As somewhat of a follow-up to the DB16 Palette, I here present a 32 color big-brother; the DB32. Again, this is a palette that tries to be as multi-purpose as possible, but with a clear slant towards archetypical game graphics & pixelart.

I have been working on a 32c pal since the DB16, but 32 colors is far more complex than 16 when you try to make all things work optimally together. Then when Hapiel of PJ accidentally asked if I could help out with a 32 color palette for the Open Pixel Platformer Project, it was a good incentive to wrap this one up.

For this reason, the presentation is a little basic right now - but over time, I hope to expand this page with more info, drawings, ramp & dither charts etc. But feel free to ask any questions.



Files:
PAL file (.pal)
GIMP (.gpl) (provided by neota)
Photoshop Swatch (.aco) (provided by skunk)



Analysis:


("Tru" or True Saturation is the very arbitrary name of one the many methods of more accurately measuring Color/Saturation I'm experimenting with. "Tru" is a hybrid value of the color's distance from the grayscale-axis and the classic HSL value.)

DB32 Neutralizers:


Art:


Doodles:

"Here's a GPL version of this palette"

Thanx! Funny names, nice there's both "Valhalla" and "Viking" in this palette! :D

I'll love to use it in future pieces. I liked your 16 color palette a lot, required some skill to use it yet it made the pixelling task funnier (and the general style of the pieces is pretty nice).

At first glance this palette seems to wide the limits of the 16 color palette (there is more variety in saturation which allows a better contrast as can be seen in the Monroe piece, and the fact it supports magentas is awesome!).

I haven't understood the 'Tru' value though :o.


Edited by AtskaHeart - 07 May 2013 at 5:14pm

You're a dynamo Mrmo! :D
Don't forget to explore the two "dirty yellows" (last in palette) they are wonderful in their versatility, f.ex one of them could replace the gray on the tree's trunk.

Edited by DawnBringer - 09 May 2013 at 11:41pm

OT:
Your 16 and now 32 color palettes have been so inspirational and motivational. These have quickly become pixelart classics. Many are more comfortable and color savvy that they ever would have been without them. We simply don't know how to properly thank you other than by using and exploring them.

We hold on to SilverStar Badges and save them for special occasions only and this truly is deserving. Its in your profile.
 

Yay, the elusive silverstar! :) Now, how to get one of those sexy thumbs-up trophies...

save the picture of the palette and open it in GG. Open this tab : All frames -> Color Depth, then select the 8bpp option. You'll notice your palette window changed to all 32 colors (more if you added new colors).

In the same palette window click the small arrow icon and click "save palette". Just name the file DB32 or anything you like.

Now you just have to load that palette for your future works.

EDIT : Noticed there's the pal file in the first post. You can just download that and load it.

Edited by Numberplay - 31 May 2013 at 12:39pm

I'm fairly new to the concept of actively using pallettes.
How do you guys use them?

I almost want to make an entire game's worth of graphics with this palette. Could I, if I decided to?

Posting my little work with DB32 here.

Actually here is 31 color, but i think it's never mind. )))
DawnBringer, thanks for good instrument!!!

I've converted the 32 color and 16 color palettes over to Paint.net
Hope that's cool.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zaip53gbwtvip4p/NIKmYURC0C

How do you use this?

How 'bout an .aco (Photoshop Swatches)?

db32.aco

Are these meant to be the only 32 colors you use or are these basically "base" colors that you can create more from while having them still look good together? If the latter, which RGB and/or HSV sliders can I change and still make these colors look good with each other?

Sorry if these questions are silly. I'm new to pixel art/color palettes.

If you feel you need more colors "between" two existing colors, add one that is the average of the two colors which don't seem to give you enough choice : Use an average of the HSV numbers if you can (*), because it's closer to what you'll percieve as the intermediate color (RGB average can look more greyish thant the two original bright colors)
After you have started using this color in your image, tweak the HSV numbers and use your own eyes to determine what is the best lightness, hue/value, saturation.

(*)
newcolor.H = (color1.H + color2.H) / 2
newcolor.S = (color1.S + color2.S) / 2
newcolor.V = (color1.V + color2.V) / 2

The above process creates linear ramps/gradients, especially if you repeat it several times between two original colors. The range in itself will look OK, but note that it will not be as "rich" as if you had nudged the colors towards different hues and saturations. If the original palette is brilliant and rich, and you still use a lot of it, your image will still use most of the palette's potential. But if you use a lot of your intermediate colors, you may want to spend some time tweaking the entire ranges, to bring some variety.


Edited by yrizoud - 13 May 2015 at 5:47am

There's litte point in using a preset palette unless you're gonna stick with it. DB32 is quite evenly distributed over most of the (frequently used) spectrum/colorspace. While there are gaps that could be filled without distrupting the harmony too much, you're more likely to create a mess. Adding to a preset palette will teach you close to nothing (as a beginner). Instead, as StoneStephenT pointed out, learn to think dynamically & creatively about the colors that are available. Do you really need a specific color, maybe a slightly different hue could also do the job? If availabe colors aren't quite matching your needs, think about shifting the hue or brightness-level of your scene instead. Learn to mix it up with different colors to create the perception of another hue.

However one can use a preset palette as a quick & solid starting point; only using a selection of colors, then adding your own and possibly tweaking the original colors to conform with your vision. But just adding more & more colors to the original palette is not recommended unless you know exactly what you're doing.

Also realize that the bigger the palette is, the harder it is to tweak it and still maintain coherency. And in this context 32 colors is pretty damn big.

That's why I asked if I could change HSV sliders while still keep the colors "matched" together. So, you're saying I could indeed change these sliders if I needed a slightly different color than the ones available? I just wanna know exactly how far I can push these colors - or, are they literally meant to be the ONLY 32 colors you should use and you should NOT change any HSV sliders, if possible.

Also, if I were to come across a game's(or whatever) art that I love in terms of color, could I just use the color picker to take its colors from screenshots and sorta create my own palette that way, or is this not a good way to create palettes?

There is no one “ideal” way to create a palette. What matters is creating a palette that lets you portray your work as close to your idea as possible while keeping the color count low.

Take a look at my current avatar (a sprite of Gadget Hackwrench from Rescue Rangers). Not counting transparency, that piece uses 13 colors to express the “idea” of Gadget in a standing pose with her hands behind her back. I could’ve probably used two or three additional colors for shading/AA purposes, but 13 was enough to get the “idea” across to the best of my abilities.

Now, take a look at this:



With a few “tricks”/techniques I’ve picked up in the year since I posted that sprite, I did my best to improve it—and I switched to using the DB32 palette due to reading this thread right before I set to work on the last few edits. I reduced the color count by three (again, not including transparency) and went for a less “outlined” look, but I didn’t have to alter much about the sprite to achieve what I feel is a slightly improved attempt at expressing the “idea” of that standing pose.

Quoting author Chuck Wendig: “The idea is God: perfect, divine, incapable of repudiation, utterly untouchable. The result is Man: fumbling, foolish, a jester’s mockery, a bundle of mistakes in tacky pants.” You’ll never achieve a perfect representation of the idea in your head, regardless of the medium you use to express it. The best you can do is an imperfect representation—but you can make it slightly less imperfect if you know what you’re doing. In pixel art terms, that means knowing how to use a small(-ish) amount of colors in the right ways. A good number of artists around here will tell you that you’ll want to use only as many colors as are necessary to express your idea. You can create a piece that uses 20 colors, but if you can whittle that count down to 15 via color balancing and achieve similar/better results, your work (and your skills) will likely be all the better for it.

While I wouldn't suggest straight-up copying another game’s palette (unless your work calls for doing that), studying how those games used colors might lend you some insight into how you can better use colors in your own works. Same goes for pixel art pieces around here.

Something that hasn't explicitly been discussed on this thread is transparency.

Using transparency, especially on the outside of a sprite or when two sprites (or colors) come together will help blend your world and strictly speaking make more colors. Again, try limiting yourself to only using certain transparency values (like 50% only, or 20%/40%/60%/80% only).



So yes, either use transparency or (better yet), depart from the original image's pallette and use this one to its fullest. There are plenty of orange, peaches, greys, browns, and reds that I imagine you can approximate the lightning bolt just fine - it will just necessarily look different (which, remember, is the point).