Color Conversion

[fishy_fiz]

Sorry, re-reading that back it sounded harsher than I intended.

A few typos, or misplaced words, etc. What Id meant was more along the lines of:

"I mean no offense, but I thought that converted pretty bad. Look at the graphics closely for example. There's been considerable detail lost by automatic palette conversion".

Sorry, I dont mean to drone on it, just wanted to "correct" it 'cos I felt I came across too harshly (which was then repeated by XDelusion as well  

@XDelusion

So basically you want all the graphics using a universal 256 color palette?
Are there any "rules" in regards to palette indexes with different types of graphics (for example, do backgrounds, walls, floors, etc. use 1st 128 colors and "objects" use last 128?). Not an actual question by the way, just as an example of what I mean by "rules" to the palette.

Also, where did you obtain the graphics? Im looking for a fun, mostly gfx oriented project to play with at the moment, and have some free time, so Im happy to finally help you with some sort of AB3d "conversion" game if you'd like?

[XDelusion]

Sorry, re-reading that back it sounded harsher than I intended.

A few typos, or misplaced words, etc. What Id meant was more along the lines of:

"I mean no offense, but I thought that converted pretty bad. Look at the graphics closely for example. There's been considerable detail lost by automatic palette conversion".

Sorry, I dont mean to drone on it, just wanted to "correct" it 'cos I felt I came across too harshly (which was then repeated by XDelusion as well  

@XDelusion

So basically you want all the graphics using a universal 256 color palette?
Are there any "rules" in regards to palette indexes with different types of graphics (for example, do backgrounds, walls, floors, etc. use 1st 128 colors and "objects" use last 128?). Not an actual question by the way, just as an example of what I mean by "rules" to the palette.

Also, where did you obtain the graphics? Im looking for a fun, mostly gfx oriented project to play with at the moment, and have some free time, so Im happy to finally help you with some sort of AB3d "conversion" game if you'd like?

Glad you came back to save that one, I felt bad for the guy after he made a submission then you came and and appeared to dog his efforts. With a little work they could have been cleaned up, but still I gotta rework my palette first.

I would gladly take some help, I think I lost your e-mail address, so if you want to PM me it, I'll send you my current work and explain things a but more in detail. Would be great to have some help on this project!!!

EDIT: Actually I'll just host it all somewhere once I get through this palette, then I'll PM ya!

[matthey]

 What tools are you using anyhow? And thank you again! Very much!

For 256 and less palette mapped colors, it's hard to beat Personal Paint for color palette conversions:

http://aminet.net/biz/cloan/PPaint.lha

You simply load the picture with the palette you want and edit it to your taste. Now load the pictures with the old palette as a brush with "Brush->Load..." from the menu and choose the menu option "Brush->Color->Remap" to map to the new picture and palette. Now save your brush and you have the same palette at least. This will not make your green meany a red meany. You will have to find another method for this. I don't know of an easy way that will do a good job without messing with the colors you don't want to affect. You may be able to do some kind of a stencil of colors you don't want changed then adjust global color settings or you may have to go in and manually swap color pens and adjust your palette some more.

[fishy_fiz]

The tricky part so far with my experiments is that when the monster is green it uses some greys for shading on its arms. When changing palette indexes to instead use reds the greys for shading no longer looks right. Unfortunately the same palette indexes for those greys are used elsewhere so you cant just change them to a new color.

I did this mock-up to show what I mean,....

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/14/a1bmanualpallete2.png/

As you can see the right hand and lower forearm look all wrong and messy 'cos of the greys. I manually retouched the left side though, just by matching brightness levels of greys and reds in the palette. Worked ok, but a bit time consuming

[DamageX]

I used a BASIC program to change the green shades to red. Tried tweaking the rule a few times but I ran into the problem that fishy mentioned of not being able to distinguish effectively between some of the grey/green pixels. I also tried to boost the red intensity a bit like the pic in the first post but most of it was lost again during the palette conversion step which was done with this

[XDelusion]

Here is an updated palette, I have scrapped a couple textures which looked out of place anyhow and used their colors towards adding more reds and a couple more dark greens.

If you guys are up for it, feel free to play around with it and see if you can get better results.

In the mean time I'm going to organize what I've got and upload it for Fish. If anyone is interested in doing some graphical work, mapping, or what have you, feel free to PM me and I'll happily share with you my resources and general road map.

FISH: I'll be in touch later on today, thank you!!!

[XDelusion]

Alright, Fish I have send you three PM's describing (haphazardly) my general road map for the project. I kept running out of room to type that's why there are three messages. Sorry.

 In regards to the color conversion process to turn this guy from green to red, if you guys don't have any luck this time and are starting to get burned out, let me know.

In regards to your latest submission Fish...

He's looking a lot better me thinks, not bad at all!!!

I think with the limited color palette that in some cases we will just have to settle with the best we can get. It seems that the original Alien Breed 3D used a color palette far beyond the limit of 256 colors, so I just took all the sprites and textures I would be using and made a compromise between all the colors they would be using, along with the colors of some of the new textures and sprites I have created or barrowed from earlier games.

Thankx again to both of your for your time!

[Karlos]

@XDelusion

Regarding AB3D 1, as far as I recall, it used a chunky copperscreen display capable of 4096 colours* (hence the blocky 2x2 mode it was stuck with). At least that's a feature it advertises on the blurb on the box on my copy. If true, it wouldn't surprise me if it was able to use sprites with various different palettes, even if not using some sort of RGB-12 format.

*you only have to look at partially flooded areas to see that the water adds a tint to everything immersed in it that would be impractical for a palette based display to cope with.

[XDelusion]

I figured there was some Amiga Magick going on.

No worries though, Fish's last contribution was really good, just needed a few tweaks to the sprites and I would have used it. With the new Palette I think it can be a little bit better, even using shortcut tools.