Dreamcast-Talk.com

Ian Micheal wrote:16 and 32 pal i added to dreamcast but there useless for this console it's why they drop all support for dreamcast

almost got the sky layers working now

another note you have to remove this pal.act in the data folder then it will use the pal of the first loaded file we need to do this or it will never work

by default dreambor will use the palette of the first image declared in the model/entit

Looks like almost spectrum game now lmao

Dakangel wrote:

marchegiano wrote:I think, everything I am doing must be wrong. How I check the bits of a palette must be wrong, how I've changed the bits of a palette must also be wrong also. I did export some pals, and I thought I had made them into 4bit pals but I guess they're actually 16bit pals with 4bit colordepth? Obviously I don't really know. When I exported pals I opened them with ++ and changed the 256 line to 16 then deleted the 000 from the 20th line to the end of the file.
....
I'm guessing that's not right to do either because 256 is 8 bit. so if the palette is actually 16 bit and I'm mucking with 256 to make it 16color/4bit then I must be messing with something in the palette but not the palette itself...right?

Let me explain you how the palettes work with the openbor engine:

32bit color depth.-
or true color, the same as your current pc desktop with millions of colours and no need for palettes, every image can have a wide range of colors and true alpha transparency.
This is the most beautifull yet the equally most cpu and memory consuming mode in the console, functional but not recommended.

16bit color depth.-
or high color, in this mode every image can have its own palette (8bit 256 colors) its used to create palettes for each entity and / or stage separately from the others;
this is the most recommended mode for paletted games but altought that, it still have inconveniences with the console memory and cpu, not so big as the 32bit mode but still is some slow.

8bit color depth.-
paletted games, in this mode ALL the game assets (entities and scenarios) must share an unique global 256 color palette, this was the first method to create the modules and the most fast and less consuming for the console,
the downside is that you must be very smart and practical to organize the colors of the palette;
usually for practicity the first 128 colors were used for the scenary and extra entities and the rest 128 were purely for the player entities but is not mandatory.
You can have various global palettes to interchange in the game but those must be wiselly used.

4bit color depth.-
this mode was / is /will never supported by the engine, as you can create 8bit palletes with less than 256 util colors.

marchegiano wrote: I appreciate it man. I think I get it but I don't want to run off and do a bunch of work that won't mean anything in the end again.

So what Ian has been telling me to do is look at all the images' palette's the game uses and make one master palette in 256 for the whole game? Is that at least partially correct?

Could I not export all the palettes then combined them all into one?

But this is contradictory to what I just read from Ian. I'm meant to get rid of of pal.act, not, remake it? Then I go through all the images for their colors and make one palette the entire game can work with and apply it directly to all the images themselves instead of pal.act?

marchegiano wrote:

Dakangel wrote:

marchegiano wrote:I think, everything I am doing must be wrong. How I check the bits of a palette must be wrong, how I've changed the bits of a palette must also be wrong also. I did export some pals, and I thought I had made them into 4bit pals but I guess they're actually 16bit pals with 4bit colordepth? Obviously I don't really know. When I exported pals I opened them with ++ and changed the 256 line to 16 then deleted the 000 from the 20th line to the end of the file.
....
I'm guessing that's not right to do either because 256 is 8 bit. so if the palette is actually 16 bit and I'm mucking with 256 to make it 16color/4bit then I must be messing with something in the palette but not the palette itself...right?

Let me explain you how the palettes work with the openbor engine:

32bit color depth.-
or true color, the same as your current pc desktop with millions of colours and no need for palettes, every image can have a wide range of colors and true alpha transparency.
This is the most beautifull yet the equally most cpu and memory consuming mode in the console, functional but not recommended.

16bit color depth.-
or high color, in this mode every image can have its own palette (8bit 256 colors) its used to create palettes for each entity and / or stage separately from the others;
this is the most recommended mode for paletted games but altought that, it still have inconveniences with the console memory and cpu, not so big as the 32bit mode but still is some slow.

8bit color depth.-
paletted games, in this mode ALL the game assets (entities and scenarios) must share an unique global 256 color palette, this was the first method to create the modules and the most fast and less consuming for the console,
the downside is that you must be very smart and practical to organize the colors of the palette;
usually for practicity the first 128 colors were used for the scenary and extra entities and the rest 128 were purely for the player entities but is not mandatory.
You can have various global palettes to interchange in the game but those must be wiselly used.

4bit color depth.-
this mode was / is /will never supported by the engine, as you can create 8bit palletes with less than 256 util colors.

I appreciate it man. I think I get it but I don't want to run off and do a bunch of work that won't mean anything in the end again.

So what Ian has been telling me to do is look at all the images' palette's the game uses and make one master palette in 256 for the whole game? Is that at least partially correct?

Could I not export all the palettes then combined them all into one?

But this is contradictory to what I just read from Ian. I'm meant to get rid of of pal.act, not, remake it? Then I go through all the images for their colors and make one palette the entire game can work with and apply it directly to all the images themselves instead of pal.act?

Dakangel wrote:The palettes dont work that way, Pal.act doesn matter because right now each entity and stage use their own asigned palette.
One master palette means that every image in the game is asigned for that unique palette.
Every master alternative palette will be an .act file.

----------------------------------------------------

You need to open at least ONE image of EACH character, EACH stage and EACH special effect , combine all into one BIG image ,create from it a NEW master palette and APPLY it to ALL of the game images.

Of course you NEED to match the background color for every image to be the same for the correct transparency to work.

Transparency color usually is the very first color in the palette and very often is the most darken color or the one close to 0,0,0 (zeroes)
So you MUST adapt the transparency color into that slot without overlaping the same color in the pictures.

..................................................

Nobody will do it for you, everyone has their activities and priorities just like you, so if its really complicated is better to drop the task.
That is why there are few games "converted", they require A LOT of work and effort.

Dakangel wrote:

marchegiano wrote: I appreciate it man. I think I get it but I don't want to run off and do a bunch of work that won't mean anything in the end again.

So what Ian has been telling me to do is look at all the images' palette's the game uses and make one master palette in 256 for the whole game? Is that at least partially correct?

Could I not export all the palettes then combined them all into one?

But this is contradictory to what I just read from Ian. I'm meant to get rid of of pal.act, not, remake it? Then I go through all the images for their colors and make one palette the entire game can work with and apply it directly to all the images themselves instead of pal.act?

The palettes dont work that way, Pal.act doesn matter because right now each entity and stage use their own asigned palette.
One master palette means that every image in the game is asigned for that unique palette.
Every master alternative palette will be an .act file.

----------------------------------------------------

You need to open at least ONE image of EACH character, EACH stage and EACH special effect , combine all into one BIG image ,create from it a NEW master palette and APPLY it to ALL of the game images.

Of course you NEED to match the background color for every image to be the same for the correct transparency to work.

Transparency color usually is the very first color in the palette and very often is the most darkest color or the one close to 0,0,0 (zeroes)
So you MUST adapt the transparency color into that slot without overlaping the same color in the pictures.

..................................................

Nobody will do it for you, everyone has their activities and priorities just like you, so if its really complicated is better to drop the task.
That is why there are few games "converted", they require A LOT of work and effort.

Ian Micheal wrote:

Dakangel wrote:The palettes dont work that way, Pal.act doesn matter because right now each entity and stage use their own asigned palette.
One master palette means that every image in the game is asigned for that unique palette.
Every master alternative palette will be an .act file.

----------------------------------------------------

You need to open at least ONE image of EACH character, EACH stage and EACH special effect , combine all into one BIG image ,create from it a NEW master palette and APPLY it to ALL of the game images.

Of course you NEED to match the background color for every image to be the same for the correct transparency to work.

Transparency color usually is the very first color in the palette and very often is the most darken color or the one close to 0,0,0 (zeroes)
So you MUST adapt the transparency color into that slot without overlaping the same color in the pictures.

..................................................

Nobody will do it for you, everyone has their activities and priorities just like you, so if its really complicated is better to drop the task.
That is why there are few games "converted", they require A LOT of work and effort.

Again that's well said about how to do it just not that good a teacher more a do it type of person sorry to say..

Yes what your saying is correct ..

Pal.act does effect it on this build it's a hang over from the global pal act from the old version and when you set video to 8 bit pal..
NOTE 2: Pal.act is global palette, but its not needed anymore (since its encouraged to use 16bit video mode but not here that's for sure). In the old BOR (or if you use 8bit color mode), this is required - because every sprite in mod must use same palette which is this global palette. You need Adobe Photoshop to view and make .act files. again i dont use them..

https://dcemulation.org/?title=OpenBORManual