RE: [Algorithms] 256 colour palette

[Tom N. <to...@ar...>]

> From: Jason Barstow [mailto:jba...@ig...]
> This works well where you start with 24bit art;
> but if your final game is 8bit only then, as you say, it 
> might be better
> to specify a fixed palette to prevent the artists getting 
> carried away.

I would add that it is also a good idea to provide the artists with
a palette up-front, as they can produce FAR better results using
that palette than you ever will quantising 24bit art after-the-fact.
(It is amazing what a talented old-skool texture artist can do with
very few colours.)

Another issue... if you decide to go for a regular palette, make sure
you use equal numbers of bits for each gun (such as the 666 scheme
mentioned in another post). Its tempting to use the extra palette entries
to slightly improve resolution on one axis (e.g. 676) but this means you
don't get a 'pure' greyscale ramp... you get a bunch of almost-greys
instead, and this can look very ugly, especially when lighting gets factored
in ontop of the base textures.

TomN