Palettes.

[superkingkong65]

So, being the Mugen palette expert, I expected this to be a walk in the park.
I am beyond confused.
So I have a folder consisting of Scorpion sprites for Openbor.
Well, there's only ONE .act for the ENTIRE game.
Keep in mind, I'm using Beats of Rage as a "template."
Any tutorial for adding characters' palettes?

 

[O Ilusionista]

If you are familiar with palettes for Mugen, this will be really easy.

I'm OpenBor, we can use either images (the engine will load from it) or .act for palettes.

The palette you are talking about is not used anymore, its just prehistoric. Make sure you are using a recent version of OpenBor.

 

[superkingkong65]

I feel like a moron. I removed the .ACT file and got the results I wanted to see. Thank you, O Ilusionista!

 

[superkingkong65]

NVM, the palette got messed up again after I relaunched it.

 

[msmalik681]

If each characters header data add "palette {path}" path pointing to a reference image that holds the palette data if this is not defined by default the engine will use the palette of the first image in the characters frame data and if that does not match the rest of your images it will cause problems.

If you don't care about remaps and wish to use the real colour of the images you can set "palette none" the first index colour will still be transparent.

 

[magggas]

If you don't care about remaps and wish to use the real colour of the images you can set "palette none" the first index colour will still be transparent.

This is not a good suggestion/advice since "palette none" is not really meant for such a general use in a game. And "not care about remaps" is not the reason "palette none" exists. So i would say it is not good to recommend to other people for such "general" use 
Instead,  "palette none" should be used with caution and only when is needed, like for some "effect entities" for example.

 

[msmalik681]

I was just making him aware of the feature as you mentioned there are some entities that it suites like effects.  I use it for my speech entity as each characters portrait uses a different palette (when I first found this feature I thought it was amazing).

 

[magggas]

I was just making him aware of the feature as you mentioned there are some entities that it suites like effects.  I use it for my speech entity as each characters portrait uses a different palette (when I first found this feature I thought it was amazing).

That's fair enough. "palette none" it's indeed a good thing to be aware of 

 

[O Ilusionista]

This is not a good suggestion/advice since "palette none" is not really meant for such a general use in a game. And "not care about remaps" is not the reason "palette none" exists. So i would say it is not good to recommend to other people for such "general" use 
Instead,  "palette none" should be used with caution and only when is needed, like for some "effect entities" for example.

I can't agree more. Palette none it is not something that should be used without any criterion or everywhere. It was made for specific and punctual uses - and characters are not the case. In addition to wasted memory (since each frame will have a palette), all other functions linked to palettes (such as freeze, dying, and all other palette changes) will not be available.

Even if you have one palette for your character, you SHOULD use that palette on its header.

if this is not defined by default the engine will use the palette of the first image

This is not correct - it's quite the opposite. The engine will use the palette of EVERY frame, not just the first image. Because if its an indexed color image, it needs to have a palette and the engine will try to load from the image.

NVM, the palette got messed up again after I relaunched it.

That .act you have deleted comes from the era when OpenBOR worked in 8bit only, so everything on the game would need to use the same palette. Thanks Odin, this is not the case anymore.

For each character, you should have a proper palette. You can either use from images or from an .act file (like in Mugen). I do prefer to use images because it's easier to visualize this way.
Just watch which type of image you will use - GIF and PNG will use the first slot as the transparent color, but PCX will use the last one. Plus, some times you can have a inverted color order in PS if you don't do it right.

The easiest way to set it is to use the FORCED function when making the palette in PS:

It's better to use a sheet with all images so you can get all the colors, like this:

But since you are familiar with Mugen, I strongly suggest you to use Fighter Factory to build (and edit) your palettes. I've made a tutorial long time ago, take a look http://www.chronocrash.com/forum/index.php?topic=60.0

 

[msmalik681]

@ilu
I am very sure if you do not use the palette command the palette index will be set using the first image loaded in frame data.

 

[DCurrent]

@ilu
I am very sure if you do not use the palette command the palette index will be set using the first image loaded in frame data.

This is actually correct. If everything is left to default, the first image in an entity will be used as the base palette for all others. To clarify all behavior:

• Each entity on screen has its own color table, and the stage has another.
• In a model's text, the Palette attribute defines the model's (thus entities spawned with model) base color table. You can use an .act color table file, or an image, or "none" (no quotations).
  • .ACT file: That's your color table. Nuff' said.
  • Image file: OpenBOR extracts and uses the image's color table. The image's pixel contents are totally irrelevant.
  • None: OpenBOR loads each frame's color table individually. This is a bad idea about 99.99% of the time. Since you're now loading as many color tables as there are images in the model, it's going to be a big memory waste. It also means you can't use alternate color sets or any of the many features that rely on them. This mode just is provided for convenience in the very, very few cases it might be useful.
• If you don't use Palette at all, the engine defines a default color set from the model's first frame image. It's generally recommended to use Palette just so you're never confused later.
• The Alternatepal attribute defines alternate color sets. You can use it multiple times, each one defining another alternate color set for the model (up to ~2 billion). It works the same way as Palette, except there's no "none" option.

Lastly, color sets are 0 indexed, as are most things. 0 = default color set, 1 = first alternate, 2 = second alternate, etc.

HTH,
DC

 

[O Ilusionista]

None: OpenBOR loads each frame's color table individually. This is a bad idea about 99.99% of the time. Since you're now loading as many color tables as there are images in the model, it's going to be a big memory waste. It also means you can't use alternate color sets or any of the many features that rely on them. This mode just is provided for convenience in the very, very few cases it might be useful.

This is what I was talking about, maybe I wasn't clear. " will be set using the first image loaded in frame data" will work for each image, not just the first one on this case.