jeroa Posted October 23, 2019 (edited) does anyone know how id software chose the palette they settled on? i'm personally not bothered but i think most people find it very limited 0 Share this post Link to post
MFG38 Posted October 23, 2019 I'm inclined to believe that the color choices that ultimately ended up in the 256-color palette were dictated by the colors used by the real-life models and whatnot that were scanned to be used in the game. Just a theory. 1 Share this post Link to post
seed Posted October 23, 2019 DOS, VGA, and to fit the game's assets and atmosphere. 3 Share this post Link to post
incel Posted October 23, 2019 (edited) I'm too wasted to recollect it throughly, but it wasn't like pulled out of a caco's butt – of course, it was a planned decision. The palette of the game is the 1st thing that's desided, 'because you wouldn't be able to change it mid-production, without consequences. Doom palette has it's share of browns and greys, has very limitted greens and blues, lacks yellows and completely omits cyan, which seems rational for the horror game set at the space base. If you pick another game with 8-bit color palette, like AoE, for example, you'd find way more greens and yellows, 'cause they are expected from the setting. 0 Share this post Link to post
chungy Posted October 23, 2019 Notice how most of the primary colors are grouped into 16 shades of colors, with a few lesser-used one in groups of 8, and also some pinks to complete the title screen. As MFG38 states, they are colors that can approximate real-life texturing work. Also yes, paletted graphics are a big PITA to work with, and many modern source ports let you use full 24-bit color instead ;) 1 Share this post Link to post
Gez Posted October 23, 2019 Isn't it quite close to the default Deluxe Paint palette? I'm always annoyed by how the blue range is split in two separate parts, 192-207 and then 240-247. 2 Share this post Link to post
jeroa Posted October 24, 2019 Just now, Gez said: I'm always annoyed by how the blue range is split in two separate parts, 192-207 and then 240-247. :o does that change how the game can use them? and could game have displayed the custom palettes of mods like BTSX if they existed back then? 0 Share this post Link to post
TheMightyHeracross Posted October 24, 2019 (edited) 14 minutes ago, jeroa said: and could game have displayed the custom palettes of mods like BTSX if they existed back then? Yes. The palettes are defined in the PLAYPAL lump which can be replaced by a PWAD like any other lump. Also, BTSX is vanilla compatible, so you could load it up with the original game via DOSBOX if you want. 1 Share this post Link to post
printz Posted October 24, 2019 (edited) I think part of the palette was inherited from Wolf3D, owing to their many identical colour ranges — this is why most Wolf3D graphics, excluding the cyan ones, map well to DOOM. Then DOOM sought to reduce the bright saturated colours to look more realistic, less EGA-like than Wolf3D. It's unfortunate we don't have much blue, because it makes realistic Earth skies difficult (hard to draw the blue sky). But it's probably for the best anyway, because with the lack of directed shadows, only the overcast skies (which diffuse the sun light) are realistic in DOOM. 2 hours ago, jeroa said: :o does that change how the game can use them? No, but it makes using colour range conversion tools such as SLADE take more time. 1 Share this post Link to post
Dark Pulse Posted October 24, 2019 On 10/23/2019 at 1:10 PM, incel said: The palette of the game is the 1st thing that's desided, 'because you wouldn't be able to change it mid-production, without consequences. Doom palette has it's share of browns and greys, has very limitted greens and blues, lacks yellows and completely omits cyan, which seems rational for the horror game set at the space base. And then the palette changed mid-production. 2 Share this post Link to post
incel Posted October 25, 2019 7 hours ago, Dark Pulse said: And then the palette changed mid-production. No way! *Checking* It didn't changed that drasicly – all the main colors are present. They moved some colors around for some reason :-/. 0 Share this post Link to post
Gez Posted October 25, 2019 The blue range was shortened by 8 colors and made to ramp up more aggressively to black (so aggressively in fact that the last color in the second blue range, index 247, is RGB 0 0 0, fully black, and a redundant color with index 0). 0 Share this post Link to post
Woolie Wool Posted October 30, 2019 (edited) In addition to the row of dark colors along the top, several colors were added to the palette near the end, mostly dark shades of brown and orange. This was probably done to make the light shading look better. 3 Share this post Link to post