Palette Hacking tutorial

[Anakirob]

Originally Posted by earok

We actually did that for Giana SE.. though it was a Windows app using a CSV (to be honest, not hard to port to Blitz, I've already written Blitz apps that can parse CSVs..)

I am not proud of this, but I must confess that I had to Google the term CSV as I was unfamiliar with the term. But once I saw what it was i instantly recognised the concept as I have of course used similarly formatted lists myself, just did not know that they had a name.

Anyway, if you were to consider making some kind of application which was able to patch palette entries for multiple supported games. Or even maybe had the functionality to patch pretty much any binary with the appropriate hex values as long as the user knew the location of the palette data within said binary. Especially if you added some convenient colour selection GUI functionality and/or import palette data from IFF ILBM then I would absolutely be willing to pay a reasonable shareware fee for such an application.

For someone who currently has to suffer with a composite display this would mean that I could actually read any in-game text that used fully saturated colours. And would therefore be invaluable to me.

Just something to consider.

[earok]

As it happens Tsak and myself were considering running a Patreon. More details at the bottom of: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=86335&page=3 but in short -

- Over time we'd upload each tool that we develop and use for our Patreon backers, the same tools used for Giana SE, TimeGal, AlarCity etc
- Higher overall backing of the Patreon would allow us to refine and develop better quality tools (and tools in response to feedback etc).

Having said all that, we've certainly not made up our minds about it particularly as we've had no feedback on the idea.

[Anakirob]

We've already developed a few tools for our projects - such as some palette swapping tools and graphic replacement tools we made for Giana SE. But also the Time Gal engine is already very generic, and we could make it completely generic so end users could develop their own games (or ports) using it. And maybe potentially, if the Patreon received enough funding I could justify the development time to add multiple paths, gun aiming (Mad Dog yo) etc. Also in time AlarCity tools could be made available too, such as an animation tool we've designed for the intro sequence.

So in short - a small contribution to the Patreon would give you access to tools that are gradually added over time (say, one-a-month with tutorial and basic support etc), and higher total contributions would allow us to develop those tools further for public use. But we haven't fleshed out the exact details of what we'd offer.

I assume that you are referring to this comment posted by you. I'm perhaps a bit less interested in Amiga ports as opposed to exclusive Amiga games such as AlarCity and Tanks Furry (just to name a couple) so would have missed this idea as I'm generally not interested in the Amiga version Time Gal for the reason I mentioned. Not saying I'm not impressed that it's available, just that I really like original Amiga exclusive games on my Amiga.

Well if feedback is what you need I can say:

I would be willing to back this project in some form of crowdfunding. But I personally find that making a one-off payment of $50 infinitely preferable to 10 monthly payments of $5. The former I could totally do, while the latter will quite possibly fail sooner or later due to insufficient funds if they use a monthly rather than 28 day billing cycle as I imagine they do. So Patreon may not be the best crowdfunding solution if you need my support.

I'm imagining that such a project could compliment WHDLoad quite nicely.

Also, have you considered communicating with the developer of MCE? Sure it's made to edit save files, but perhaps you could use some of his routines so you don't have to reinvent the wheel so to speak.

[earok]

I understand, your points are fair and reasonable.

Re: TimeGal, I understand ports aren't everyone's cup of tea but there's no reason the engine couldn't be used for a "new" FMV game as opposed to ports of older ones. But in any case..

I have some ideas on how to restructure the main idea as a one-off payment that gives you permanent access to the tools (with additional purchases or donations aiding the development of more frequent and higher quality tools). Watch this space.

[Vegas]

Hello, sorry for digging up this old thread. But i wanted to mention, this way of altering the palette seems to work with "Maniac Mansion" as well.

I always found the Amiga palette to be kinda ugly. When testing, i went for some C64-ish colours. Of course, it might need some tweaking.

Great fun, thanks a lot for this tutorial!

[earok]

Originally Posted by Vegas

Hello, sorry for digging up this old thread. But i wanted to mention, this way of altering the palette seems to work with "Maniac Mansion" as well.

I always found the Amiga palette to be kinda ugly. When testing, i went for some C64-ish colours. Of course, it might need some tweaking.

Great fun, thanks a lot for this tutorial!

Ah man I forgot about this thread completely! Glad that you've had some fun with Maniac Mansion!