Re: [Algorithms] 256 colour palette

[Kent Q. <ken...@co...>]

You can't get good looking colors AND a wide range of colors in 256
colors. You have to decide what tradeoffs you're willing to make.

The Quake 1 palette had, IIRC, about 16 shades each of brown, green, and
grey, and many fewer of other colors. That's partly why the game was so
effective -- they did "dark" very well.

I have to echo the thoughts of someone else in this thread -- if you
know in advance you need one palette for the whole game, build the
palette first and give it to your artists. They'll do a much better job
than if you try to cut 24-bit art down after the fact.

	Kent


Matthew Davies wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Sorry, I may have not been clear.
> 
> I don't need to convert a 24-bit image to 256 colours using quantisation.  I
> need to have a consistent single palette which doesn't restrict me too much
> to the colours I can have in my textures.  For example, DOOM used a 256
> colour palette to display all its graphics.
> 
> One idea is to have 32 different colours and 8 shades of them.  I could
> design my textures in those 32 colours and 32 of a darker shade.
> 
> But I just wondered if anyone had a generic palette that they knew worked
> well.
> 
> Best regards,
> Matt.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Tom Nettleship [mailto:to...@ar...]
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2000 10:47
> > To: 'gda...@li...'
> > Subject: RE: [Algorithms] 256 colour palette
> >
> >
> > The problem you're referring to is commonly called quantization. Doing
> > a web search on that might glean some results.
> >
> > The two main algorithms people often use are called 'Median Cut' and
> > 'Octree Quantization'. Both of these are efficient, and produce good
> > results.
> >
> > Get hold of a copy of Graphics Gems 1... this has a paper describing
> > how to implement Octree Quantization, and also (i think) source code,
> > though there may be some bugs in it.
> >
> > Tom Nettleship
> >
> > P.S. I turned this mail into plain text from the HTML you
> > sent... please
> > don't
> > send HTML posts to mailing lists; people using some mail readers can't
> > decipher
> > them.
> >
> > > From: Matthew Davies [mailto:MD...@ac...]
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Can any of you guys give me some hints on choosing a decent
> > 256 colour
> > > palette so that I can get a nice > spread of colours.  I
> > need it for a
> > simple
> > > 3d game so basically I need to cover common colours and
> > shades thereof.
> > >
> > > Do any of you have experience in this area.  I've had it so
> > easy with
> > 24-bit graphics up until now!  :-)
> > _______________________________________________
> > GDAlgorithms-list mailing list
> > GDA...@li...
> > http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/gdalgorithms-list
> >
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Kent Quirk                   | CogniToy: Intelligent toys...
Game Architect               |           for intelligent minds.
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