8bpp Palette Structure

[Questwizard88]

I'm putting together an 8-bit sprite palette for when we finally get the option of having hurt enemies flicker instead of flash, since they can't flash with 8-bit tiles. What I was wondering is if you think this palette structure would probably work out, or any suggestions for other colors/changes. Here's the palette:
http://www.questwizard.net/misccrap/8bppsprpal001.png

Here's the breakdown of it all:
CSet 0: Grayscale gradient. All the gray goes here, including an extra solid black just in case.
CSet 1: Same sort of thing, but with two styles of browns. Note the lack of a transparent color here. Everything will be 8-bit for the most part, so it won't be a problem. Also note the total lack of a dark outline color in each CSet. The darkest share or two will be used for outlining as needed. Black outlines will pretty much be minimal.
CSets 2-4: For the level palette itself. Haven't finished this yet.
CSet 5: Reserved for custom subscreen colors.
CSet 6: This is where things get odd. The first 8 colors are reserved for Link's tunic colors. The other 8 are simply a green gradient.
CSets 7-8: Two sets of 8-color gradient pairs.
CSet 9: First 8 reserved for level palette changes, second 8 are a different green shade.
CSets 10-11: Same thing as 7 & 8, but different colors. I need an idea for what other color I should put in the empty half in CSet 11.

Any suggestions/ideas?

[redmage777]

You will only know if it a good structure if it works for you when your making tiles. Can you foresee any major limitations to you creativity when editing tiles? Having eight shades per color is nice, but you don't want to cripple yourself by leaving out a huge section of the color spectrum.

I have structured my palette to represent the color spectrum as completely as possible and thus be as "all purpose" as possible, by allowing me to extend its usefulness by easily blending colors.

http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs44/f/2009/092/7/a/Palette_Structure_by_Redmage777.png

CSet 0-1 are the six main colors offered by a computer display.

CSet 2-4 are reserved for level colors, Over world contains colors for earth,
water, and plants.

CSet 5 Contains three different gray scales, Warm Gray, True Gray and Cool Gray. This has allowed me to produce some amazing effects with stony textures.

*CSet 6 Is of Link's colors, and any other constant shades I might need.

CSet 7-11 are for transition colors in sets of three, most of which are blended to borrow the darkest and or lightest color from other color sets.
Example: light red is used to produce the darker shades of pink.

* Since Link only requires custom colors to allow his tunic to change color (About 3 Shades) I may move most of the colors from CSet9 into CSet6 to preserve the versatility of CSet9.

[Questwizard88]

Hmm. Interesting setup there. I just don't see much of a variety of brown unless I'm missing something. There's also not much in the way of very dark colors. I also made some changes to mine. I changed the blue in CSet 10 to be more gray, for that "Cool gray" color, and I put a cyan gradient into the second half of 11. So far its working out quite nicely. I also setup the base overworld colors in 2-4. They are:

Cset 2: Color 0 is pure black for obvious reasons, foloowed by 4 shades of a light sandy color. Next is 5 green shades for grass/etc. After that, there's 6 more shades of a darker brown, which combined with the other 4 make up the basic mountain/sand/dirt colors.

CSet 3: First 5 colors are water, the next 6 are for trees/plants/etc, and can be combined with the other green for even more shades. The last 6 are gray, from white to almost black, though its not a smooth gradient. Most of the shades are darker.

CSet 4: This is for all the stuff like houses, lava, weird-colored bushes, etc. The first 5 colors are red, the second 5 are a transition from yellow to red, the next 5 are purple, and the last color is 2, 2, 2 for the "almost" black look on things like caved, holes, etc.

I've yet to decide what goes in CSet 5, and that'll most likely be left up to the questmaker for subscreens still. I did a little testing with some stuff as far as overworld tiles go, and it looks great so far. The only reason I used such huge gradients in the sprite palettes is for avoiding black outlines at all costs.

[redmage777]

Mine can be a little tricky to use, especially in regard to brown, In my personal experience, brown is very unstable color when it comes to shading. Browns are definitely there, usually starting as Black or Dark Red, and moving into Dark yellow, and then into Yellow Grey, Warm Grey or Gold. This is sufficient for all the sprites and a great deal of the level tiles too. A lot of browns also appear in the over world palette to allow for Tree Trunks, Dirt and Cliffs if Needed (Mine are Gray.)

You have point about the Darker shades being a weak point for this design, Bright colors do tend to show more diversity and are easier for the eyes to distinguish from one another. I might however, use the Transparent colors to create a Dark Shade for the 6 main colors and gray (I have been contemplating the best use for that space for some time now.)

[Shazza Dani]

These colours all look very basic and would probably make shitty-looking sprites. My suggestion is to find a pretty GBA game and rip the sprite palette from that, then arrange the colours for use in ZQuest.