Full-color backgrounds

[Vecanti]

I understand there are image programs that do the conversions, but I haven't found one yet that will take into account the palette limits of the pce.

The closest paint program I have seen is on Amiga.  My friend made a video of it and that is what I use. 


You can chose a 9bit total palette (512 colors) and then anywhere  from 2 to 256 colors at once.   Each R,G,B slider goes from 0to7. 
Basically when doing color choosing and dithering and things this makes it a lot more easy because you don't have to worry that you get a color that doesn't exist in PCE palette.  All colors available are always part of the PCE palette.  Still mostly manually work if you want to split it up.

[Arkhan]

Fragmare has made a good utilities for converting a 256 colors bmp picture in pce format (with 16 palettes) .

Actually i'am coding my own ..

actually, I think Tom wrote that converter, since fragmare isn't a coder

Unless hes holding out.

[Keranu]

Fragmare has made a good utilities for converting a 256 colors bmp picture in pce format (with 16 palettes) .

Actually i'am coding my own ..

actually, I think Tom wrote that converter, since fragmare isn't a coder

Unless hes holding out.

If he's referring to RGB2PCE, tom didn't code that. I don't know who did, but I got it from Fragmare and passed it on to several people.

[nodtveidt]

RGB2PCE is a good utility but it alone isn't enough. Tom has a couple of utilities of his own that are much more useful.

[Arkhan]

im talking about uhhh


something 2bmpsomething or other. lol


not RGB2PCE.

[touko]

Yes i thought to rgb2pce .. 

[hcf]

In fact, before doing "my" method of splitting the image, I was trying to create a program like that, but it is very difficult... 

As the Old Rover said, the program that converts the image to the PCE colors is not enough. Besides doing that, the program must build also the map of palettes that we must import in our program. For example, something like:

const char pal_map[NUM_TILES] = { PAL0<<4, PAL0<<4, PAL1<<4, PAL2<<4 ...};

This map will say which palette will be used in each tile.

As I was saying, it was very difficult to create a program that divides the image in sections and optimizes the use of palettes automatically in every picture. For that reason I searched generic methods (splitting by rows, by columns...) and I found that splitting by squares was a decent method, because the similar colors usually are near (inside the same square), so using a different palette for a square (said for example 64x64 pixels) was the best result that I found. Of course, an optimization made automatically by a program would be awesome 

[Arkhan]

interestingly enough, It seems like alot of developers couldnt be arsed to bother either.


Alot of commercial games have just 16 colors in the background, expertly used of course.




Goban, what Amiga paint program?

[Vecanti]

interestingly enough, It seems like alot of developers couldnt be arsed to bother either.


Alot of commercial games have just 16 colors in the background, expertly used of course.




Goban, what Amiga paint program?

Brilliance

[Arkhan]

Right, Im sure it is, but what is it called?






that was corny.


I may have to find/fire that up on my A4000