLSE or SHP Builder, you'll see they come included with scripts to "kill perma-bright pixels" which just means replacing those with the normal ranges in the middle.
I think you misunderstand. Only colors 240-254 are so-called "perma-bright" (unlit) on SHP units/buildings using unit*.pal palette. This is a hardcoded engine feature. The voxel normals "palette" (VPL) does NOT have this feature, not by default at least. If you use colors 240-254 on a voxel without touching the VPL, those colors will appear magenta in-game (or green, but that's another topic). However, modders can edit that range of colors in the VPL to produce the same effect that SHPs have, for voxels.
I dunno why the editor scripts include colors 2-15, perhaps an oversight/misconception by early modders. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
I think you misunderstand. Only colors 240-254 are so-called "perma-bright" (unlit) on SHP units/buildings using unit*.pal palette. This is a hardcoded engine feature. The voxel normals "palette" (VPL) does NOT have this feature, not by default at least.
It's been a long time since I had the default VPL, but as I recall some of those pixels were available for use and even when they didn't turn pink they were bright. They may have changed slightly, but if relative to the rest they were brighter anyway, it would match the idea of it, just not perfectly.
There's also Atomicnoodle's publicly released VPL which a lot of people use. I don't remember the specifics, but it had some stuff I really didn't like about it. _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
After doing some tests, VPL uses most colors except the glowing ones, so I've updated the picture again.
But I still don't understand how theater colors are being used. Voxels don't use that color range and default VPL doesn't use it either yet I can see some difference in voxels on snow maps, how are those theater colors applied? QUICK_EDIT
that chunk was occupied in tibsun with some of the colors that were in the theater palettes but, as far as i know, they
never really used them and were redundant. in red alert 2, the palette simply has them as blank colors, and they
never bothered to fill them in. notice that they left in two of the brown color schemes but have very little green or blue.
you could say that westwood poorly optimized its palette _________________ visit my moddb profile for .shp downloads and stuff QUICK_EDIT
Ah I see now, the theater colors are only for SHP and voxels don't use them at all by default. I was confused because some voxels looked kinda shinier on snow maps but it was just an illusion QUICK_EDIT
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RA2/YR Palette Chart
