Hello!
Today we'll be looking at how to make an 8-bit mat.
Some may be wonder
why?
One reason is to save space,
the other is to be compatible with those who don't have a Voodoo card
(which is next to none)
As some of you know,
Jedi Knight was originally developed for computers that could only handle a maximum of 256 colors,
but had 16-bit color mode as a bonus.
However, this 8-bit color setup is rather complicated...
It is a palett of 256 colors each having 64 values for brightness and 256 values for when you look through translucent surfaces as well as during CTF games there are 2 extra color paletts that tint the sector red and gold which had the computer cycling through a good CLUT of 114944 colors.
But enough with the confusing technical specs,
we are only here to look at the first 256 colors.
Lets get down to the conversion, shall we?
First off you'll need to convert a colormap.
Go to your Jedi Knight Resource folder, ( C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Jedi Knight\Resource\ )
open the Res2.gob,
and extract from misc/cmp the colormap you'd like to use.
A good starting point is to use the default colormap.
Next we are going to download JKPaint off of JKHub.
Links are in the description.
Open JKPaint,
click open,
and look for your colormap.
wherever that is
erm
here
Yeah.
I have Paint Shop Pro here.
And I put all my palettes here.
But
lets
go with...
DFLT!
Now click the select palette button,
and click Save As...
and we shall save it as a Paintshop Pal Palettes (*.pal)
we shall save it as a Paintshop Pal Palettes (*.pal) pal
shall save it as a Paintshop Pal Palettes (*.pal) pal pal
ll save it as a Paintshop Pal Palettes (*.pal) pal pal pal
ve it as a Paintshop Pal Palettes (*.pal) pal pal pal pal
t as a Paintshop Pal Palettes (*.pal) pal pal pal pal pal
HEY
Phase Alternating Line
And we'll save...
give it a name...
Yeah
appropriate name
dflt.pal
Lets go with that, shall we?
Now we need a program that can handle palettes well.
What I have used for a long time has been Jasc Paint Shop Pro,
which is now owned by Corel and costs a bit...
Actually, wonder if the latest version still supports palettes?
I've been using version 7.
Anyways, we'll be using something that is free and available to all:
The Gnu Image Manipulation Program
That's a dog.
Yeah, well, whatever...
So.
Open GiMP and load your texture.
Lets take this one...
That's lovely.
Now.
Go to Windows,
Dockable Dialogs,
and open Palettes.
Now click on this little arrow here,
go to Palettes Menu,
and Import Palette.
Click on Palette File,
And search for your palette...
where did we put it
it
was
somewhere...
around
the network...
no
not Patterns
Palettes!
Jedi Knight...
DLF
PAL DLF
YaY
You'll notice the pink area around here.
This is normal for the default colormap.
As you may know, different levels have a different theme and this is emphasized in the colors.
There are 192 colors common to the whole game,
and then there are 64 reserved colors for the different levels.
For example Nar Shaddaa has a bit of rust in its bluish metal,
and Sulon has some rust with blue skies and blue water.
If you wish to have a MAT compatible with it all, keep to the default.
Otherwise if your level is going to have a specific color theme, you can convert one of the others.
Alright.
Import that...
And there it is.
Now
Go to Image,
Mode,
Indexed.
Select Use custom palette,
and find our dflt.pal
Or whatever you named it,
if you named it anything else?
Make sure Remove unused colors from colormap is unchecked,
and Dithering...
well
It's to your liking if you want it dithered or not.
You can say no and
the image will look something like this.
Now if we just undo that and
go again
Mode
Indexed..
and select another kind of dithering...
we get
Dithering
That's what it's called...
That's what dithering means that
you get a
random number of pixels to
try to match the color.
You may have seen it up close on some posters,
when waiting for a bus or something?
idunno
But
tuB
You know, just play around
until you get what you...
until the dithering...
until you get the dithering you are most comfortable with.
Not sure about that, but...
Oh well...
Lets go with that.
Once satisfied with your result, it is time to save it.
Be sure to save it as a Bitmap file (BMP).
So lets...
call it...
yeah
switch
ate
bit
and
save
No compression!
No Run-Length Encoding!
Just save it as is.
Alright, now you are to use
MatMaster here
File, New, Texture Mat,
and convert it straight off.
Uh, where did we pootis
sie
mat
I believe it was called...
can't find it
dubya
are...
there it is
We take this.
No need to Remap Palette because we've already done so.
And...
Click MAT to save as MAT
and there we go.
double
you
are
switch
eight
bit
something like that
good
And you're done.
You'll probably notice that MATs don't contain any palette information.
Now for the BONUS ROUND!
For those who make mods like weapons mods or special levels that need to be played as a mod,
would probably like to have some nice snazzy menu backgrounds.
Now, menu backgrounds MUST be 8-bit.
Why?
Because LEC didn't think it worth handling the Direct3D just for the sake of menus.
For this you'll need to import the uicolormap.cmp.pal
Lets see now where did we put that?
In the same place as all my other palettes!
lol
U
I
ColorMap
uicolormap.pal
There we go.
Next you'll need to find yourself some nice pictures,
one or more.
Lets go with...
This one!
SO
WRONG!
You'll also need to make sure it's 640x480.
Again, Jedi Knight limitations.
If it's any other size,
resize it.
There!
And resize it before applying the palette!
If you are not picky about the quality in the colors, you can straight off go through
Mode
Indexed
You know, what we've gone through.
This time picking
uicolormap,
and there!
HOW
EV
VAR
A BM can hold a palette.
So if you want to be a little more picky
here's what you have to do:
Go into Image
Mode
Indexed..
Select Generate optimum palette
and type in the number
2
22
224
and convert.
ö
öö
ööö
öööö
did I like that?
Nah
I
don't
think
I liked
that
I'm gonna...
Tell it
to
be
a
ay
aya
N
there
Now in the palettes window
click the little arrow,
Palettes Menu,
Import Palette...
And this time select the image.
Now with our...
and we...
Lets call it...
yeah
So wrong...
Import.
And there it is.
Now find the uicolormap,
click the little pen icon here to edit the palette,
and then down here we'll need to write down each of these last 32 colors.
These last 32 colors are common for the text in the menus.
The different menus may have different colors, but the last 32 must be the same all over for the text.
If you want to utilize all 256 colors for your picture,
then you'll also have to redo the SFT fonts to match all the background pictures.
Now find the palette you got from the image,
click on the pen button to edit,
and start filling in the colors.
You do this by
selecting the Foreground Color,
and then typing in your numbers here...
which was
2
21
212
OK.
And then click on the little plus and page here,
New color from foreground color.
*click*
There you go!
Now
repeat!
1
14
141
becomes
1
14
141
yes plz
and add
1
113
yes pls
and add
Now that we've set our colors
we're not done yet
because this hasn't actually been applied to the image.
We need to go to Colors,
Map,
Set Colormap...
and select the So Wrong.
Ok.
Once you've got that done
save it as a Bitmap (BMP),
and name it accordingly to what it's going to be used for.
For example "bkmain" is for the first menu that pops up when you start the game.
Alternatively it's Esc
and
such
and
well..
You get the idea,
just look at the list in the description for what it's supposed to be used for.
Also, it needs to be saved in a special place.
It needs to be saved
in your projects
letseenow
in your projects
ui
bm folder.
So
Burger
King
bkmain
dot
bee erm
Bee
Ehm
Pee!
bkmain.bmp
Not bm yet.
noa
No Encoding
And Save.
Ok, now that you've saved that
open up JKPaint.
Click on the new button up here,
make sure BM and 8-bit is selected,
go into the Select Palette,
click Open...
Select your bitmap here,
bkmain that we've called it,
makesh
everything looks good?
Ok.
Now click on the Plus to add a frame.
And in menus you can only have one frame.
Sad to say but that's the JK Limits.
(pre dvd era)
Select your bkmain.bmp,
Open,
click on properties,
make sure you've got Yes on Internal Palette.
The Offset is only used for HUDs,
to offset various graphics and overlay graphics.
Transparent Color you don't need to fiddle with, that will take away that...
The game takes care of the transparency for the menus automatically so you don't need to bother with that yet.
So click with that,
go to File,
Save As...
And we save as bkmain.bm.
REMEMBER! We are not adding the P to this, it is only BM Textures.
And make sure it is in your project as well.
Project
Project/ui
Project/ui/bm
yeah
fitting name
Save!
AND!
Now that you...
Once you run the game,
pointing the -path to your Project path,
you should see this lovely image welcome you to your new mod.
Yeah, that is a very lovely image.
Zero Raven is probably gonna kill me for this.
Lets close this immediately!
yeah
So!
I hope you've learned something new here.
Notice that in MotS the last 32 colors are different
so you'll have to take note of those as well.
But anyways,
hope you've learned something new from all of this.
Enjoy your editing!