Castle Paradox

Calehay

Here's my problem:

I make a walkabout in GIMP, using a picture of the OHRRPGCE palette as my base for the first one. Then, in subsequent walkabouts, I use the one that I made to get colors off of. I turn each picture into a 16 color picture and import them into OHR. I import the down walkabout and change the palette to that picture. Then, when I go to do the up walkabout, I try to use the same palette and everything turns out a garbled mess. Is there something I'm missing? I've tried everything I can think of. Can I not use the same palette for something with the exact same colors?

I've been trying to get this to work for months. Please don't tell me I have to redo all of my walkabouts in the editor after all that work in GIMP.
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Calehay

Gizmog1 · Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 8:30 pm Post subject:

I've had this problem, and as far as I know, all you can do is just import it with whatever palette fits the most images, and then manually recolor the ones that don't work. There may be a better solution, but I don't know what it is.

Rimudora · Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:28 pm Post subject:

Try to get all the frames in one image in GIMP, then use MSPaint or whatever to cut out the parts you want and save them in 20x20 files. That way, all the bmp files will have the same palette.

Mike Caron · Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 10:33 pm Post subject:

But make it a 16-colour image before cutting it up.

See, a decent editor (such as the GIMP) will try to optimize the colour usage in each image it saves. For a 16-colour image, there's not much it can do, but the palette may have a slightly different order anyway.

Actually, there's 256 different palettes with the same colours, so you have a 1/256 chance of getting two images to save with the same palette. And, if you account for 8 frames, that's 1/256^7 = 1/72057594037927936 chance of all 8 images having the same palette*. Which is why it's best to create the palette before hand.

* - this assumes that the palette generated is in a completely random order. Of course, they're not. It's actually determined by the order of colours in the image. Thus, your chances are even smaller. Happy

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tgfcoder · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 37 Location: Australia

Thanks. I've also run into that program (with GIMP)

NeoTA · **Idiomatic Nomenclature** Joined: 15 Mar 2004 Posts: 165

I have a definitive answer for this:

1. Copy a sprite that has all of the colors you want in your palette.
2. Paste it as a new image (Edit->Paste as New)
3. Import a palette from the new image(rightclick in the Palettes dialog, Choose Import)

Then you can choose 'custom palette' and pick that palette when you're indexizing the image. Be sure that 'Remove unused colors' is OFF.

Mike Caron · Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 11:08 am Post subject:

I used to use that method, but it leaves too many usless palettes lying around, unless you remember to clean them up afterwards...
_________________
I stand corrected. No rivers ran blood today. At least, none that were caused by us.

Final Fantasy Q
OHR Developer BLOG
Official OHRRPGCE Wiki and FAQ

Calehay · Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 4:33 pm Post subject:

I found another workaround to this situation (though it is a little lengthy and NeoTA's method is much more practical.)

1: Create your sprites and then convert them to 16-bit format.

2: Take one of your sprites and copy it. Rename it as a different name.

3: Paste another one of your sprites in the file you created. Save the file.

4: Copy the file and rename.

Repeat until all your walkabouts are done. Worked when I did it. Though I wish I knew GIMP allowed you to control palettes.
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Calehay

NeoTA · **Idiomatic Nomenclature** Joined: 15 Mar 2004 Posts: 165

Calehay:
With automation, that method would be quickest and neatest. When Gimp 2.4 is released, I should be able to release a plugin that automatically performs that for every tile in your image. For now, only GIMP developers or Linux users can use such a thing easily.

:} It is possible to associate arbitrary data with a gimp .xcf image. So once you set the palette to use the first time, it could be saved with the image, so the entire process could be done in one step.

(re your step 1: You mean 8bit color. Saying 16bit format is confusing, because 16bpp is an actual display format.)

Your process can be optimized by using 'save a copy' repeatedly instead of your two step 'copy and rename'. Especially if you assign a keyboard shortcut to it.