Messed up skins: what happened?

[OneManClan]

Hey guys

I'm experimenting with a new set of skins (using photoshop), and everything was going well, here's an example of a WIP:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60268498@N ... hotostream

But something, somewhere, somehow went wrong, and all the new skins have come out like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60268498@N ... hotostream

My procedure has been:
1. open pcx skin
2. Change to RGB mode (Image->mode->RGB Color)
3. add extra layers and paint some stuff (THEORY 1: I was using the 'eye dropper' tool to make sure I was only using colours that already existed in other quake skins, and something went wrong)
4. Revert from RGB back to indexed color (Image->mode->Indexed Color) THEORY 2: During this step I noticed that when selecting indexed color, a dialogue box popped up ("Indexed Color"), and the colors were NOT 256, they were another number, a lower number (I don't remember what it was).

Anyway, if someone can diagnose 'what went wrong' with the second skin (and ALL the new skins look like this now!) that would be much appreciated

[Spike]

quakeworld engines require that you use the quake palette in skin pcx files.
the engine doesn't even verify that the palette matches. it just assumes. no warnings, just messed up colours.

its hard to fix such things without breaking skins that contain gibberish palettes.

[OneManClan]

[Spike]

A1: Both.

A2: Add a new colour that isn't in the origional palette, and the origional palette cannot be used for that colour.

If you're lucky, there'll be an option to specify the palette to use when converting back to a paletted format - otherwise it'll make up its own palette instead, which is not what you want.

[OneManClan]

[OneManClan]

Update:

I understand I'm supposed to 'use pallettes' during the 'RGB-> indexed color' process, but I'm obviously doing something wrong. Here's the latest test results:

(based on )
1. Open tf_scout.pcx in photoshop (this is a perfectly working skin!)
2. Select everything and paste it into a new empty (default) RGB, 8 bit document.
3. With this new untitled document open, go: Image->mode->Indexed Color
4. "Flatten Images?" dialogue box, I answered 'ok'.
5. In the dialogue box "Indexed Color" click on Palette and select "custom"
6. In the dialogue box "Color Table" click on "save"
7. Save as foo.ACT ( I tried .pal as well made no difference)


1. Open tf_scout.pcx in photoshop (this is a perfectly working skin!)
2. Image->mode->RGB
3. Image->mode->Indexed Color (converting it back without any changes)
4. In the dialogue box "Indexed Color" click on Palette and select "custom"
5. In the dialogue box "Color Table" click on "load"
6. Select foo.ACT and click on 'load'
7. At the "Color Table" table click on "Ok"
8. At the "Indexed Color" table click on "Ok"
9. Save as pcx

This STILL results in messed up skins (as described in the first post)!!!

What's going on? What have I missed?

[qbism]

Maybe the order of palette colors is not preserved in the process. I'd suggest finding a pcx or gif that you know has the correct palette and colors in the right order. Make a copy and scale it to the size of the desired output. Paste into that instead of a generic 8-bit document.

[leileilol]

i'd also suggest not using photoshop because they may have regressed support for indexed color

I'm not sure how GIMP supports indexed color, but the most i'm familiar with is Paint Shop Pro 3, 4 and 5.

You can also try using Fimg to set the palette of your image.

[frag.machine]

[OneManClan]

[OneManClan]

[OneManClan]

[qbism]

Is it required for the pcx file colormap to match the Quake palette colormap?

Is it required for the colors to be in the correct order?

If 1 and 2 are true, it is necessary to have a program that preserves the entire colormap and the order when saving. Even if it may not be required, it is a good habit to follow so it can be ruled out as a source of the problem. A preview option of the colormap in a 16x16 grid is also nice. If a program mixes up the order or automatically blacks-out unused colors it is useless for the task.

[Spirit]

Did you really pay 1000$ for Photoshop? Geez! As I said in IRC, try GIMP.

The Quake palette can be found at https://raw.github.com/atphalix/eviltoy ... alette.gpl
Put it into where GIMP has put its "palettes" directory on your system. Then do Image -> Mode -> Indexed: Custom -> qplague

[OneManClan]