Author Topic: Palette cycling webpage  (Read 25954 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline lskovlun

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #30 on: July 23, 2015, 09:02:06 PM »
I'm almost sad that we don't have a version of SCI that can compile SCI32 scripts for 640x480 games. It's like an untapped 8-bit dream.
Had a change of heart?  ;)

Offline Collector

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #31 on: July 23, 2015, 09:50:17 PM »
And SCI32 is where ScummVM is hung.
KQII Remake Pic

Offline MusicallyInspired

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #32 on: July 23, 2015, 10:10:13 PM »
No, I've always wanted to be able to reproduce all forms of SCI :). SCI32 IS much more intriguing to me now with these colour cycling possibilities. Especially since no SCI32 game Sierra made has ever taken advantage of palette shifting...to my knowledge. Certainly not to this degree. Of course, I've no where near the skill of Mr Ferrari anyway.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2015, 10:22:38 PM by MusicallyInspired »
Brass Lantern Prop Competition

Offline lskovlun

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #33 on: July 23, 2015, 10:32:29 PM »
The "starfield" effect in the SQ6 startup menu is implemented with palette cycling. There are other uses of palette effects, some subtle, some not so subtle (QfG4 night palette for example). There are several new palette-related calls (PalCycle, RemapColors) and some extra subfunctions in PalVary that we haven't figured out yet. To find uses of RemapColors, you can scan the view resources for uses of a solid color (in GK1, it's usually bright red) with palette indices 236-254. When remapping is enabled, these colors overlaid on something else transform the underlying image in some way (gamma adjustment for sunbeams, transformation to greyscale, translucency and one or two others).

Offline OmerMor

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #34 on: April 16, 2016, 11:34:16 AM »
Mark Ferrari (the artist behind the webpage), recently gave a talk at GDC about 8-bit art and also talked in length about the pallette cycling techniques he developed/used:
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1023586/8-Bit-8-Bitish-Graphics

On a related note:
I recently had a chat with Richard Aronson who worked as a programmer at Sierra and ImagiNation Networks (but most of you will likely recognise him as the voice of Cedric from King's Quest 5  :P). He told me the following story:
Quote
We planned our palettes in VGA (256 colors at any time from a total potential palette with 65536 choices to make the palette) with a base palette of colors available in every room of the game (64 colors, IIRC) and the other 192 colors were chosen depending on the room.  For the scene with Robin and Marian behind the waterfall in ?Conquests of the Longbow?, almost all the 192 were shades of blue, as both Robin Hood and Marian were in the base palette.  The lead artist and I created some shifting colors with different blues and translucency to make the water seem real, and it was the best water animation ever to that point.  Most of the things I?m proud of at Sierra had more to do with story or programming cleverness, but that was the one art thingy that?s worth mentioning (I?m not an artist).

I think the scene he was talking about is this:
https://youtu.be/toT0mhXrKqM?t=399

Offline troflip

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #35 on: April 16, 2016, 11:54:14 AM »
Hmm, in that scene the man and woman are mostly using the room's palette, not base palette. Not to mention that's about the most unimpressive water animation I've seen, lol!

Maybe he's mistaking it for another scene?
Check out my website: http://icefallgames.com
Groundhog Day Competition

Offline OmerMor

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #36 on: April 16, 2016, 12:00:48 PM »
Maybe he's mistaking it for another scene?

Maybe I'm mistaking it for another scene.
Since he didn't specify the room number, I tried to find the one that seem to be the best match.

Can you find a better water pallette cycling animation in that game with Robin and Marian?
Some of his details can be wrong, since it's been more than a few years...  :)

Offline troflip

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #37 on: April 16, 2016, 12:16:43 PM »
No, but there are some nice waterfall animations in other games (Quest for Glory series has some I think).

Or maybe he worked on that scene he mentioned, but then they canned it for the official release and went with a more colorful (less animatey) version?
« Last Edit: April 16, 2016, 12:33:34 PM by troflip »
Check out my website: http://icefallgames.com
Groundhog Day Competition

Offline Kawa

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #38 on: April 16, 2016, 12:31:40 PM »
I didn't even watch the whole presentation but holy shit did I learn a few things today.

Offline OmerMor

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #39 on: April 16, 2016, 01:04:53 PM »
Yeah - this guy knows his stuff! :)

Offline troflip

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #40 on: April 16, 2016, 01:06:10 PM »
Hmm, interesting video... and just so happens I met a game designer that works on Thimbleweed Park last Thursday, lol. Small world!
Check out my website: http://icefallgames.com
Groundhog Day Competition

Offline MusicallyInspired

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #41 on: April 16, 2016, 01:33:22 PM »
Will be watching this today! Thanks!
Brass Lantern Prop Competition

Offline MusicallyInspired

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #42 on: April 17, 2016, 01:04:29 AM »
Really enjoying this video hearing about these things from the 8-bit master himself. I really wish I could download this video as it's full of valuable information. Everything he's talking about with colour cycling to feign animation and palette shifting to different hues (day/night) at the same time is all possible in SCI and that's what's really exciting. It would be especially impressive in SCI32 being in higher res where the dithering used to feign alpha transparency can be really effective. But it's still incredibly impressive in standard VGA as well.

EDIT: Wow, just getting to his explanation of how he did the colour cycling for the waterfall. It's surprising when you can only think of how complicated it must have been to see that he actually took some quite simple shortcuts. Only the very basic first iteration was done by hand, and little else. I mean, it's still a slightly complicated set of steps, but once you've got the mechanics of how that works down, the steps themselves are easy. Just brilliant.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2016, 01:40:00 AM by MusicallyInspired »
Brass Lantern Prop Competition

Offline troflip

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #43 on: April 17, 2016, 12:46:00 PM »
When I have some more time to watch it all, I'll be curious how it compares to the steps I used in my demo for palette cycling...
Check out my website: http://icefallgames.com
Groundhog Day Competition

Offline troflip

Re: Palette cycling webpage
« Reply #44 on: April 27, 2016, 09:06:48 PM »
Incidentally, Mark Ferrari, the one who created those cycling images, is the one who worked on some early LucasArts games (made with Deluxe Paint) and is currently working on Ron Gilbert's Thimbleweed old-school styled adventure game that was Kickstarter a little while ago.

Ron is in my co-working space today running playtests for Thimbleweed Park  :P. Maybe I'll see if I can get in on future playtests...
Check out my website: http://icefallgames.com
Groundhog Day Competition


SMF 2.0.19 | SMF © 2021, Simple Machines
Simple Audio Video Embedder

Page created in 0.062 seconds with 24 queries.