Textures converting strangely in Slade 3

[Koko Ricky]

I've noticed that sometimes, an imported graphic's colors will change slightly when being converted to Doom's texture format, even if the import uses Doom's exact palette. Is this a format-dependent issue or is something else the cause?

[scifista42]

What was their original format?

[Koko Ricky]

Been using BMP. Is there a preferred one to ensure that images will translate perfectly?

[scifista42]

Rather than a BMP-specific error in the conversion process, I'm more inclined to suspect that your graphics didn't in fact use exact Doom palette colors.

[Koko Ricky]

Well here's my process. I make a texture, save it as a gif which uses the Doom palette, then I convert the gif to the bitmap. So it only has Doom colors going in. Then Slade will change a few of them, inexplicably, such as reds to browns.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

Quote

The BMP format is not supported. This is deliberate. This format does not support offsets, transparency, or compression, and is therefore cumbersome and useless. (The BMP specs actually allow for transparency in 32-bit mode, and compression is theoretically possible. However, the most common tool used for editing BMP files, MS Paint, does not, rendering the question irrelevant.)

https://zdoom.org/wiki/Image_format

 

It would be better to convert them to PNG or something before moving it into your wad. Slade can convert those to Doom graphics that use the palette for you, and you shouldn't have any errors.

[scifista42]

^ The page says that BMP is not supported by the ZDoom game engine. It doesn't imply anything about SLADE3's in-editor texture converter.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

That's true, but it also doesn't say anything about GIF images, and the Doom Wiki page didn't say anything on what image formats beyond the native Doom format the Doom engine can use that I could see.

[Koko Ricky]

I'll try PNG and see what happens. I have Photoshop so it's no biggie.

[Edward850]

3 minutes ago, Aquila Chrysaetos said:

That's true, but it also doesn't say anything about GIF images, and the Doom Wiki page didn't say anything on what image formats beyond the native Doom format the Doom engine can use that I could see.

Doom supports the Doom image format. Nothing more. What source ports support beyond it is specific to that port, and if ZDoom doesn't list it, it probably doesn't support that either.

[RockstarRaccoon]

I've actually encountered the same error, so I'm pretty sure it's a problem with SLADE.  I don't remember how or if I fixed it.  How about you try editing in indexed color format in the first place?  I know GIMP supports that...

[Koko Ricky]

1 hour ago, RockstarRaccoon said:

I've actually encountered the same error, so I'm pretty sure it's a problem with SLADE.  I don't remember how or if I fixed it.  How about you try editing in indexed color format in the first place?  I know GIMP supports that...

As I said, I initially index the colors in GIF, then convert it to PNG. I'm not sure why, but I was under the impression that Slade wants PNGs, but I guess it would rather deal with a bitmap.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

20 minutes ago, GoatLord said:

I was under the impression that Slade wants PNGs

Because I suggested you use PNG's?

Did it work? Or is the issue still standing?

[Empyre]

Assuming that GIMP supports it, why not make a PNG in the first place, skipping the GIF altogether?