New action platformer for Amiga (sic!)

[Blackgoat]

Thank you for advices! Now I can imagine, how is possible to make even 16 color game nice and colourfull. Those examples you send are too much "pastel" for me, as I prefer more contrast, "arcadey" palette (like the one in Turrican, lemmings,or Mega-lo-mania for example) and hate when palete did not contain red color which is really red :-D and instead there is somethink like rotten carrot. I remember how i refuse to play Duke 3D back in 96, because everythink was colored with tones of grey, ocre, jeans blue and carrot.

But my actual palette is extreme in other way - too much basic dpaint colours, so I will try to found nicer compromise.

One more question - I remember old amiga games "nearly monochromatic" - Xenon 2, Gods, Magic pockets... or very bright and saturated - examples I write before, Ruff n tumble, superfrog... So it looks like palette similar to examples here was not much prefered in those years (SotB palette maybe, looks similar) ...is possible that those pastel colous will not look good on CRT monitor / TV, so from pure historical/retro point of view are not good choice? Now I am thinking a lot, if I want to make actual game with retro feeling, or homage to amiga old school gaming style. Not only in palette choice, one button joystick for example, was curse for most amiga games, and autofire or holding button tricks do not work very well with some emulators today.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by Blackgoat

Thank you for advices! Now I can imagine, how is possible to make even 16 color game nice and colourfull. Those examples you send are too much "pastel" for me, as I prefer more contrast, "arcadey" palette (like the one in Turrican, lemmings,or Mega-lo-mania for example) and hate when palete did not contain red color which is really red :-D and instead there is somethink like rotten carrot. I remember how i refuse to play Duke 3D back in 96, because everythink was colored with tones of grey, ocre, jeans blue and carrot.

I know what you mean, i had a friend who called this "stinky graphics". It is even more extreme in those OCS games that had to squeeze it all into only 7 colours for the very limited parallax mode that was available.

Dawnbringer's palette is actually fairly similar to the C64 palette, but it is a bit brighter than that, i think. You can, of course, use a different palette for every game level and optimise for each particular atmosphere (and use the upper 16 colours for the main sprite so they can be independent of the different level palettes). The Pixel Art graphics tool GrafX2 has a palette analysis tool that might be useful.

[nobody]

Dawnbringers palette has little to do with c64 palette except that both are adjusted to grays so that all colors have AA and various ramps with different hues that bridge on grays.
It's perfectly balanced, and has nothing to do with pastel or rotten carrots. Artists back then I believe had little knowledge of color theory so they used similar hues and insane saturation but arcades don't use high saturation except capcom that use a ton of colors in every game (256, maybe even more) so that you cannot tell the extreme contrast because of high saturation.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by nobody

Dawnbringers palette has little to do with c64 palette except that both are adjusted to grays so that all colors have AA and various ramps with different hues that bridge on grays.

they may well not have anything "to do" with each other but they are nevertheless quite similar, as i demonstrate here by juxtaposing them:

[nobody]

C64 palette is less saturated than this example here. Just take a screenshot of a c64 game and compare with graphics done with dawnbringers palette, they are much different. Just because c64 palette covers similar hues doesn't make the palettes identical.

Example red in db palette is red, but is red brown in c64 and has less brightness.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by nobody

Just because c64 palette covers similar hues doesn't make the palettes identical. [/IMG]

Mrs. Beanbag said, repeatedly, that they are similar, NOT identical.

[nobody]

Originally Posted by Akira

Mrs. Beanbag said, repeatedly, that they are similar, NOT identical.

"Fairly similar". Wanna start playing with words?

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by nobody

C64 palette is less saturated than this example here. Just take a screenshot of a c64 game and compare with graphics done with dawnbringers palette, they are much different. Just because c64 palette covers similar hues doesn't make the palettes identical.

Example red in db palette is red, but is red brown in c64 and has less brightness.

The example i took was from Wikipedia, not sure what posting a screenshot from an emulator would prove, different emulators can have different palettes and may well be trying to recreate the look of an old television, but if that's the comparison you'd prefer i can oblige, doesn't really change anything though imho, blue is still blue, green is still green... in fact some colours are even more similar using this example. It would be interesting to see an actual C64 graphics rendered using the Dawnbringer palette.

[Leffmann]

So how does Dawnbringer's palette compare to Rebel's and Cammy's 16-color palette in ClassicWB? I don't know any "color theory" but when I look at Dawnbringer's palette it seems some of greys and blues are close enough to be difficult to distinguish between.

[Mrs Beanbag]

the greys are tweaked a bit to be off-grey so they can participate better in gradients with some of the other colours, i don't know Rebel and Cammy's palette, is there an image of it somewhere?

[Leffmann]

Here if you scroll down a bit:
http://www.mfilos.com/2012/01/guide-...ier-using.html

[DanScott]

It's fine to say that there can be a good "generic" or "standard" 16 colour palette, and the example provided (Dawnbringer) with those screenshots it a nice palette, and the images are real nice, for that style of artwork / game.

However it would not work for every kind of game, and artists need to be able to adapt their palette to work with the specification of the game they are working on.

That Dawnbringer palette certainly wouldn't work for the game that I am doing. It wouldn't even come close

[Mrs Beanbag]

hmm, it reminds me more like the Mattel Intellivision palette at first glance, but i think that's mostly just because of the pink. It is more saturated than the Dawnbringer palette, there are more shades of grey (and they are true greys), and there is no correspondence with the purple or turqoise colours:

[PortuguesePilot]

Let me pose a question and sort-of bring this back into its original topic: Is there actually going to be a game?

Despite a few coding courses and a few game code done in my young teens, nowadays I'm basically a layman when it comes to coding and other associated technicalities. Yet, I still love my old systems, especially the Amiga. I like playing old-school games, even if they're new (the so called "new-retro"). But, somehow, here in the Amiga community, we often see this pattern: someone comes up with a game project; posts about it; shows off a few graphics and game-design ideas; sometimes they come up with very early demos; then they vanish or stay dormant forever; the "new" game never materializes and the rest of the thread derails into a purely technical-theoretical debate. Thank God for the (rare) exceptions!

From a pure non-technical gaming fan, I say: how unfortunate.

[Blackgoat]

ok, I understand what peoples say about color theory. Some of these mockups are really nice, metal looks more like metal, vegetation like vegetation... i will play with palette and we will see, if final product will be more "polished" or retro...

Portuguese Pilot: I see the same pattern, and not only here :-) Probably, its because, most peoples must make insane things if they want to eat and have they rent payed... and try to stay sane after all :-) so very little time lefts for wonderfull and creative things like this... We will see...

[Blackgoat]

[ Show youtube player ]

Editor, player x platform collision, bad video framerate (my first attempt, and too late for try it again and better). Still not a game... but hey, you can fall off screen, so first gaming aspect is here :-D

[Adrian Browne]

Originally Posted by Blackgoat

[ Show youtube player ]

Editor, player x platform collision, bad video framerate (my first attempt, and too late for try it again and better). Still not a game... but hey, you can fall off screen, so first gaming aspect is here :-D

Well, glad to see that your still plugging away at it. Hope you have a demo to show eventually.

[DamienD]

Yup, well done Blackgoat. Keep learning / pushing on

[Blackgoat]

Some more, now little bit better video...

[ Show youtube player ]