Conversion Capers: Rygar

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Cylon

But this very pixel could be the eye of the owl, and you don't know what else from other enemies or special bobs. I'll try to trim down the brown shades, and mix the rocks and the "grey" from the bonus extra together. this should save some colors. Automatic color reduction still looks awful, especially the green/blue green.

With copper and good color placement, we can have more than 16/32 color on screen.

The upper portion of the screen and the bottom can be "Copperized" very good!

I would have the less colors possible so we can use HW Sprites to add Parallax.

[Cylon]

I'm working on the color palette. So far i managed to combine both of the levels (as they share gfx) to one pic (60 cols) and now i'm separating the parts that should use the same colors and treat them accordingly.
Remember, i'm not a pro paint artist, so i keep posting the unfinished pics for anybody else who might want to help.

Anyway, plant's green consists of 8 shades, which could be reduced to 4, i believe.

upd: I'm down to under 50 cols now:
rocks+baddies: 10 ( - white),
lava: 11 (- white),
plants: 9,
floor, wood, house: 20 ( - white).

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Cylon

I'm working on the color palette. So far i managed to combine both of the levels (as they share gfx) to one pic (60 cols) and now i'm separating the parts that should use the same colors and treat them accordingly.
Remember, i'm not a pro paint artist, so i keep posting the unfinished pics for anybody else who might want to help.

Anyway, plant's green consists of 8 shades, which could be reduced to 4, i believe.

upd: I'm down to under 50 cols now:
rocks+baddies: 10 ( - white),
lava: 11 (- white),
plants: 9,
floor, wood, house: 20 ( - white).

You'r doing a great jobs! how many color can you reduce it? Remember that we have to get in count enemies that will use this colors

Floor and lavas' accurate colors can be done with copper..

@Cylon

Can you put all tiles' without floor and lava and see how many colors can we reduce them?

Btw we can even use a dynamic palette to switch color within levels..

Originally Posted by Cylon

But this very pixel could be the eye of the owl, and you don't know what else from other enemies or special bobs. I'll try to trim down the brown shades, and mix the rocks and the "grey" from the bonus extra together. this should save some colors. Automatic color reduction still looks awful, especially the green/blue green.

Ok, so we have to act manually. We do what we can! That's why I love Amiga, more brain works than Horse Power!!!

Even the upper portion of the trees can be palettized:

http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...3&d=1428264367

[Cylon]

i got 42 cols, plus zero gun (transparency) and white for my grid.
Wood+floor is difficult; the old trees are using 5 cols alone. hm.

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Ok, so we have to act manually. We do what we can! That's why I love Amiga, more brain works than Horse Power!!!

Even the upper portion of the trees can be palettized:

http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...3&d=1428264367

Are you sure it is not the bg layer you mean? the green tops not attached to the wooden logs are bg-layer.

[sandruzzo]

the trees' upper portions were we have a green foliage I mean. What do you think?

floor and lava can be palettized with copper, so leave them out.

[Cylon]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

the trees' upper portions were we have a green foliage I mean. What do you think?

Damn, you are right. i was wrong. Just had a quick look at the video again. so you want to reuse their colors somewhere else below?

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Cylon

Damn, you are right. i was wrong. Just had a quick look at the video again. so you want to reuse their colors somewhere else below?

Gotcha!! With this trick we do a LOT OF DAMAGE

[Cylon]

Down below 40 colors, things getting interesting.

Rocks+Badds: 5
Lava: 8
Plants green: 5
Floor+wood: 1514

=33+2.
It's hard for me to strip details, that's why i am not doing it. Rearranging colors to be useful for copper-reuse will be one of the next steps.
Might help, if someone with skills can tackle the wood-brown png.

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Cylon

Down below 40 colors, things getting interesting.

Rocks+Badds: 5
Lava: 8
Plants green: 5
Floor+wood: 15

=33+2.
It's hard for me to strip details, that's why i am not doing it. Rearranging colors to be useful for copper-reuse will be one of the next steps.
Might help, if someone with skills can tackle the wood-brown png.

Lava will be copperized so we have -8 colors..and floor too

[Cylon]

Originally Posted by sandruzzo

Lava will be copperized so we have -8 colors..and floor too

But the floor consists of the very same colors as the house and (some of) the trees?

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Cylon

But the floor consists of the very same colors as the house and (some of) the trees?

yes, if we remap it, we can use copper to spare some colors

[Cylon]

I've put the "owl" like baddie to the other one in the grey sheet, so it no longer appears in the yellowish (wood) one.
(we have to consider colors for the baddies, anyway. After the level entry, the rocks on the left side are gone and we have those color registers for the bobs only). i also made this sheet more distinctive by reducing saturation, making it "more grey" than before.

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by Cylon

I've put the "owl" like baddie to the other one in the grey sheet, so it no longer appears in the yellowish (wood) one.
(we have to consider colors for the baddies, anyway. After the level entry, the rocks on the left side are gone and we have those color registers for the bobs only). i also made this sheet more distinctive by reducing saturation, making it "more grey" than before.

Jobs of the Hell! How many colors we have on screen now? 32? Maybe we can use the first 16 for bobs, and all 32 for the background.

If we can spare some colors for the floor and lava we can use less bitplane in order to have more cicles for blitting bobs

Let me know what layout we have.

[Cylon]

Here are the combined 64 colors tiles (not complete).

This is not the final 32 color tilemap i'm currently working on, but you get the idea.

v6: greens sorted out, colors sorted a little bit, removed 1pixl lightgrey...
v7: added another leaf, tunnel (house) tiles added (without framing grid), little pixl faults removed.

[sandruzzo]

@Cylon

Great Job so far! I count 35 used color! Not Bad. You're doing a lot of damages! Are these tile 16*16?

[nobody]

Nice job you are doing there, just wanted to try a 16 colors conversion, tell me what you think.

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by nobody

Nice job you are doing there, just wanted to try a 16 colors conversion, tell me what you think.

It's seems good. In order to spare some colors here a trick: put away rygar since it'll be a sprite, and lava and floor too.

Lava and floor can be palettized with copper

Can You try 32 colors with enemies?

[nobody]

I was thinking using sprites for backgrounds, i am not expert on the matter but here it is (borrowed some tiles from Risky Woods and improving the original graphics).
And a mockup with 16 colors for main game area and parallax with sprites

[sandruzzo]

Originally Posted by nobody

I was thinking using sprites for backgrounds, i am not expert on the matter but here it is (borrowed some tiles from Risky Woods and improving the original graphics)

Yes we will use sprite for parallax scroll. We have 4 sprite left with 3 colors per line. That's will give us a 64 pixels wide tile to repeat on screen.

If we play well with colors reusage with copper we'll have a good scrolling

[Cylon]

@nobody
Good work !

@all
Please remember to keep some color regs for the baddies and items. a short test with the screenshots from the beginning can give a hint how much colors are actually used for the bobs:

>80 (if all on screen at the same time)!

we can trim those colors down, but they have to use a big amount of colors from the main palette.

Quick note:

I also think, we should shot for a most accurate conversion, before stripping it down to zxspectrum level. Even if this means it will require AGA in the beginning.