Critique > Pixel Art Feature Chest
Feature 05 - Generic 16 color palette
Arne:
I've been working on a general purpose 16 color palette. I got some nice feedback on IRC, and I'm at version 11 currently.
The main philosophy is to (if possible) have:
-Pleasant common colors, like sky blue, vegetation, skin tones, etc.
-Cold-Warm ramps
-Cross color ramps (Red-Orange-Yellow etc.)
I had to sacrifice full white, but I think it's working. Full white is kind of obnoxious and dull temperature-wise.
The red is a bit dark, but I've found it to be useful that way. It can be worked up in value by using some of the lighter colors.
The most recent change is the dark brown. I needed a dark color for background stuff, but brown seem to be a good choice since it can ramp with a lot of colors (green, yellow, red, purple).
I'm doing a few mockups to see how it works in practice. Samus and her friend is ported from my mini Metroid project (which is 32 colors). The platform mockup is kind of uninspired.
Jet Set Willy II Speccy screen PO. I need to play that game some. The Speccy version seems superior, otherwise I often prefer C64 versions of old games.
Helm:
Yeah Ptoing showed me the version before this one on msn and I was thinking 'perhaps he shouldn't have pure grays' but then again my c64 instincts stopped me, when I considered how absolutely useful pure grays are there to bridge other hues.
However if you went that way with the dark brown, just give a subtle tint to the second darkest gray too perhaps.
I am not lamenting the loss of pure white too much.
Otherwise this palette is excellent and very adaptable. Good job. I might use it for something or another.
Arne:
I'll have to sleep on it. I think with such few colors, there'll always be something which irks me. The two darks are a bit problematic yes. Maybe they should be in reverse order.
Noodling around.
Quick and dirty reversed darks.
Edit: ref: http://www.mobygames.com/game/zx-spectrum/jet-set-willy-ii-the-final-frontier/screenshots/gameShotId,132010/
I'm leaning towards reversing now maybe... With a brighter dark warm I can do more stuff with the earth colors, and a cold extra dark does feel less intrusive.
Helm:
I'd say yes, cooler darks are better in this case, especially since night-time blue-to-black is such a prevailent theme in 8-bit games. The coppery warm brown won't be as useful.
Conzeit:
hmm interesting.The most similar to this I've tried is messing with GBC pallete...it IS really challenging to make a pallete that works on games with completly diferent uses of contrast.
I'll show u my archive of GBC screens, maybe you can use that to test urs..in HALFS! because they're just 8 color screens XD...who knows.
Maybe u should grab a bunch of c64 screenshots instead
hrm, I think you're limiting yourself trying to keep pure skin tones there. best illustration artists always say there are no skin tones, it's all about how you surround them.
boy, I'm really missing some purples in there. You'd be amazed at how much of an ambigous bastard purple is :p. the only other neutral color in WARM vs COLD is green, and it's not nearly as easy to use for bridging...in my experience.
I'm not really sure but...I think you should atleast try putting a purple in there sneaked as a skintone.
Sorry, might be self important to post this, but eh...I dont know, it's a fast take on what I'd do for a generic 16 color pallete...maybe it can give u some..ideas?
hehe, I sure like my purples dont I? C_____C
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