Pixel Joint Forum: [Request] 6-Bit RGB Palette

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   Recently, I decided that I'd like to experiment with a mockup using 6-bit RGB (64 Colors, each color has RGB values of 0, 85, 170 or 255). This is the palette the Sega Master System used, and even though it's ugly I think I could get some interesting results. The problem is, whenever I search for a 6-bit palette I only get images like this:

This is the correct image, but it isn't very pixel art friendly. Instead, I'd like the palette organized into hue-based ramps like the NES palette:

Would this be possible? I've tried manually rearranging the first image myself and it's proven too complicated.

Edited by DragonDePlatino - 14 December 2014 at 3:15pm

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DragonDePlatino Commander Joined: 22 July 2015 Online Status: Offline Posts: 59	Topic: [Request] 6-Bit RGB Palette Posted: 14 December 2014 at 1:32pm
	Recently, I decided that I'd like to experiment with a mockup using 6-bit RGB (64 Colors, each color has RGB values of 0, 85, 170 or 255). This is the palette the Sega Master System used, and even though it's ugly I think I could get some interesting results. The problem is, whenever I search for a 6-bit palette I only get images like this: This is the correct image, but it isn't very pixel art friendly. Instead, I'd like the palette organized into hue-based ramps like the NES palette: Would this be possible? I've tried manually rearranging the first image myself and it's proven too complicated. Edited by DragonDePlatino - 14 December 2014 at 3:15pm
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DawnBringer Commander Joined: 11 August 2024 Online Status: Online Posts: 568	Posted: 14 December 2014 at 4:46pm
	Colors are 3d, ramps & tables are 2d. Which means there is almost unlimited ways to arrange the colors...and for most palettes there won't be any one perfect (or even great) solution (where each color only occurs once). Here's a Hue-Brightness diagram with 70% saturation that includes some of all 64 colors. It should be a good start.
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DragonDePlatino Commander Joined: 22 July 2015 Online Status: Offline Posts: 59	Posted: 14 December 2014 at 5:57pm
	Hey, it's none other than our resident color-guru, Dawnbringer! I took a nice long look at your image, and I found a couple of patterns within the 6-bit colorspace. I gave a manual arrangement another shot and got the following result: Apparently, there are two levels of saturation in a 6-bit palette. Total, there are 38 fully-saturated colors and 25 desaturated ones. Primary/secondary colors have 6 colors in their ramps, tertiary colors have 2 and quaternary colors have only 1. All in all, 6-bit color seems to be really functional. There aren't any desaturated dark colors, but the existing desaturated colors look like they would work well for the background of a daytime mockup. Edited by DragonDePlatino - 14 December 2014 at 6:01pm
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DawnBringer Commander Joined: 11 August 2024 Online Status: Online Posts: 568	Posted: 15 December 2014 at 3:12pm
	Pretty neat arrangment so far, I prefer the bottom one. Maybe vertically flip the lower part so you get a solid dark-bright-dark ramp? Looking at the HSL model there's 4 grayscales and 6 low saturation colors, the rest is full saturation. However HSL-saturation is not a very good metric to use for apparent colorfulness...so keep trusting your own perception. Still it can be nice to take a look down the HSL-cylinder. It might give one ideas how to arrange a palette, but it also make it clear how tricky it is to make all colors ramp well. Saturation is the radius. I have to say that full "BitSpaces" like this pretty much suck, beacuse there's just to few brightness levels in relation to the number of colors. And brightness is everything. But don't let me discourage you! ;)
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DragonDePlatino Commander Joined: 22 July 2015 Online Status: Offline Posts: 59	Posted: 15 December 2014 at 8:55pm
	Oh! Oh! That's it! You gave me an idea! I think I finally got it!!! OK, so here's what's going on here...On the top row, I have my alpha channel then a 4-color grayscale. Then on the even-numbered rows, I have my plain full-saturation ramps. On the odd-numbered rows, I have my tertiary/quaternary colors arranged according to luminosity. The column in the middle is the palette's lightness and the right column is the palette's luminosity. I'm not entirely sure if the latter is correct, though, because some colors (like the magenta-reds) seem out of order. So...whaddya think? It's not perfect, but it fits excellently into the palette dialog of ASEprite so it will suit my purposes well. Oh, and I don't mind if the palette itself sucks. I'm going to be drawing a retro mockup with 4-ish colors per sprite so it isn't a problem if the colors don't interplay that well. It would if I were drawing a huuuge piece of demo art, though. Edited by DragonDePlatino - 15 December 2014 at 8:58pm
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DawnBringer Commander Joined: 11 August 2024 Online Status: Online Posts: 568	Posted: 16 December 2014 at 6:19pm
	Not a big fan of the zig-zagging in brightness, but if this layout fits your preferred editor just right; it's a very good arrangement. Yeah, if you want colors in order of brightness, some are wrong. Here's the palette in perceptual brightness:
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DragonDePlatino Commander Joined: 22 July 2015 Online Status: Offline Posts: 59	Posted: 17 December 2014 at 2:34pm
	Thanks! I'll go ahead and swap around some of those colors so everything will be nicely ordered by perceptual brightness. When I was eyeballing it I could've sworn some of those magentas were incorrect, but whichever color I put on the left would always look brighter...that's a simultaneous contrast illusion, right? Edited by DragonDePlatino - 17 December 2014 at 2:36pm
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DawnBringer Commander Joined: 11 August 2024 Online Status: Online Posts: 568	Posted: 17 December 2014 at 4:59pm
	That, plus the concept of brightness becomes more blurred as you move towards pure primary colors. Red is especially confusing. So comparing the brightness of highly saturated red & magentas to grayscales (or less saturated colors) can be like comparing apples & oranges...it just doesn't seem to make full sense.
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DragonDePlatino Commander Joined: 22 July 2015 Online Status: Offline Posts: 59	Posted: 18 December 2014 at 12:00pm
	Well, I suppose that's that! Thanks for the help, Dawnbringer. I'm a big fan of your palette and it was nice that you could help me out with this. In case anyone's interested, here's the final palette:
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