NES Color Palette of Choice

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Tue May 10, 2005 11:59 pm

AspiringSquire wrote:
bitcopy wrote:By TV output do you mean he actually plugged the video output of the NES into his computer (or something) and used software to pickup the colors?
Pretty much. Here's what he says in the readme for 4.0:
BMF wrote:I hooked up my NES to a Snappy video capture device, took a whole bunch of screenshots, and extracted the colors from the screenshots.

Gil_Hamilton wrote:I THINK it was a standalone download, though it may have come with an emulator I was trying.
Was it Nester? I believe that has a black & white mode. No .pal file, though.

I don't think it was NESter.
It was a fullscreen affair with a DOS-style GUI that I used it in. But it MAY have been downloaded seperately(no clue where from, but I downloaded a bunch of palletes once in an attempt to get more accurate emulation, before giving up and just avoiding games that used blue-green)

AspiringSquire · Post by **AspiringSquire** » Thu May 19, 2005 4:29 pm

Be the first to experience...

My best palette yet!

http://rapidshare.de/files/1860174/ASQ_PAL3.zip.html

~~~Introduction~~~

It turned out that my brightness corrections for the new colors were not as complete as they were supposed to be. The lighter maroon-pink and the darker two of the three new blue-greens hadn't been properly adjusted; this time they have.

The same two blue-greens have also been altered a bit for a different balance of blue and green; they are now slightly more green, and they are the first and only colors to be modified in any way other than brightness. I believe that it now looks more like it should.

Amidst these changes and fixes, I realized that I had no good reason to replace the "bluest bright blue" (with the corresponding color in "BMFPAL50.PAL") in my last revision, so I have swapped it back to the value used in my palette's first release.

See it, play it, and share it.

EDIT: Hmm. I noticed another change that I should have made for this release. The bright pink color, which is related to the maroon-pinks, has been exchanged for the "BMFPAL50.PAL" value. That is all, and there is only a slight difference, so I decided to just re-release this under the same revision number. (Link has been replaced for the updated file.)

kamaitachi · Post by **kamaitachi** » Fri May 20, 2005 2:40 am

The colors look great. I compared your palette to BMFFINR3.PAL today and I like what I see. I will use your palette from now on. Thanks!

-_pentium5.1_- · Post by **-_pentium5.1_-** » Sat May 21, 2005 10:06 pm

I tend to derive my own palettes by mixing existing palettes using complicated weighted averaging formulas. I'll take a look at that palette you mentioned...

AspiringSquire · Post by **AspiringSquire** » Mon May 23, 2005 12:11 am

Better than the best! (of my own previous palettes)
http://rapidshare.de/files/1922528/ASQ_PAL4.zip.html

Hearkening back to my original concept of only using colors from BMF's palettes, this version replaces the two darker blue-greens yet again. It now utilizes the brightness-adjusted colors from "BMFFINR3.PAL", and it looks even better than before (but the difference is minimal). This _should_ be the last change for those two colors. Hopefully I won't find something else that needs improvement.

AspiringSquire · Post by **AspiringSquire** » Mon May 23, 2005 9:56 pm

Sorry for making so many versions...

But I'm pretty satisfied with the way everything looks now. Does anyone care to share their opinion? What do you think of it?

xamenus · Post by **xamenus** » Mon May 23, 2005 10:00 pm

Mirrors:

(I just discovered this free file-sharing site, so I thought I'd make use of it

).

http://filespace.org/icefox/ASQ_PAL.zip
http://filespace.org/icefox/ASQ_PAL2.zip
http://filespace.org/icefox/ASQ_PAL3.zip
http://filespace.org/icefox/ASQ_PAL4.zip
http://filespace.org/icefox/ASQ_PAL5.zip
http://filespace.org/icefox/ASQ_PAL6.zip
http://filespace.org/icefox/AS_REAL.zip
http://filespace.org/icefox/ASQREAL.zip

AspiringSquire · Post by **AspiringSquire** » Thu May 26, 2005 3:26 pm

Here are some screenshots of my palette at work.

P.O.W. __&&__ Double Dragon

____

Knife vs. Machine Gun... What is the likely outcome?

Crystalis __&&__ Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

____

"The monster is already dead."

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II - The Arcade Game __&&__ Kirby's Adventure

____

Donatello clearly wielding ...a lightsaber.

--------
Screenshots made with ASQUIRE4.PAL, but they may as well have been made with the next version of my palette (the images above would be identical):
http://rapidshare.de/files/2135771/ASQ_PAL5.zip.html
*Note that this is not the most recent version anymore. See the first post in the thread for the palette of today.

Post by **Agozer** » Thu May 26, 2005 4:56 pm

I need to play Kirby again... Looks nice btw.

kieran_ · Post by **kieran_** » Thu May 26, 2005 7:39 pm

This is pretty cool work. Maybe you should have it hosted on Zophar, and other emu sites? Or maybe even get in contact with NES emu developers and have the pallette included in their emulators?

LobStar · Post by **LobStar** » Thu May 26, 2005 9:18 pm

AspiringSquire wrote:Here are some screenshots of my palette at work.

Crystalis

Those all look great except for the status menu back color in chrystalis, for some reason it seems off, I can try and load it up on my NES and compare it if youd like.

AspiringSquire · Post by **AspiringSquire** » Thu May 26, 2005 9:52 pm

LobStar wrote:Those all look great except for the status menu back color in chrystalis, for some reason it seems off, I can try and load it up on my NES and compare it if youd like.

You can go ahead and compare, but it looks good to me (I own the game too; Crystalis is one of my very favorites). TV displays vary from PC monitors enough that it may be the cause of the difference you think you notice. Also, the colors look slightly different when they are viewed in fullscreen rather than at this small size. Try enlarging the picture, and see what you think of it.

LobStar · Post by **LobStar** » Thu May 26, 2005 10:26 pm

ill try that when I get home, if I did it here, the mac would crash lol. I have to say though, Chrystalis is also one of my absolute favorite games as well. Ill have my friend bring over her TV card and i'll hook my NES up to it and snag a photoshop hex value, just to be sure. that small though, it seems too dark and rich, I seem to remember it being slightly brighter, a little more washed out on a TV, but then again, NTSC does favor alot more red.....

AspiringSquire · Post by **AspiringSquire** » Fri May 27, 2005 12:38 am

kieran wrote:This is pretty cool work. Maybe you should have it hosted on Zophar, and other emu sites? Or maybe even get in contact with NES emu developers and have the pallette included in their emulators?

Thanks, kieran.

That would be mighty fine, but how would they be convinced to host it or include it in their emulator? I'm not so great at talking my way into things... And I also fear rejection.

Although, the anticipation of rejection (when waiting for a response) is often worse than the rejection itself.

So... I'd sort of rather wait for them to discover my palette instead of marketing it to them.

Any suggestions?

xamenus · Post by **xamenus** » Fri May 27, 2005 3:24 am

AspiringSquire wrote:Any suggestions?

You could visit http://nesdev.parodius.com/ and let them know about it. This is the most popular site that NES emu authors visit for technical info for the NES. Demos and palettes are hosted here as well.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Fri May 27, 2005 2:24 pm

AspiringSquire wrote:
LobStar wrote:Those all look great except for the status menu back color in chrystalis, for some reason it seems off, I can try and load it up on my NES and compare it if youd like.
You can go ahead and compare, but it looks good to me (I own the game too; Crystalis is one of my very favorites). TV displays vary from PC monitors enough that it may be the cause of the difference you think you notice. Also, the colors look slightly different when they are viewed in fullscreen rather than at this small size. Try enlarging the picture, and see what you think of it.

That's what I was going to say. The color setting on your monitor can alter the intended palette colors. It's very difficult to do a very accurate comparison.

LobStar · Post by **LobStar** » Fri May 27, 2005 3:01 pm

Enlargment didn't help, still seems too rich. I'll compare them later today.

AspiringSquire · Post by **AspiringSquire** » Fri May 27, 2005 6:49 pm

LobStar wrote:Enlargment didn't help, still seems too rich. I'll compare them later today.

I think it may make all the difference if you adjust the brightness of your monitor. TVs are usually set to a higher brightness than PC monitors, so most of the colors may seem a bit darker, or too "rich".

LobStar · Post by **LobStar** » Fri May 27, 2005 7:37 pm

already have, checking on both the mac at work (SUPERB monitor) and my crappy monitor at home, the color still looks far too rich, still looking for my RF switch to check it on my tv though. then ill try the tv card.

LobStar · Post by **LobStar** » Sat May 28, 2005 6:56 am

well I was wrong to a point, the blue is definatly that rich, however, it is indeed a bit brighter. im having problems capturing the overlay but im going to see what I can do about it. in the mean time, stay tuned ^^;

BootGod · Post by **BootGod** » Sat May 28, 2005 5:55 pm

The palette looks great but it is actually quite a bit off on a lot of colors. The problem is that BMF used colors taken off screen caps, and they do indeed match them very well, but what the tv cards output is not the same as what a TV would do. I have 2 different capture cards with different chipsets and they both try to auto-calibrate the color/brightness etc (I think all of them do). While that works pretty good on normal video, on computer generated stuff it doesn't work so hot. It ends up with the hue being all shifted off, and unforuntely not in an even way.

I recently color calibrated both my TV and monitor as close as I could get them and eyeballed my own palette. Unforunately I forgot to save my last set of changes to it so I have to do a little bit over again. But the results were great. I'm not claiming its perfectly accurate, but very close. When I get a chance to finish it, I will put it up here and let you guys see what you think.

A good example of where BMF's palette and hence yours is a bit off is Maniac Mansion.

I don't mean to rain on your parade, your palette does look very good in most cases regardless. Once I get mine finished (again) I'll let you decide. I have ~200 NES games (damn you Ebay), so I did pretty extensive checking

Phil · Post by **Phil** » Mon May 30, 2005 9:15 pm

Nice work. I am using it right now.

AspiringSquire · Post by **AspiringSquire** » Tue May 31, 2005 8:45 am

Does this look better?

Maniac Mansion -- update

Maniac Mansion -- "ASQUIRE4.PAL"

I had forgotten about one swap I made for my initial palette release; I inserted a dark grey in place of one of the (identical) quasi-blacks because "BMFPAL50.PAL" had it that way. It looked good in the palette viewer, but maybe I should have realized that it probably wouldn't be right since it was the only one of BMF's palettes (except for "BMFPAL51.PAL", which was a direct revision of the other) to have that as a dark grey instead of 'black'.

Looks to me like I should offer my palette with this corrected color (reverted to match the other quasi-blacks). Do those familiar with the game depicted above agree with the change?

AspiringSquire · Post by **AspiringSquire** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 12:04 am

See it for yourself:
http://rapidshare.de/files/2135771/ASQ_PAL5.zip.html

Only the one color change: the dark grey to quasi-black. Tell me if it's better, what it affects, etc.

Enjoy.

EDIT: New zip (and link) due to a minor fix in the Readme.

BootGod · Post by **BootGod** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 1:28 am

That was one of the most obvious ones yes. But many of the other colors are wrong as well. Maybe I can bring myself to finishing my version tonight and I can show you exactly what I mean.

ZSNES board

NES Color Palette of Choice

Screenshots - Palette in Motion

New version: ASQ_PAL5.zip