Palettes and DPaint.

[Marchie]

Hi All,

I'm trying to bring some 24-bit sprites into DPaint, but every time I import the image DPaint creates a new palette for each animation frame.

Is there a way I can create my palette and get DPaint to 'lock' the palette and render/downsample the images into that single palette?

(I know I can save/load palettes, but that just changes the index underneath and image that I've already brought in, so it's kind of useless).

Thanks for any help (I hope my question is clear!)

[daxb]

DPaint is limited to 8-bit. I guess PPaint can do it. If you want to only use DPaint maybe it is better to convert the 24-bit sprites to <=8-bit first and then load it into DPaint.

[thomas]

Originally Posted by daxb

DPaint is limited to 8-bit. I guess PPaint can do it.

The opposite is true. PPaint is limited to 8-bit, DPaint has a 24-bit mode.

But yes, PPaint has good mixing functions.

[Marchie]

My problem isn't getting images to load, it's converting them all to use the same palette.

I can't combine separate elements that use different palettes - both images may use the same shade of blue but if it's assigned to a different place in the palette then one of the images will look wrong.

I can output iffs from PaintShop Pro that will load in DPaint fine, but when you load the frames in one at a time DPaint doesn't necessarily use the same palette each time.

I've seen people do it all the time in the coding section - put out different sprite sheets with various palettes to see which works best - I'm just asking how do people do this? I don't know where the function is to apply a set palette to multiple images. Can I do this at the Amiga end or do I have to do at the PC end?

[fxgogo]

Quick questions before we get to converting the sprites.

Where are your creating your sprites in the first place? What software are you using?

Are you able to set a limited palette there?

[daxb]

Originally Posted by thomas

The opposite is true. PPaint is limited to 8-bit, DPaint has a 24-bit mode.

Didn't know that DPaint has a 24-bit mode. I only used V4.x what hasn't such a mode. Tried the V5 but it crashed while trying. I don't know why I thought PPaint is 24-bit. Maybe it has a RTG mode but that just means it will run on RTG I guess?

[Coagulus]

Could you save the palette of the first picture and then after loading each subsequent pic load the 1st palette and use the remap option? Would that work.

I've tend to keep all frames on one pic

[Marchie]

Originally Posted by fxgogo

Quick questions before we get to converting the sprites.

Where are your creating your sprites in the first place? What software are you using?

Are you able to set a limited palette there?

I’m creating the sprites in Piskel, then converting them to iff in PaintShopPro. I can set limited palettes in PSP (to export to GIF) but can’t do indexed colour as far as I know.

[Marchie]

Originally Posted by Coagulus

Could you save the palette of the first picture and then after loading each subsequent pic load the 1st palette and use the remap option? Would that work.

I've tend to keep all frames on one pic

I think that might just work.

I’m still trying to figure out the remap option, if I have two pictures (with different palettes), make one a brush, then load the second one, select ‘use brush palette’ then ‘remap’ it seems to do a reasonable job of unifying the images into a single palette, but I don’t fully understand what’s going on there.

And thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to offer advice, you are champs.

[Coagulus]

Originally Posted by Marchie

I think that might just work.

I’m still trying to figure out the remap option, if I have two pictures (with different palettes), make one a brush, then load the second one, select ‘use brush palette’ then ‘remap’ it seems to do a reasonable job of unifying the images into a single palette, but I don’t fully understand what’s going on there.

And thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to offer advice, you are champs.

I think there's an option to remap the brush palette instead too. I have used that in the past as well.

[fxgogo]

Originally Posted by Marchie

I’m creating the sprites in Piskel, then converting them to iff in PaintShopPro. I can set limited palettes in PSP (to export to GIF) but can’t do indexed colour as far as I know.

Ok, had a look at the program. Not sure it will allow you to work in a indexed colour space. You can work around this by choosing the RGB colours you want to work with and keep a list of them. Then as you work with each frame, use those same RGB colours. when you bring those 24bit images into Dpaint, the conversion to indexed colour space will go a lot easier. I imagine you will spend some time on the first frame to get your palette right. Pulling in subsequent frames should then map to the same indexed colour space.

Alternatively, you could use a different tool like GrafX2, whose heritage comes from Dpaint and Brilliance. http://grafx2.chez.com/ It is free and has support for the Amiga graphic system. Truly a gem.

Or you could this brilliant tool. https://nevercenter.com/pixelmash/ It goes about pixel art in a very unique, but intuitive way. It is paid for, but not that expensive.

Or you could just work in Dpaint.

[saimon69]

If your frames are all separate files you will need to create what is called a 'superpalette' - mean a computed palette that is generated from all frames and resaves all files with the new palette; tools that i know to do that are debabelizer on mac and win and ADpro on amiga; not too sure about ImageFX

[D13TZ13]

Hey Marchie,

Did you find a solution to this?

Back in the day, something I used to do was to combine all animation frames into a single image (sprite sheet). Then import that single image into DPaint, and then redo the animation sequence in Dpaint.
Hope this helps..

D13TZ13

[Marchie]

Originally Posted by D13TZ13

Hey Marchie,

Did you find a solution to this?

Back in the day, something I used to do was to combine all animation frames into a single image (sprite sheet). Then import that single image into DPaint, and then redo the animation sequence in Dpaint.
Hope this helps..

D13TZ13

Thanks for checking-in, yeah, that's what I've done works a treat.

Look forward to showing some work-in-progress soon!

Thanks all!

[invent]

Hi Marchie, Sorry I missed this thread.

D13TZ13 has the same technique I was going to suggest. Once you have converted that single image, I'd save out the palette file. This can be handy if you only wanted to then load one image of those sprites. Load image, load saved palette and remap sprite. It should then remap the same as the single image and be consistent.

Look forward to seeing what you have converted

[Nishicorn]

Or you could just use Brilliance and save yourself the hassle. Pro Motion also has an option to 'single palette' an animation, so it asks if you want to use 'current palette' for all images.

Best bet would to just hand-pixel your sprites in lower resolution and color mode - I have noticed that even when doing some 'epic artwork', I never need all 256 colors, so 24 bits for a SPRITE is beyond overkill (you need quite a resolution to even display a million colors, let alone 16 777 216, and you're never going to use thousands of color for a sprite, let alone hundreds of thousands, etc. and if you do, you should re-examine your life..)

There are so many ways to convert images and such, this kind of thing shouldn't be a problem. If you have an animation as bunch of images, you can just batch convert them to 8-bit images using Irfanview or something very easily, if they're some kind of rendered images, you can render to 256 colors, then you can convert those to IFF on the Amiga side and 'load as sequence' into Brilliance, that uses exactly ONE palette for the whole animation, and so on.

But why would you need to load 24-bit images as sprites to Amiga side anyway? I mean, what do you use to create 24-sprites, and why do it that way, if you're just going to edit them on Amiga anyway? Just create them on the Amiga, problem solved..

Then again, I never understood the 24-bit 'art' anyway - it's just too many colors to handle, a hassle, and you practically have to let the computer do most of the art anyway, so how creative can it be?

I have dabbled on things like using a 'painting program' to create a 'dreamy sky', then convert that to 256 colors and then edit and dither it on the Amiga side - sometimes just to get the right-looking colors and such.

It's fascinating what you can do with lores pixels and 8-bit graphics on a real Amiga, when you decide to start some kind of project like that.

In any case, I suggest avoiding the 24-bit world when you want to hand-pixel stuff - of course I use it in the end product for alphafades and such, but I mean, in the creative side. Low-color, low-res graphics that are alphafaded in a movielike fashion creates a perfect, quirky-but-pleasant mixture of smooth effects and hand-drawn pixel beauty.

24-bit stuff is unnecessary unless you're rendering stuff, and even then, you can remove all the fancy stuff to create proper, RAW graphics, like I did for a tunnel-effect - it looks almost hand-pixelled, because it has zero anti-aliasing or such - it looks as if someone just painstakingly drew lots of circles for every frame.

Some people are very skilled at the 24-bit art stuff, so all the more power to them, but if you're going to use DPaint anyway - I suggest to use Brilliance instead and just do 256 colors or fewer and you'll be happy.

[Marchie]

Thanks Nishicorn, I'll give brilliance a look-in, although I only make assets on the Amiga if I have time to burn (or if I just want to make a point).

I do have a drawing tablet for the Amiga and I kind of love to turn on the Amiga and draw when I have time to chill out, but when it comes to trying to get stuff done and finish it, tablet monitors (ie: screens you draw straight onto) are a total game-changer, and sadly I don't know of any drivers that would make one work on an Amiga!

I'm totally with you on the 24-bit thing, especially at 240p you're really just being sloppy if you need more than 256 colours. And even then you can really make almost anything look good even on 32.

Happy pixel-ing people!

[larsovef]

Not to derail this thread - but does anyone here know how to export color cycled animated pieces to other formats such as .gif? I know it should be possible, but as of now the only way I've been able to get color cycled animations out of DPaint/Brilliance is to screen-record them with quicktime. Saving them as .IFF and opening them up in GraphicConverter11 shows the cycles 1 by one.