mduvall Posted November 1, 2015 Share Posted November 1, 2015 I'm attempting to do my own remake of the original command and conquer(yes I know several others already exist), and I need some help figuring out what the color palette is for drawing NOD units. I've successfully read the SHP file for the minigunner and have drawn it on the screen using the correct colors by reading the color palette in temperat.pal file. However, I now want to draw the minigunner with the correct NOD colors, and I can't figure out what they are. I gather they aren't in a PAL file but are some how hard coded into the EXE? Is that true, and does anyone know what the correct colors are? My apologies if this has already been asked and answered. I search the forum but could not find anything. -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted November 1, 2015 Share Posted November 1, 2015 Here's something to get started. And I don't mean just on the colours. http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cnc95upd/inirules/ The colors.ini file is my own design; colours don't actually get handled as colour scheme objects like that in the game (or, didn't, before my patch). Nonetheless, the remapping values in there are the game's originals. I did add a few, mind you; the last ones, starting from DarkGrayPalette, were added by me, and not originally in the game. As for how this is applied, that's simple. To perform a remap the game needs a remapping table of 256 bytes. For every graphic drawn on screen, it goes over the image data pixel by pixel and replaces each value (being, a palette offset) by the remapped palette offset found at the index of that pixel's value on the table. This system is also used for special colour effects in the game, like shroud edges, movement and targeting flashes, shadow and stealth darkening, etc, but for the house remap case, only the range at C0-CF is changed, simply by having a table where each spot in the table has its own index as value, except for that C0-CF range. Additional note: "Nod" is a name, not an acronym. So it's "Nod", not "NOD" :engie: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mduvall Posted November 2, 2015 Author Share Posted November 2, 2015 Excellent! I'll see what I can make of all that. Thanks for your help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mduvall Posted November 2, 2015 Author Share Posted November 2, 2015 Yep, that did it for me. Got it working. Many thanks!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 Always glad I can help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 If you're planning to use these aforementioned other filters the game has (the .mrf fading tables), this might be handy, too: https://forums.cncnet.org/topic/2253-mrf-creation-tool-finished/?tab=comments#comment-19474 It helps to understand how stuff like the shroud edge and movement targeting flash SHP files (and, heck, the green colour for the unit shadow) are handled by the game. (Though it might be easier to apply the effects themselves from code instead of from these tables, like RA1 does) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AchromicWhite Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 Sounds interesting. I wouldn't mind following this project Any enhancements/changes you were thinking of making to it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mduvall Posted November 2, 2015 Author Share Posted November 2, 2015 @Nyerguds - Thanks for that additional info. I'll dig into to all that when I get to that point. @AchromicWhite - My project is at: https://github.com/mike-duvall/mike-and-conquer, although I'm not sure how interesting it will be. There is not much there yet and it's going to be slow going, since I'm only putting in about 30 minutes every other day on it. My initial aim is to just recreate the original C&C functionality exactly as is. I might experiment with new new stuff later, but like I said, it's going to be slow in coming. This is just something I do as a hobby purely for my own entertainment. (So far I've also done a Robotron clone and a Bomberman clone) If you are really interested in more fully realized C&C re-make, you might want to take a look at http://www.openra.net/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AchromicWhite Posted November 3, 2015 Share Posted November 3, 2015 Yes, I do know openRA. Very cool, anyway; and I wish you luck in your project! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted November 3, 2015 Share Posted November 3, 2015 Unfortunately, the OpenRA devs never, ever looked into the original way the game works in terms of internal mechanics, meaning it's really "a game which happens to use C&C graphics" rather than a C&C remake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AchromicWhite Posted November 3, 2015 Share Posted November 3, 2015 Agreed. I did have a crack at it, but it's a different game altogether; and in the end, too "turtley" for my liking. Quite slow paced action. (I actually think more units were viable in original C&C) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mduvall Posted November 3, 2015 Author Share Posted November 3, 2015 Interesting. Now that you mention it, I've also tried OpenRa a couple of times and I also just didn't like it because it was so different from the original. At any rate, yeah, my intent is to clone the existing game as is, and then to potentially have a version with a few tweaks. But this is all a long ways off.... One thing I learned from my Robotron clone is that it's actually very hard to tweak the gameplay of an existing game and have it still be fun and balanced. For example, I thought it would be fun in Robotron to have a shield that the player could activate for a few seconds, but that ended totally unbalancing the rest of the game and making it much too easy. So then I tried to make something else harder to balance it back, and I found it very difficult to get it just right and still be challenging AND FUN. It made me realize that the 'programming' part of the game is VERY different than the actual game design. And the game design is MUCH harder to get right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AchromicWhite Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 Balance in any RTS is always hard. Even WCII, which was almost identical teams, most agree that the Orc side was strait up better. I'm always surprised just how good the balance between Nod and GDI are in C&C95. There are still debates over which is the "better" team. Given that this is the case, I feel like saying "They are simply different". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TaxOwlbear Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 Balance in any RTS is always hard. Even WCII, which was almost identical teams, most agree that the Orc side was strait up better. IMO the almost identical sides made balance worse for WCII, because it only highlighted the few differences WCII has (i.e. the Bloodlust spell). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
X3M Posted November 4, 2015 Share Posted November 4, 2015 I feel that a game with hard counters is easier to balance than a game with soft counters. C&C TD is a game with mainly hard counters. One unit can obliterate another unit. But gets obliterated by yet another unit. WC2 is a game with mainly soft counters. And well balanced. But their bloodlust spell is a mistake in design. They did it wrong in many aspects. I wonder how your game will turn out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TaxOwlbear Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 What do you mean by "hard" and "soft" encounters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 "counters", not "encounters". Things specifically designed to act as countermeasure against a specific unit or ability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
X3M Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 I blame the auto correct. This one time, "pen" was turned in another word. I often only notice after posting. Soft and hard counters. A hard counter is simply having a flame tank shoot infantry units. 1 shot, 8 kills. The infantry cannot win this no matter how you turn it. A soft counter is having some grenadiers shooting at a light tank. It takes time, but the grenadiers eventually can win. But it takes work too. If you don't work it, the tank might run them over and survive. But if both players work hard, the grenadiers win. If you rather have numbers as explanation, I will provide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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