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#2042 Visual effects of damage do not match DOS
The visual effects of damage, such as when the Avatar is struck in combat, do not match the original games. From Evan Q's thread here:
http://exult.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=1771598&t=1771598
From the DOSBox video (with slow motion via lower CPU cycles, Shift+11):
For a non-fatal hit:
1 The Avatar's black outline and any black pixels on him flashes a translucent light red, but not any weapon in-hand. It is not the dark solid red that Exult uses.
For a major hit but non-fatal hit, which may be after the Avatar is under half health, shown at 54 seconds in the video:
1 Black pixels on the Avatar flash a translucent red, same as above.
2 The entire screen goes solid red. Absolutely nothing can be made out behind the red.
3 Fade back is a very red palette, seems even redder than Palette 8. Game world can be made out. This may be a hard-coded palette?
4 Then what appears to be Palette 8. The lighter colors are more visible.
5 Then another less-red palette.
6 Then yet another nearly-normal palette.
7 Back to normal.
For a fatal hit, shown at 1:06 seconds:
1 No pixels on the Avatar flash.
2 The entire screen goes solid red. Absolutely nothing can be made out behind the red.
3 Same as 3 above.
4 Back to normal.
5 Then fade to black.
Exult handles this this differently:
The struck color used is just red, with no translucency.
Major and Fatal hits do not show full-screen red flashes.
The fade back from full-screen red is too fast and seems to only use a single red-pallete-flash. There is no multiple fading as in the original.
My guess here is that the original engine had some of these palette colors hardcoded around hits. The palettes apparently used to not appear obvious in Exult Studio.
Seems that the originals replace all black pixels by translucent colors not only for the blood red, but also for the other outline modes. I will implement this first because it is easy, then worry about the palette fades.