SPWAW edited color palette

[Matt R]

Ok, now that the pretty German camoflage is done, on to the ugly Soviet stuff [:)]

[Matt R]

Hmm..

Both the Alkett and Vomag versions of the Panzer IV/70 use the same icon and LBM in the game. And they have the same encyclopedia file as the Jagdpanzer IV.

Geoff, can I suggest an official change to the Orbat to include the correct information and graphics for each vehicle?


Matt

[JEB Davis]

[&o][&o][&o] Please, can we have these new colors? [&o][&o][&o]

[Matt R]

Geoff, I can use an obsolete, unused icon in one of the SHP files for the IV/70(V). I can also add their own LBMs and encyclopedia files, and adjust the numbers in the Orbat to make it work. I'll zip it all up and post it here, or message it to you so you can add it to the SP:WaW 2016 download.

Not meaning to sound presumptuous, I'm just excited that the old girl works on my computer again!

[Riitaoja2]

I will upload the new palette file in a day or two.

Be patient! [:)]

[Matt R]

Actually, I'll pack it all up after the Soviet tanks are done.

[Riitaoja2]

The SPWAW palette has 9 groups of animated colors in total. These animated colors are cycling from left to right and create the water, fire and smoke effects. These animated colors are also used in the menu graphics but that is fine since they only color cycle if used in the Icon and Terrain files.

[Riitaoja2]

By the way the modified PALETTE.LBM should work with the old SSI DOS games too. I tested this with Steel Panthers 2: Modern Battles.

[Riitaoja2]

ORIGINAL: Matt R

Hmm..

Both the Alkett and Vomag versions of the Panzer IV/70 use the same icon and LBM in the game. And they have the same encyclopedia file as the Jagdpanzer IV.

Geoff, can I suggest an official change to the Orbat to include the correct information and graphics for each vehicle?


Matt

In the version of the game I have the icon numbers are as follows for the Jagdpanzer IV:
IV/70(a) = Icon0053.shp | Image#14 | OOB Icon: 298
IV/70(V) = Icon0201.shp | Image#2 | OOB Icon: 400

[sami heimola]

Riitaoja, have you tried yet new palette file in WinSPMBT&WW2[:'(]? If so, could you send it via PM?

[Matt R]

I'm using purely the 2016 download.

[Matt R]

And the same data for the other.

[Matt R]

ORIGINAL: sami heimola
Riitaoja, have you tried yet new palette file in WinSPMBT&WW2[:'(]?

Why would you need it, Sami? Their palette is already very good.

[Matt R]

ORIGINAL: Riitaoja2
The SPWAW palette has 9 groups of animated colors in total.

So what are the new colors you added, R2?

[Riitaoja2]

ORIGINAL: Matt R

ORIGINAL: Riitaoja2
The SPWAW palette has 9 groups of animated colors in total.

So what are the new colors you added, R2?

There are 8 more shades of existing colors available and 16 new shades of animated colors available in the new palette. There are no completely "new" colors added but at least SPWAW now uses the maximum ammount of colors it can out of the 256 color palette.

The 8 new shades of color are mainly in the brown colors. There is also one white, blue-gray and black color shade added. These probably won't make any noticeable difference in game since the color value changes are very small.

The 16 new colors for the animated part of the palette hopefully makes the animations of water and smoke slightly better looking. At least the animations now should have a few more "frames" in them.


Now one could go and add 8 completely new colors into the game like say new shades of red or something else. However I chose not to do this because even if the colors are duplicates and have different index numbers they are still sometimes used as I found out in my testing. This would reguire one to go through all the graphics and make sure no icon, menu or unit picture changed it's color to an unintended one.

So it is still possible to add at least 8 completely new colors to the palette but it will reguire some additional work and possibly the inclusion of color fixed .shp and .lbm files to go with it.

[Riitaoja2]

For reference here is a list of the duplicated non flashing colors in the SPWAW palette (Using Paint Shop Pro index numbers).

Index: 1 & 195 (black)
Index: 11 & 84 (white)
Index: 43 & 44 (brown)
Index: 46 & 154 (brown)
Index: 105 & 212 (blue-gray)
Index: 141 & 142 (light brown)
Index: 155, 156 & 157 (brown) - Addtional note: This color had two duplicates (156 and 157)

Now assuming that when the graphics were created for SPWAW the lower number of the index was primarily used we can make the assumption that the larger number of the duplicated colors can be changed with the least ammount of issues. There will however most likely be problems with some graphics changing to an uninteded color and those would need to be gone trough manualy and repainted.

So the 8 colors that could be changed are:

Index: 44
Index: 84
Index: 142
Index: 154
Index: 156
Index: 157
Index: 195
Index: 212

[Riitaoja2]

And here is a map showing the distribution of the duplicated colors in the original color palette.

[Riitaoja2]

ORIGINAL: Matt R

ORIGINAL: sami heimola
Riitaoja, have you tried yet new palette file in WinSPMBT&WW2[:'(]?

Why would you need it, Sami? Their palette is already very good.

I agree the Camo Workshop palette is already optimized well for those games. SPWAW on the other hand was still using the old palette from the DOS era of SP1,SP2 and SP3.

[Riitaoja2]

Here is an animated .gif showing the difference in colors of the old and new palette.



Ofcourse .gif is not the ideal file format to use since it does not maintain the absolute color values. Idealy a .PNG or .BMP should be used.

[Riitaoja2]

New palette is now uploaded! See first post for DL link.