The Warlords II Players' Encyclopedia - Info, Tactics | FAQ | Demos, Patches | Scenarios | Army Sets (+) | Scenario Editing | WarBOT | Tournament | League | Remailer | Other Sites - This page last revised 27-Apr-02 by Bob Heeter

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    From: "Martijn Dashorst"
    To: bbrook@rna.bio.mq.edu.au, overlord@surfnetinc.com (Dale Sebenste)
    Date: 	Tue, 20 May 1997 23:54:32 +0100
    Mime-Version: 1.0
    Subject: warlords pcx palette
    Cc: rfheeter@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
    Priority: normal

    > Thank you for the info ...
    You're welcome.

    > When I tried to cut up a gif I came across and convert
    > it to a PCX at the right size and number of colors, I
    > soon found out that the pallette for a warlords PCX file
    > is distinct and obviously not the same pallette HiJaak
    > Pro had defined.  I then did a simple directory search
    > on the Warlords Deluxe CD and came up with a couple of
    > pallette files that didn't seem related and did not
    > correct the gross mismatch of colors in my new PCX.
    > Maybe I'm short on understanding, but it sure would be
    > nice of SSG to toss in a pallette file for those who
    > care to convert a predrawn picture file instead of
    > drawing one from scratch in Paintbrush or the like.

    The problem here is that all paint programs use different formats for
    their palette files. For instance, windows palette files (created
    with paintbrush) are different in format and will not work with Paint
    Shop Pro (probably the best paint program available).

    > Better yet, it would be nice if they dropped the use of pallettes
    > altogether and displayed an image in its inherent color scheme!

    This also gives problems, since the display is limited to only 256
    colors, of which Warlords needs several to display its own graphics.
    So they "invented" some nice palette consisting of all colors which
    they found important. Something similar happens in Netscape (YES!):
    it uses also a palette for displaying the images on 256 color
    displays (and as I have heard, also on true color displays). More
    information on this one can be found somewhere on geocities with the
    Paint Shop Pro wizard (search for Paint Shop Pro there).

    > Do you suppose a proper PAL file can be extracted from
    > someone else's scenario.pcx file?  Even if I did get an
    > accurate pallette file, what use would it be in using
    > someone elses predrawn picture that was drawn without
    > a warlords pallette?

    Well, although the number of different colors and shades is limited,
    you still *can* make the picture look nice. What I did was export the
    palette of a scenario .pcx file to a Paint Shop Pro palette, create
    the picture I wanted in 16.7 million colors, and then import the
    palette. At this moment you need to decide if you want Paint Shop Pro
    to use (a) nearest color matching or (b) error diffusion to import
    the palette. (a) means that it will find for each pixel in your
    graphic the color which resembles the original color most, and set
    the color to that one. (b) means that it will simulate all colors by
    looking at the surroundings of each pixel and to find a nearest match
    for that pixel. I hope this makes sense. (a) will probably give the
    worst results, but try it anyway, you never know.

    > Maybe you can help me understand ...

    > PCX files for Warlords Deluxe use 128 colors, right?
    uhm, imho it's 256.

    > Let's say I convert a 24bit bmp to a 128 color PCX.
    > Let's also say that the resulting PCX looks fine in
    > terms of color.  If there is a mere possible 128
    > different colors in this PCX, that means that each
    > color has a number between 1 and 128, right?  Why is
    > it then that Warlords Deluxe must map its own table
    > of colors on to my picture and funk it all up?

    I'll give you an example:
    the color table of a pcx file looks like this:
    nr      color (rgb)
    -------------
     0      000000 (black)
     1      ffffff (white)
     2      ff0000 (red)
     3      00ff00 (green)
     4      0000ff (blue)
     5      808080 (gray)
     6      707070 (darker gray)
     7      606060 (even more darker gray)
    etc....

    Now a 11x2 image is encoded as follows:

          00 07 06 05 01 01 01 05 06 07 00
          00 07 06 05 01 01 01 05 06 07 00

    with each number representing a pixel with the value the entry in the
    color table, so it looks like this:

          black emdg dg gray white white white gray dg emdg black
          black emdg dg gray white white white gray dg emdg black

    But if the color table has different values in each slot, then the
    look of the picture will be completely different. Say that we
    exchange entry 0 and 2. Then the resulting image will be:

          red emdg dg gray white white white gray dg emdg red
          red emdg dg gray white white white gray dg emdg red

    Not quite what you wanted.

    > The PCX
    > i'm using must have dozens of shades of greys, some reds
    > and off blues.  I simply can't imagine this picture ever
    > looking presentable being displayed with the Warlords
    > Palette redefing my PCX's color table.  Does my
    > interpretation make sense and would you tend to agree
    > that there is probably no chance of converting any
    > predrawn picture to a Warlords PCX and palette scheme
    > without it turning out to be a technicolor mess?

    with some effort it might work. You could send the picture to me and
    I could try to see what I can do. It will take me approx. 10 minutes
    or so...

    >
    > Thanks for the feedback!
    >
    > By the way, have you tried either of the two scenarios?
    > If so, how do they play?

    I haven't played them. What do the .com files do exactly?

    > Dale
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > At 10:32 PM 5/19/97 +0100, Martijn Dashorst wrote:
    > >Hi!
    > >
    > >I just wanted to comment a little on this message...
    > >
    > >> As for .pcx files, I've found that Paint shop pro (downloadable version
    > >> available somewhere...) does them fine, so try this.
    > >
    > >Note that you can edit in the 16 million color mode, but before you
    > >do that, you *must* save the palette of the original file (or a
    > >scenario.pcx of another game). After you have made your picture, load
    > >the saved palette to ensure you get what you see. Experiment a little
    > >with the various scenario.pcx-es since not always is the color table
    > >the one *you* want.
    > >The manual isn't clear on which colors are reserved by w2 so be
    > >careful.
    > >
    > >Martijn
    > >
    > >Martijn Dashorst                      "Sometimes I think the surest sign that
    > >http://www.cs.utwente.nl/~dashorst/    life exists elsewhere in the universe
    > >dashorst@nicole.sis.nl                 is that none of ithas ever tried to
    > >dashorst@cs.utwente.nl                 contact us..." - Calvin and Hobbes
    > >
    >
    >

    Martijn Dashorst                      "Sometimes I think the surest sign that
    http://www.cs.utwente.nl/~dashorst/    life exists elsewhere in the universe
    dashorst@nicole.sis.nl                 is that none of ithas ever tried to
    dashorst@cs.utwente.nl                 contact us..." - Calvin and Hobbes

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