Palmaps

[Hunter_rus]

The latest official EDuke32.exe supports the palmaps.
Devan suggested that idea almost a year ago and this feature is supported finally(see attachment). Now, we can have the complete set of palskins. Also it'll reduce the size of HRP and won't slowdown the frame rate.

@ volunteer artists
At the time being there is no palmaps. If someone is interested in making palmaps:

1. Download this developer kit(640Kb).
2. There is kinda documentation(ignore the first spoiler). I think it's difficult to understand(I had been spending several hours to make it as clear as possible, though). But when someone will made it out, one could write a better documentation.
3. Ask me, when something isn't clear.

Note that OpenAL snapshot supports palmaps too(ignore harmless errors in the log).

[Roma Loom]

I just don't get why do you multiply original texture's RGB on palmap's RGB in the first method - the model should look a bit darker than original - right? Also is there any way to use A8 DDS texture as a palmap to make the file even smaller?

..hmm.. I'll make some tests to see the first method's shadows...

[Hunter_rus]

Originally Posted by Roma Loom

I just don't get why do you multiply original texture's RGB on palmap's RGB in the first method - the model should look a bit darker than original - right?

I was using the same operations which were used for the glowmaps and detailmaps. I don't know how to get proper effect because I'm not an artist. You can adjust tints for the palmaps in the "duke3d_hrp.def" file. You can make it lighter/darker.

Originally Posted by Roma Loom

Also is there any way to use A8 DDS texture as a palmap to make the file even smaller?

I'm not sure but Ken's Picture LIBrary has some DDS decoding routines.

[Roma Loom]

Hmm.. I've replaced your bluepal mask for trooper by the more accurate one and got strange problems - the texture parts of the trooper which are covered by the mask are fine (i.e. red parts for pal 10 work well) but all the rest parts are black, desaturated and.. well in one word - buggy. Can you check it for me?
bluepal

[Hunter_rus]

It seems to be the known problem.

Originally Posted by Hunter_rus

2 line. This is the ALPHA channel of a palmap. For a weird reason, I have to use an almost black color(1,1,1) instead of a pure black(0,0,0). If I the use pure black here, GIMP would make RGB channel black too.

[Dr. Kylstien]

Originally Posted by Hunter_rus
2 line. This is the ALPHA channel of a palmap. For a weird reason, I have to use an almost black color(1,1,1) instead of a pure black(0,0,0). If I the use pure black here, GIMP would make RGB channel black too.

There is an option in the PNG export dialog called (in the English version) "Save color values from transparent pixels". It should fix that.

[Roma Loom]

I've managed to do this with TGA's alphachannel, because Photoshop doesn't save/open PNGs with alpha as a 4th channel - it's just loads it with transparent and opaque parts. Yes - everything became ok, but this glitch still remains even with original palmaps provided in palmaps sdk. The strange stuff on their foreheads and jetpacks completely confuses me.

[Hunter_rus]

Originally Posted by Roma Loom

but this glitch still remains even with original palmaps provided in palmaps sdk. The strange stuff on their foreheads and jetpacks completely confuses me.

These glitch were in my sdk because I was selecting with my shaking hands. You should figure which parts should be colorized and which not.

[Roma Loom]

No.. I've doublechecked - neither your palmap nor mine overlaps anything. Also as you can see you and me have chopped only the blue colored parts of the skin and I don't see any blue paint on his forehead in the original skin... ???

[Hunter_rus]

Something is really weird with models. Somehow sprites/textures seems to work properly with palmaps. I'll check it later.

[Hendricks266]

Looks promising. I can't wait until all the skins are done.

[Devan]

Wow! I thought my suggestion was forgotten

[Roma Loom]

I've created the brownpal for the trooper and tried tinkering with tint colors but I actually have to browse through the documentation again as I'm really lost in here. The test map contains red trooper with pal number #19 but I cannot find the definition line for pal 19 in example def file... should I define it myself? Anyway it's too late today for learning the docs... as for pal 17 the last result that satisfied me was

tint { pal 217 red  78 green 149 blue 255 flags 0 } // 17 = brown blue

[Hunter_rus]

All the tints and the palmaps conventions(defineconv) are defined. You can only change the tint values which need adjusting.

The standard convention table.

 9 = normal(=0)
 5 =                         red   -> brown                                                  
10 = blue  -> dark red                                                                       
11 = blue  -> green(=22)                                                                     
12 = blue  -> gray(=18)                                                                      
13 = blue  -> dark gray      red   -> grey                                                   
14 = blue  -> dark green     red   -> green                                                  
15 = blue  -> brown                                                                          
16 = blue  -> dark blue                                                                      
17 = blue  -> green                           green -> blue   brown -> blue    (BLUE spector)
18 = blue  -> gray(=12)                                                                      
19 = blue  -> gray                            green -> red    brown -> red     (RED  spector)
20 = blue  -> gray                            green -> blue   brown -> blue    (BLUE spector)
21 = blue  -> red                                                                            
22 = blue  -> green(=11)                                                                     
23 = blue  -> yellow                                                                         
24 =                         red   -> gray                                     gray  -> red  
25 =                                          green -> red

Troopers have two layers: bluepal and brownpal.
You can change the red tint for the trooper with pal 19 but keep in mind that it will affect the trooper with pal 21 and the other as well.

[Radar1013]

Hey Hunter_Rus, with that picture of the Liztroops up there, how come the second to last one has some red on the original 8-bit one, but in the 32-bit one, it doesn't have any red at all in it? Also, the dark green one in 8-bit looks a bit too light in 32-bit.

[Hunter_rus]

Bump.

I think the tints are accurate enough, though it's still possible that we'll have to change them later. At this point I recommend to start doing palmaps of different types to shake problems because it would be sad if we had to redo all the fonts after changing tints.

http://www.mediafire.com/?icrdnm4xdcy
This pack includes:
1. "duke3d_hrp.def" with tints.
2. Demo map with troopers(1680) and fences (4888). I also fixed Roma Loom's palmap for trooper.
3. List of tiles which may need a palmap.

For more information goto the first post in this thread.

[Spiker]

Hey folks! I'm ablsolutely green at all this graphical and modelling stuff. But the noob has decided to try his hand at making some palmaps even if I knew absolutely nothing about it. I've read this thread and downloaded Gimp. As it occured it wasn't so difficult even for a noob. So here are the first results.

I've made a palmap for the access switch (170). However I have encountered few problems. First of all somehow the models with palmaps were much darker than the original so I had to brighten them. Brightening weakened the shadowing but still it doesn't look so bad. When I was adding shadows then the palmap was not displayed so i gave it up. If someone knows how to deal with these problems or wants to improve shadowing please do it and let me know what exactly is to be done to make it work right.

As some explanations in this thread may be difficult to understand I'll write in much simpler way how to create a palmap in Gimp (Note: I have a Polish version so some names can slightly differ).

1 Download Gimp (I don't know how to do it in Photoshop or any other program as I don't have it)
2 Open the original skin/texture
3 Choose picture menu later choose mode and there select RBG
4 In the layers menu choose transparency and select - add alpha channel
5 Once again choose layers and in mask select add layer's mask (one at the top)
6 In the window that will appear choose importing of alpha layer (or something similar)
7 Now paint the picture so that only parts that need colorizing are left. You may magnify the picture and choose different size of brushes/painting tools to make it easier.
8 When you finish and you want to reduce colors or make picture brighter go to layers - mask and there untick modify mask. Now you can go to
colors menu and choose second from the top and adjust your picture.
9 Save your palmap and if there is a need then click to export it and be sure to tick the option at the bottom. Congratulations! Know you just need to define your palmap or ask somebody to help you with it.

I've tried to make it as easy as possible to understand. I've launched Gimp for the first time yesterday evening. If you see that something is not right or know how to improve it please comment on it. At least it works as you can see in the picture. And don't forget, I'm just a noob!

[Hendricks266]

Good job so far! That looks promising.