Applying d2 palette

This is the place to discuss all issues relating to the manipulation of graphics/animations, sounds, music and cinematics within Diablo 2.

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oli25
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Applying d2 palette

Post by oli25 » Sun Jul 29, 2012 7:48 pm

Which program do u use to apply d2 palette on item graphics? I am using Adobe ImageReady but it doesn't always allow me to apply palette(its greyed out) so I am looking for an alternative.

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Eimernase
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Re: Applying d2 palette

Post by Eimernase » Sun Jul 29, 2012 11:15 pm

In Photoshop u can only apply a palette when you changed your work into "Indexed Color"
Image -> Mode -> Indexed Color (here you can load/save any palette, all layers will be merge as one)

In ImageReady is this a bit different, because ImageReady was basicly made for Animations and Webgraphics.
As example, if you make an animation there and you will save your work as gif-file, try "save for web device".
You have now many options for quallitys and so on...and also a way for save/load or change the palette.
In versions after CS2, ImageReady isnt anymore there, this tool was deleted and his features are now directly in Photoshop.


For item graphics you didnt need realy apply a palette in your graphic program before you convert it in dc6.
Make sure, that your background from your pics is pure black (rgb 0,0,0)...and dont save static images as jpg/gif, better use bmp or pcx.
You can apply a d2-palette directly in DC6Creator and mostly it looks better as you apply before too ;)

oli25
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Re: Applying d2 palette

Post by oli25 » Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:12 pm

Thanks sooo much for this great response :D
You can apply a d2-palette directly in DC6Creator and mostly it looks better as you apply before too
Damn, your right! 8-O No idea why before it made my images look different in each act.

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mirecek
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Re: Applying d2 palette

Post by mirecek » Mon Jul 30, 2012 9:23 pm

oli25" wrote:Damn, your right! 8-O No idea why before it made my images look different in each act.
because each act uses different (yet similar) palette. use Units pal for ingame items and animations.
Eimernase" wrote:You can apply a d2-palette directly in DC6Creator and mostly it looks better as you apply before too ;)
From my experience, importing image in dc6creator without previous modifying makes the output image worse. I would advise to load the image in a program, apply palette, do some tweaking (bad/transparent pixels, etc..) and use dc6c only for changing between file formats.
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Eimernase
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Re: Applying d2 palette

Post by Eimernase » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:07 am

Its mostly important which quality and colors your stockfile have.
If you have a pic with colors like purple, light blues and greens, its not easy to convert all colors very good later...there are not enough differences in d2-palettes for such colors and you will see mostly fragments later in your converting picture.
They need mostly many tweaks to look better.

A way for this is, you collect all colors in your stockfile where you know they would never look good and change them into colors they used in d2palettes...no easy way, but mostly possible.

For colors like red, brown and yellow its quit easier, any d2palette have many differences and this colors are very close together in the color-spectrum, so you have very rarely fragments later.
Thats my experience with those colors.

But thats not the only things you can do.
The first thing you should always do is the gamma-correction, because the game use all about 20% brighter.
A good way to change like this is working with adjustment layer...for gamme correction as example a layer for "levels". ;)

oli25
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Re: Applying d2 palette

Post by oli25 » Tue Jul 31, 2012 8:14 pm

If you have a pic with colors like purple, light blues and greens, its not easy to convert all colors very good late
Yeah, I had actually many issues with converting blue color.

The problem is that my skills with advanced graphic editing programs are really limited. I use them only for simple tasks. Laugh at me but I still use MS Paint for item graphics editing a lot :)
The first thing you should always do is the gamma-correction, because the game use all about 20% brighter.
Right, I always make them exacly 20% darker ;)

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Eimernase
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Re: Applying d2 palette

Post by Eimernase » Tue Jul 31, 2012 10:40 pm

No worry, i would never laugh about someone they use as example MS Paint.
When its better for you to work, why not.
I cant work with them, but i drop my hat to those people they can realy good work with them ;)

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Rattlecage
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Re: Applying d2 palette

Post by Rattlecage » Sun Aug 12, 2012 3:11 am

A free graphics program I recommend is the GIMP. It's very much like Photoshop and gives you many of the same functions a well. The only problem is that the interface really sucks.
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