AuthorTopic: How to pick a palette  (Read 3695 times)

Offline Mathias

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How to pick a palette

on: December 12, 2008, 12:12:00 am
Simply put, how does one wisely choose the right palette for the right job?


For example, if starting art production on a pixel-art style side-scroller game set in outer space, how do you guys here create a palette that'll give you the versatility you need, yet still emulate that great low color, old school look.

I'm thinking somewhere in the neighborhood of 24 colors. I tried to just arbitrarily grab a palette and run with it. But, even after making mods to it, I'm still unsatisfied with what it offers me.

I know you guys feel my pain, where am I going wrong?

Offline Tuna Unleashed

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Re: How to pick a palette

Reply #1 on: December 12, 2008, 05:47:44 am
If your going for an old school pallet, I would suggest a nes pallet or a c64 pallet

Offline TrevoriuS

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Re: How to pick a palette

Reply #2 on: December 12, 2008, 11:44:06 am
You have to draw, with no more than 24 colours. If you appear to lack one, optimize, balance, and remove colours to create space for new. The palette should be built up during the process of creating the graphic(s), not beforehand. That latter only happens with consoles, and for a console, they just tried to make the best generic palette. The process of doing that, may be represented in the feature chest sub-board of this one. I'm of course referring to this: http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=4306.0

Offline Mathias

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Re: How to pick a palette

Reply #3 on: December 15, 2008, 04:16:50 pm
TrevoriuS, insightful, thanks.

See, I had already found that great thread you linked to, and am actually already using a palette from it, but slightly augmented to better suit my needs. Yet I'm still trying to stay true to it as much as possible, because I wanted the challenge of picking a palette and creating an entire scroller with it and not deviating. Now I see that's pointless and detrimental to the project - making myself settle for colors that could probably be better.

So, just how far into graphics production should I be in order to confidently make a conclusion on color palette? Would I need to comp up all "types" of art in the game to make sure I can do so with the chosen palette? Meaning I would quickly rough in various chunks of levels and sprites until I was happy with my color selection. That seems sensible, if that's what you're suggesting.

Offline Mathias

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Re: How to pick a palette

Reply #4 on: December 21, 2008, 09:58:15 pm
If your going for an old school pallet, I would suggest a nes pallet or a c64 pallet


Where do I find NES and C64 palettes? Did they have a pre-defined amount of colors any and all games could display? Obviously, only a certain total amount of colors could displayed at one time or in one game, where are these old palettes defined so that I can use them?



**EDIT - For those stumbling onto this, ptoing went into detail about the C64 palette here.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2009, 07:45:36 pm by Mathias »