OpenArena Message Boards

I CAN    NOTDECIDE

Palette is part of game.
Probably hard coded into tools.
Keep it.

Actually the tools don't really require the palette.

I'm not going to vote on the poll as yet because I'm also undecided, but as someone who hopes to contribute some art to this project I'll offer my views on the palette...  Also, all of this is assuming that making and implementing a new palette is not burdensome.

Since I dug out my old copy of Hexen 2 and did a quick warp around the levels (not an actual playthrough but jumping around to look at stuff), I'd say that where the original game doesn't look as nice as I might like, it's not the palette's fault, but rather level design and theme choice*.  The Mazaera hub in particular had some parts that made good use of various colors.

So I think the question of "should we change the palette", assuming no legal problems using the same one, or problems with the game progs if using a custom one, must first be answered by asking, "What is the vibe we want the game environment to have?"  The H2 palette is a good palette, and I for one think I can work just fine with it.  It gives a more gritty, Conan-ish feel, with a closer coloration to the real world, whereas a somewhat more brightly colored palette, by virtue of seeming that bit more vibrant than the real world, would give a more magical, otherworldly feel, like Hexen 1 had (which, IMHO, was an awesome game visually/thematically for its time.  Blackthorne would be another example of a game that did a more brightly colored palette well for fantasy environments, IMO.)  The danger is overshooting the happy medium between drab and colorful and ending up with something that's TOO colorful and would look garish/cartoony/like crap for this type of game. (Example of what not to be: Heretic 1.  More severe example: Wolfenstein 3D.)

I might put it another way by saying, "Is our game world a 'regular' world that simply contains magic, or is it a world that is magic by its very nature?"  The stock palette works for the first option, one with somewhat punched-up colors, if done well, for the second.  I wouldn't advise making the palette any duller.

* (How appealing themes are is rather subjective of course, but the thing I probably hated most about Hexen 2 was how half-assed it seemed in the theme department, I'd hope for something at least a little more creative than just ripping off ancient mythology wholesale and calling it a "fantasy" word while only renaming the major geographic areas...)

If it helps decision-making any, here's another sampler of what my texture designs look like after some conversions to the stock Hexen 2 palette.
(http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/7274/texturesampler2ug6.th.png) (http://img254.imageshack.us/my.php?image=texturesampler2ug6.png)

Okay, hopefully not going to be in trouble for the triple post, but did any decision get made on this?  Once there's a target palette I'll start sending in my texture contributions.

I can't really decide with less than 5 or 10 votes :(

I guess it would help if you explained what this vote is about. Unless you only want quake artists to vote?

Hi Do you know what 8-bit color is

Hi, this project's engine can use no more than 256 colors?

Hi, ever heard of engine neutrality (backwards compatibility)

No. First time I hear of such concept outside of web designing. Why is this important? For older systems?

Is there a golden rule that states that I should make everything pretty and 32-bit?

No, of course not. But if you have a possibility to make something have more colors, why not? I suppose you don't want for the sake of retro then.

So, now that this project seems to be showing some life signs again, did a decision about the palette ever come out?

i'm not sure. one of the worries from using a new palette is the colormapping of the player colors being remapped to others.
i'm still thinking about making a new palette. it'd have somewhat compatibility with hexen2 though (i.e. the green ramp is a green color but of course, not the same green color, etc)

Nice textures!  I don't have much of an option on this issue, but these certainly look good in the existing palette.

Ah I see the problem with the palette. Way too many shades of brown (two particular shades look exactly alike even), leaving less room for other colors!

Rough draft of my new palette
(http://openarena.ws/fsfps/hakpal.gif)

Looks OK, deeper blues, brighter greens, couple more shades of purple.

BTW, it is my imagination or do the Quake I, Quake II and Hexen II palettes all have a weird (ramp breaking) color at index 168?
[Never mind, my palette viewer is just borken]

Hexen II had a 255,255,255 white for the last color, I am just too familiar with Quake editing so I made it the familiar pink-ish color instead so i know i'm not putting accidental transparencies on my bright sprite effects.

Another wierd annoying issue - the colormap seems to fade to the darkest grey, rather than black?! :(???

Which colormap are you using?
The one in the HexenII demo fades to index #0 in the palette.

A newly generated one lacking overbrights.

The colormap.lmp in SVN seems OK (fades to index #0).

 It may be that the true black is reserved for omition in the alfa channel. It's what is used in MD2s.

Yeah well... we don't use MD2 and the purest black is only used for transparency when a certain model flag is set.