Transparency question.

[DarkDragoonX]

Exactly how does it work? After making a screen, I created an overhead, transparent object. After setting the layers, however, the object and what was underneath it had some reeeaaaallly funny colors... does the transparency engine just mix the colors together or what?

[Cloral]

First of all, press 'b' to rebuild the colors. Then it should look better.

The way translucency is done is as follows: The engine takes the color from the translucent layer and the color that would go behind it and combines them to come up with a raw RGB value. SInce ZC runs in 256 colors though, the engine then finds the nearest color to use. This sometimes can cause odd effects - for instance, if you combine red and black for a dark red, but don't have any dark reds in your pallete, it might show up as another color, such as a dark green or blue or brown. So if you plan on using translucency, you have to be sure to take that into consideration when designing your palletes.

[Lonemind]

Ah ha! Now I understand. It won't mix the colors into anything other than what you already have in your palette. Here I was thinking I could trick the program into thinking that there were more colors than in my palette. No wonder it never worked. Hmmm.... I guess I'll just have to ask that we get 24 bit color in the next version then.

EDIT: Hmmm... I was thinking about this. Could you put the colors you want the transparency in the "cycle color slots" and then use transparency to somehow bring those colors out?? Would that work? Technically (sp) they would be on the same palette, would they not?