Palettes for XCOM in GIMP/Paintshop format

[Solarius Scorch]

If you have any trouble, here's the complete palette set.

The names are mostly straightforward, except for Paleta.act which is used for stuff that appears both in the battlescape an the Ufopaedia, for example item bigobs.

[jackstraw2323]

Using the correct basescape pallets with transparency on my test images consisting of the colors in order from left to right demonstrates that certain bands are shifting. Maybe this is by design. In this case index 1 is not converted unlike battlescape.

Image 1 is the greys and image 2 is the ufo light purples that are often used for alloy.

[CanadianBeaver]

GIMP palettes for BattleScape and Ufopaedia are here. Zero index is used for transparent background (lime color in the palettes).

[Hobbes]

GIMP palettes for BattleScape and Ufopaedia are here. Zero index is used for transparent background (lime color in the palettes).

This might save you some time. It's all the game palettes (Battlescape, Geoscape, UFOPaedia and Basescape) in .pal format. You can import those for GIMP.

[CanadianBeaver]

This might save you some time. It's all the game palettes (Battlescape, Geoscape, UFOPaedia and Basescape) in .pal format. You can import those for GIMP.

Unfortunately, GIMP do not import transparent background from .pal palettes. Therefore, GIMP palettes will be shifted by 1 color after imports. I took palettes from message #3 and corrected they after import. The .gpl files in the my message are the original GIMP palette files.

Remarks: GIMP will cut and will compact colors in the indexed .png file, but will not compact (just cuts) in the .gif files.

[hellrazor]

Jeah its a shame it does that, I usually have to reimport the pallette from another correct picture via grafx2.
I try to avoid gif files, they had some serious issues in the past.

Or using falkoo's sprite tool

[RSSwizard]

Somewhat related I thought I would post this really nifty technique I discovered for working with photoshop and spriting, take a screenshot of the palette editor, paste it into a new image then crop the image to the palette. You can even save that image for future use if you want.

It doesn't matter if that image is in 8bit or not, the point is it provides a literal artist's palette to pick colors from, and at least in PS7 you dont even have to switch to that image to pick a color or use the eyedropper (hold down ALT and it becomes the color picker, and picking a color from the other image will not switch to it).

There are some people who use the Swatches toolbar but I have never found it useful for anything or how to adapt it quickly like others do, and it just adds another layer of hassle to an already hassle-filled program. Id rather just have it as an image like so.

I discovered this actually when I was doing some ZDoom spriting because I wanted to pick colors that were most likely going to be on the ranges I wanted (rather than an off-red diverting to brown, it has an actual color on the palette to start with)

[Solarius Scorch]

Yeah, it's not a bad idea. I usually just fix it after conversion (when I'm not simply working on that palette), but I'll try your method.

[RSSwizard]

Also another useful tip for fixing colors after conversion is getting the paint bucket tool and turning off the "contiguous" function. Set the tolerance real low or even to 0.

Might be a no brainer, but after working on explosion stuff and having all these little islands of off-colored pixels after converting, going after all of them with the pencil tool is pretty hard and tedious.

Also found it useful because if I decided the entire color-banding on something wasnt coming out correctly I could fix the entire sequence on a macro level by replacing all of the in-between colors as desired. And if you select an area you can make sure that it only affects that sprite at a time, or hits the off-colored pixels on the outside of something but not the ones in the inside of it.

(for explosions and such this is an issue because maybe sparks or flaming bits on the outside could end up being unusually white or have red spots in them, but you dont want it to affect the white/red spots on the main body of the fireball, so if you select the sprite then de-select the parts you dont wanna effect)

Also good for matting, to get rid of darker colors that you're just not sure are bright enough on the fringe to adequately transition. Or even replace them with colors that are more like the rest of the sprite.

[CanadianBeaver]

Also another useful tip for fixing colors after conversion is getting the paint bucket tool and turning off the "contiguous" function. Set the tolerance real low or even to 0.

Might be a no brainer, but after working on explosion stuff and having all these little islands of off-colored pixels after converting, going after all of them with the pencil tool is pretty hard and tedious.

Also found it useful because if I decided the entire color-banding on something wasnt coming out correctly I could fix the entire sequence on a macro level by replacing all of the in-between colors as desired. And if you select an area you can make sure that it only affects that sprite at a time, or hits the off-colored pixels on the outside of something but not the ones in the inside of it.

(for explosions and such this is an issue because maybe sparks or flaming bits on the outside could end up being unusually white or have red spots in them, but you dont want it to affect the white/red spots on the main body of the fireball, so if you select the sprite then de-select the parts you dont wanna effect)

Also good for matting, to get rid of darker colors that you're just not sure are bright enough on the fringe to adequately transition. Or even replace them with colors that are more like the rest of the sprite.

It is a simple - DO NOT USE .png with GIMP for OpenXcom - USE ONLY .gif! And each time when you have loaded image do - Colors - Map - Set colourmap - {pallete}

[ohartenstein23]

I export .png files from GIMP for the sprites I've been making and have had no problems.  It's easy to keep a project (.xcf) file as a template with the proper image mode and palette, save your wirking sprite to a new .xcf, then export when it's ready to get in game.  I can post my templates here if that's help anyone making battlescape sprites in GIMP.

[CanadianBeaver]

I export .png files from GIMP for the sprites I've been making and have had no problems.

Look it better, because all colours have shifted by 1 step in palette (after apply the pallete)

[ohartenstein23]

Yes, I had the issue on conversion from an already indexed .gif imported to GIMP, re-applying the palette, then exporting again, but not with images where I started with an .xcf file already in the proper palette.

Edit: For anybody who wants to use GIMP for UFO sprites editing, I've compiled a set of palettes in .gpl format if you want to use them, attached to this post.  Also, if you're running into loading indexed .png files causing the issue of shifting the colormap down one index, this is the fix I've found to work:

• Import the image into GIMP.
• Go to Image>Mode, set the image to RGB mode.
• Go back to Image>Mode, set the image back to Indexed.
• In the dialogue that pops up, set the palette back to what it you need it to be, and untick the option to remove unused colors from the map.

[Solarius Scorch]

RSS Wizard,
Your palette for X-Com Files is great, but some people complain that it's too dark to see. Would it be possible to have a brighter version?