Seasons and Palettes

[Hans_Petter 1]

Robert D started this by playing with the scenery palette to get whiter snow on Mount Rainier. Then Glidernut created a winter palette. Bogdan requested an autumn palette. Well, here it is--just click on the attachment.Currently it looks like this:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/42659.jpgSince we learned to edit palettes entry by entry there are many opportunities. Does anybody think that the Seattle, the SanFran or the UK palette could use a facelift? The thing is, we don't have to choose between the Seattle and SanFran palette anymore. Just as for aircraft palettes we may create a new one rather than having to choose between existing ones. There are limits and disadvantages. We are limited to a certain number of different hues. The main disadvantage is that one palette entry may be used for different types of terrain--what looks good in the forest may affect the shoreline in Puget Sound or San Francisco Bay. Still, we won't have to accept using a scenery palette lacking in red hues, yellow, green etc as long as there's another hue that we can sacrifice. And, we won't skew the color of the water inadvertently since the we simply don't touch the blue hues :-)Please download my autumn (fall) version of the Seattle palette and check it out. I may proceed to change the model palette. The challenge is to keep the conifers (wintergreen trees) green while getting yellow / orange deciduous trees. Well, this is not too hard since the wintergreen has a blue tinge to it that sets it apart from the "pure" green hues that I'll modify. Still, green roofs may turn yellowish. best regards,Hans Petter

[Guest R_Driscoll]

This will take some getting used to! With the model palettes, if you change them a lot then it may be necessary to remap colours - i.e. I have mixed colours to get the average colour correct - we might have to do the same again.One thought is that we could make an artifical palette which is more or less equally colour-spaced, and so allows us to match any colour more or less equally well. With 256 colours, 3 principal directions, that would allow use 6 points along each axis (6x6x6 = 216) with 40 spare, or 6x6x7 with 4 spare.The 6x6x6 palette would be:Red = (0,51,102,153,204,255)Green = (0,51,102,153,204,255)Blue = (0,51,102,153,204,255)with the 40 spare possibly going into a few more near whites and a few near blacks.Then we would rewrite FIXMIP to convert all MIPS from the old colours to the closest new colours, possibly using some colour blending to get closer matching. I could do the rewrite to make this possible. Currently I'm working on a little weekender house for UK. I know Cristian told us not to make any new models but I can't stop myself.RobD.

[Guest Quaxo]

>I know Cristian told us not to make any new models but I can't stop myself.Robert, I didn't say to stop right now - I said: after the deadline (still undecided), if you develop new models, they will not be included in the disc (and in the packages contained in the disc)! :-)Cristian

[adams 1]

It looks interesting, but try to add a little of red. It looks too brown IMO. Give more yellow colours, if you can. Save a few green colour. It would be early autumn.Thank you for the palette.B.Adamski

[Hans_Petter 1]

I'm already working on a better palette. This time I go "by the numbers" and make sure that I keep each palette entry at the same sum total.For instance, if the RGB reads 64, 55, 17 the sum of these is 136. Then, when I change the hue I make sure that all the colors still sum to 136. By doing this I hope to retain the original lightness and saturation and color bands won't "cross". (In other words, dark stays dark and light stays light). While this ensures the creation of a believable palette one might argue that dark green trees do turn light yellow, meaning that color as well as color lightness change. Regarding "red", most autumn colors tend to be more or less yellow or brown. Very few trees or ground vegetation go bright red. This will certainly depend on the region and on the species of trees / grass.Has anyone got good autumn (fall) images from Washington state? A good recollection of childhood memories (Tom Wunder?) would be equally useful.regards,Hans Peter

[Guest glidernut]

Hi all,Iv not dun anything with the winter palette, but I hav been tweeking the exra green palette of Hans Petter,s for my owne use.Atatched is the one I hav seteled douwn on as my difalt palette,I use all the time.I supose you could call it a spring palette.Hans, yep, your stuk with the fall.Your good at it.Bairing in mined that we all hav diferant preferances, and it would be good if Adams and every one els could edit palettes as well.Iv been looking to see if the free iMage program, can edit palettes.Yes it can.But that Jon Point beet me to it, grrrrrr.Iv also been looking at the palettes for the clouds in GENPILE SKY.RESTheres only 4 palettes in SKY.RES, thay are right at the bigining.Files 1 2 3 and 4.File 1 afects the two high sirus clouds only.File 3 afects all the other clouds only.But for the life of me, I carnt fined out what Files 2 and 4 do. Files 2 and 4 seem to do absolootly nuthing.But the way the SKY.RES palettes are used in FU3 seems to be a bit mor complikated!!For exampl, if I make File 1 all red, then in the game only the 2 high sirus cloudformations are red,but looking at the cloud textuers in SKY.RES with ResVewer, then all the cloudformations are red ?!?!But then, I ges theres not much that con be inprooved on by changeing cloud coulers ?glidernut.:-wave

[agtim 0]

Hi all,I am surprised that this will work so good.San Fracicco and Seattle are cpd map files.The compression is using a special combination of colors for the level 2, 1 and 0. Do you have tested the palette at ground level ?with UK it's not the same , we use there .bin filesso the compressed palette is not used.see my pages for details about colors in maps of FU3at www.agtim.ch/fu3but I must say - i like the posted results :-) :-wave agtim

[Hans_Petter 1]

Some more trial and error--this time I made sure that I kept the sum of red, green and blue constant. In practice, this means that each hue will stay as light or dark as the original. Please check out my latest autumn (fall) palette by downloading the attached zip. As always, use ResViewer to replace the file 10 in the Seattle resreg.res.best regards,Hans Petter

[Guest glidernut]

Hans Petter,I thort your last autumn was about as good as it gets as regards to changing sum of the individual coulers to autumn reds without altering ther constantor brightnes, and indeed keeping all other coulers the same.Unfortunatly the changed coulers stil stand out a bit, even thow ther constantand brightnes is the same.So bilding on yor work, Iv added sum green hew, subtracted sum blou hew, subtracted sum constant, and added a bit of brightnes.It might be a bit too bright for sum, but this can be changed in OPTIONS withthe GAMMA CORRECTION seting.Inspight of thees changes its stil autumn, but it has had a strange efect on the wiled life. glidernut.:-bat

[Hans_Petter 1]

It looks nice Glidernut but it's a tad too green to be late fall. Since we talked I've been experimenting and tweaking. I have taken screenshots, loaded palettes and edited the hues that stood out as a sore thumb. In western Norway I see brown, yellow and pale green these days and that's what I try to copy. Bogdan asked for some red and I've tried to include red in a way that makes it blend in. I've tried to tweak the models palette. Evidently, the idea was to get autumn foliage but there's a problem--the decidous trees and the conifers share most of the green hues. Thus, I'd inadvertently make orange pine trees if I took this all the way.Further, I try to avoid touching hues that affect:sandshorelinesthe oceanlakesGlidernut, if you work the palette one by one you may put an ice cover on the lakes in your winter version of Seattle. You might also make the ocean a darker blue without messing up the land textures.I'll post another version of the autumn palette soon (models as well as scenery palette) and then we'll see. When we all agree that it's good enough we'll make a proper library upload. May I suggest "Seattle Seasons" by Hans Petter Roverud and John Lewis? :-)

[Guest glidernut]

OK

[Guest R_Driscoll]

Ah, do dragons only fly in autumn?I'm waiting to hear the exchange with tower on that one:ANC: Dragon Flight Autumn November Charlie requesting landing clearance on runway 24.Tower: Ah, repeat request?ANC: Turning to finals on approach 24. Am I cleared to land?Tower: We do not have you on radar, Autumn November Charlie. Please activiate transponder on 2747 and call back. ANC: Roger that. Ahh, declaring MAYDAY flight emergency landing, engine flamed out. Lowering flaps and feet now.Tower: Roger, Autumn November Charlie. Declaring emergency at oh 1100 hours. Attention all aircraft, give way to a Dragon landing engine-out runway 24. ANC, ATIS reports snow build-up on runway. Can you make it to runway 15?ANC: Negative, tower. Snow no problem. Activating runway desnower now.(airport disappears in ball of flame).Looking forward to the new palettes!RobD.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Here's my latest take on the fall colors / autumn colours. I've had a problem defining bright colors since the model palette seems to revert to less spectacular hues after I've edited the palette entries. For instance, I load a screenshot showing a deciduous tree. I've disabled 3D acceleration before I took the shot to get the true colors rather than the dithering and smoothing caused by the 3D. As I zoom in I get blocks of specific pixels to modify. I choose an orange area and turn it into yellow. Then I make the adjacent color into a reddish orange and so on. Finally I end up with foliage that's a pleasant mix of yellow, orange, olive brown and light green. The tree in my image looks just right. I save the palette and close the image without saving it. As I reopen the image and launch the palette the hues have changed. My bright yellow has turned into drab orange etc. Why isn't it possible to define any distinct color and keep it?Anyway, if you download the attachment you get my current autumn. As before, 9.pal replaces file 9 and 10.pal replaces file 10.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/43884.zipbest regards,Hans Petter

[Guest R_Driscoll]

I'm watching all this with interest, but I can't test each palette as I end up two days behind you guys by the time I get it home, load and test it, then report back. Anyway, I'm working on version 4 of my last package (for glidernut, that's version 5 - my mistake - what a blessing it must be to be able to count that high. Well at least my trains don't do spins anymore). But the difference just from adding a bit of blue is amazing - I couldn't go back to the old palette now, and if the green (esp the conifers) can get balanced as well, it will be like a new sim. I haven't tried the winter palette yet either, but I'm look forward to it.RobD.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Well, I've found that the model palette doesn't accept any yellow hues. I may edit the palette until I drop and save it but the yellow hues are lost when I load it again. I can make the trees olive green and red though. Here's the implementation of my latest tweaks:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/44293.jpgHans Petter