(Fan game) Sonic the Hedgehog - Nintendo Edition (Early WIP)

[miyabi95_]

It looks like you're just setting all of your graphics to monochrome. If you're going for just a psuedo-game boy effect, then you don't have to worry. For a more authentic game boy looking pallette though, I'd suggest taking a pallette such as this one and applying it to all of your graphics. [I don't remember but I think the Game Boy could have either 4 or 5 colors, that pallette may be wrong] Of course, this is just nitpicking and I may be wrong, you may be following the pallette rule.

I attempted to make an example using that pallette, but these base sprites seem to rely on having color. It may take some more work to get them working in monochrome, but it's nothing impossible.

Yeah, that's certainly what I wanna go for: authentic. Thanks for your help .

[Mr. Jam]

The Game Boy palette was 3 shades + transparency.

[puggsoy]

The original Game Boy uses a monochrome 4-shades palette. Due to the fact that the non-backlighted LCD display background is greenish, this results in a green-scale graphic display, as it is shown in the simulated image (at Game Boy display resolution), below.

As EpicEbilninja said, most sprites would be restricted to 3 since the fourth is needed for transparency, like the Pokemon R/B overworld sprites. However, if you look closely you'll notice that the trainer sprites actually have 4. I'm not sure (I haven't looked into this stuff), but I would assume that they can do this by utilising the background colour. They can use the fourth colour, which is still treated as transparent by the engine, but because there's nothing behind them, you see it as an extra colour.

I may have explained that horribly so let me illustrate

Consider this screenshot:

   

You'll notice that both Blue and Red look like they're made up of 4 colours. Actually, they're only using 3: the fourth one, white, is simply the background colour; the white pixels in the sprites are actually transparent. If I change the background:

   

You'll see what I mean. The sprites look like they're using a fourth colour, but that's just clever use of transparency. White is actually the fourth colour in the sprite's palette, but the engine processes it as transparent, and the background just fills it in.

This only works for sprites that are viewed in front of a solid background though. If there are sprites behind them, it'll look weird, like if I were to put Blue behind Red:

   

That's why the overworld sprites can only use 3 colours, the fourth one needs to be used as actual transparency (so that they can be in front of other stuff).

That's how I think it works, anyway. Hope that makes sense!

[Jinzo-Advance]

I figure you might want this link, so I'll just post it here:

http://www.loirak.com/gameboy/gbprog.php

[miyabi95_]

Thanks for your help, guys. Sorry I haven't been able to respond fully; I'm just getting ready for the approaching year. College and conventions . I dunno when I'll be able to check back in, but don't worry, I won't forget about this project .

[Jinzo-Advance]

No need to rush. Also, I'm glad you enjoyed the link I found.

[miyabi95_]

The original Game Boy uses a monochrome 4-shades palette. Due to the fact that the non-backlighted LCD display background is greenish, this results in a green-scale graphic display, as it is shown in the simulated image (at Game Boy display resolution), below.

As EpicEbilninja said, most sprites would be restricted to 3 since the fourth is needed for transparency, like the Pokemon R/B overworld sprites. However, if you look closely you'll notice that the trainer sprites actually have 4. I'm not sure (I haven't looked into this stuff), but I would assume that they can do this by utilising the background colour. They can use the fourth colour, which is still treated as transparent by the engine, but because there's nothing behind them, you see it as an extra colour.

I may have explained that horribly so let me illustrate

Consider this screenshot:



You'll notice that both Blue and Red look like they're made up of 4 colours. Actually, they're only using 3: the fourth one, white, is simply the background colour; the white pixels in the sprites are actually transparent. If I change the background:



You'll see what I mean. The sprites look like they're using a fourth colour, but that's just clever use of transparency. White is actually the fourth colour in the sprite's palette, but the engine processes it as transparent, and the background just fills it in.

This only works for sprites that are viewed in front of a solid background though. If there are sprites behind them, it'll look weird, like if I were to put Blue behind Red:



That's why the overworld sprites can only use 3 colours, the fourth one needs to be used as actual transparency (so that they can be in front of other stuff).

That's how I think it works, anyway. Hope that makes sense!

So would it be better if I just set the background color to the lightest shade since it appears to be the transparency?

---

I decided to see how it would look in Nintendo's early style (pre-PKMN). I went with the Master System sprites 'cause Nintendo loved using big sprites. There are only three colors...

[puggsoy]

Well, it appears you can choose the transparency for different sprites; the overworld sprites from Pokemon have the lightest shade in them, and instead use the second-to-darkest for transparency (it's hard to tell because the palette for that sheet is off so it might use the second-to-lightest, doesn't matter though). The actual background colour for the game may still have been white (all games have a standard solid background), but you can't tell that in the overworld because there are sprites covering it.

So, if you'd rather prefer to have the background be the darkest shade when making four-colour sprites, you could do that and use the darkest shade as transparency. It doesn't have to be the lightest shade.

EDIT:

I decided to see how it would look in Nintendo's early style (pre-PKMN). I went with the Master System sprites 'cause Nintendo loved using big sprites. There are only three colors...

Those sprites only have three colours because they're usually viewed on top of other sprites. Here they're viewed on a white background, but the white seen here is actual white and another colour is being used as transparency.