April 28th, 2004

Hi Ladies and Chappies,

these palettes have been optimised for use in Photoshop to get rid of conversion errors once and for all and consist of the stock EAW palette (DAY_FADE.PAL) combined with each plane's slot specific colors (P****VIEW.CPT) into a single palette using the exact RGB values as found by hexediting (no conversion involved). All unusable colors were set to RGB values FF 00 FF (PINK) to prevent accidental use of these indexes in conversions. All zero indexes were set to RGB 00 00 00 (BLACK) but this color can easily be adapted to any other by using the eyedropper tool in INDEXED COLOR/COLOR TABLE mode by clicking the eyedropper on the zero index in the palette. To prevent this black color being used in a conversion you can also use the eye dropper with it's switch ticked to set this index to transparent or pick any color which isn't used in your skin. When changing the zero index in the palette all pixels using this index will adapt to the color choosen so it isn't necessary to draw on a black sheet. The eyedropper can also be used to pick a color from the PCX to set other pixels to fully transparent and by pasting the picture into a new one with a different background color this background color will be addapted by the transparent pixels.

Those who are using a DIFFERENT PAINT PROGRAM should load each colortable PCX and safe the palette in a native format in order to be able to apply this palette at a later stage when converting back to a 256 color INDEXED PCX file. Other programs which are not able to import/attach palettes should use the colortable PCX's and eyedropper function of their program to draw with the colors available on the colortable PCX's. 

The FULL palettes can only be used on TRA linked TPC's of the planes (P***TEX, PVTR etc), all other TPC's should use the NONTRA palette, which also should be used for GROUNDOBJECTS.

 A DAY_FADE.PAL with added HUD colors was added for those who want to use the extra HUDCOLORS (which can be usercontrolled from the EAW.INI). As the DAY_FADE.PAL is static, the added colors will become part of EAW's stock palette for those TPC's which are using the DAY_FADE.PAL for palette info. When these colors aren't used in conversions then the DAY_FADE.PAL change will have no effect what so ever as their indexes remain unused. If you want to use these colors you will have to add them to the specific slot's palette by using the eyedropperfunction in INDEXED COLOR/COLOR TABLE. Each color has to occupy the exact spot as shown in the HUD.PCX to function correctly. However use of these files is inadviced and for this reason I have placed them in a seperate folder.

As it is inadvisable to have the TRANSPARENCY colors in the P***TEX conversion palette (they might accidentally be used when a color is close) so I have added the new black and white 256 TRA palette as a seperate palette which can be used in the same way as any other palette. To convert older TRA files it is best to load it into Photoshop and convert it to GREYSCALE, then to RGB mode (or straight back to INDEXED) and use the autocontrast setting after which the 256TRA can be applied for conversion (a bit of experimenting is required ). This will result in a reasonable new TRA. As this TRA uses all available indexes you can apply any RGB calculation on black and white pictures including blurring and apply the 256 TRA to get superior (but also larger) PCX files.
The use of the -P or -8 switch for TRA's in PICPAC isn't necessary and maybe inadvicable too as this will only use up valuable memory. Converting your TRA to the TRA256NEG will invert your picture (negative).

As far as my knowledge goes I truely believe these files are compattible for all videocards but if any problems show up you can contact me at:

roelbartels_@hotmail.com

or post a thread in one of the usual forums. 

IMPORTANT: These palettes were NOT taken from the ones attached in the PICPAC utillity but were hexedited together straight from the game's palette files and as such should be the one and only. The PICPAC TPC files slightly deviate from these and are NOT correct to my knowledge.

VonBeerhofen

Solutions to problems:

If a skin shows slightly different colours then your drawing, then you probably used another plane's palette or the used colours don't match the nearest colours for the conversion. Reconvert by adding the proper palette or slightly alter your drawing.
If parts originally intended to have colours show up as black, then this part probably can not use the extended colours, convert to the NONTRA palette
If parts show up as transparent, then probably an extended palette is in use where it shouldn't have one. Reconvert to the NONTRA palette.
If a transparent part show up as non transparent, then this part is probably not properly mapped to the TRA or it uses a NONTRA TPC.
If psychedelic colours are displayed on your skin then you probably forgot to use the -P or -8 switch in PICPAC and there isn't a palette attached to your TPC. Set proper switch and reconvert.
Note: If a 3DZ uses a nonstock slotname for the P***TEX then for TNT cards the palette is taken from the DAY_FADE.PAL and only  the NONTRA or GROUNDOBJECTS palette will be used