LPC Assets -> Dawnbringer32 palette?
Friday, November 22, 2013 - 10:55
I had a thought that I wanted to toss out there. Since the Dawnbringer 32 palette seems pretty popular lately, I'm wondering how easy it would be to convert the LPC art over to using it. I'm guessing it would probably require that some of the shading and stuff be reworked, but it might be worth doing. Thoughts?
Well, there would be some real advantages to having everything mapped to such a carefully chosen and limited palette. I did a couple quick experements trying to get one of my mockups to fit in the pallet, and it didn't go too well. I might be able to get it down to 32 colors, but not those 32 colors, mostly because all the lighter shades are blue. That means blue walls with white trim just blend together. I think the LPC stuff just uses too many colors for this to work well. This would work a lot better for a set that was created with the palette in mind. Could be a great thing if it worked, but the amount of work involved in getting it swapped over would be nearly as much as drawing it from scratch. At least, that's what I think. I would be happy to be proven wrong.
Excuse me if this is a stupid question, but what are the benefits of converting something to a specific palette?
@caeles: using a common palette helps integrating different assets into a coherent style. Of course, palette is not the only thing, but it definitely helps. In this case, converting the LPC assets to DB32 would allow them to be better combined with the many other assets made with that palette.
Anyway, here's my try at recoloring a mockup with DB32. This actually looks better than I thought it would, though it loses some of the original LPC feel in my opinion.
LPC makes use of transparency, too - that could be an obstacle, since we would need to make more transitions than the existing ones, if we want to keep strict with palette restrictions (for example: the shadow below the tree is different if the tree is on grass or on dirt, and it's different again if it's on a transition tile, and so on...), so I guess we should pick a slightly modified version of DB32 with a transparent color (like 60% black) for shadows.
In any case, I'm not really sure if the result can be worth the effort. Many tiles (especially the indoor ones, but the same happens with lava, that uses many different shades of red and orange, which DB32 doesn't offer) are difficult to convert (at least to me - if someone could, that'd be great).