I guess I''m not the only one having trouble with 256 color modes. Anywho, Microsoft’s in my way again. It’s like they do it on purpose. I’m making a game in Direct Draw, but the problem I’m having is with the palettes. Since I am using a 256 color mode, all of my bitmaps - that I draw in Microsoft Paint - must only use 256 colours. That’s not the problem, however. I know how to fiddle with the palettes in DDraw, but I don’t know how to do it in paint. Because of this, any palette effects that I want to do are much harder to accomplish, because the colors I want to change are in stupid places. Is it possible to change the palette in MSPaint, or are Microsoft just having a laugh. Somebody out there has to know how. Tell me, please. Will check this thread tomorrow for any information. PS. Don''t want to be annoying or anything, but I am not currently in the position to buy new programs that might be able to do this for me. Sorry.

I don''t think (but I could be wrong) that MS Paint even lets you change the 256 color palette. I think it uses a generic palette, or just generates one when you save it. Anyway, it''s very limited and you will have a b*tch of a time getting your 256 color graphics made using MS Paint.

I recommend JASC Paint Shop Pro. It is affordable (well a lot cheaper than Adobe PS) and I do all my gfx in it. You can download a 30 day trial from www.jasc.com.

I know you say you can''t buy a gfx program, but it really will be needed at some point in time. There are some freeware gfx programs out there you might want to look into though. Anything is better than MS Paint. Heck, I wrote my own 256 color paint program that was more useful than MS Paint. There''s an idea.

heh, i was actually wondering recently if you could change the pallete to MS paint myself... all you can seem to do is customizr colors for a specific image and that is about it ive sat there for an hour and came to this conclusion. oh by they way, dont knock on MS paint too hard, its really not that bad, its what i color all my sprites in, becuase its the simplest program (something about jasc PSP that just makes it hard to color individual pixels) i have a stand animation for a character i am developing at the following url.(all done in MS PAINT)
www.neonstar.net/st0ven/animation.htm

-steve

Thanks everybody.

After searching through MSPaint for hours yesterday, I still can't find out how to play with the palettes. Poo. I do like the idea of creating my own program, though. (Actually I tried it before, but failed horribly.) Because, as I've said already, I'm not ready to buy new programs (best not ask why), it looks like it's the only thing left to do.

Wish me luck...

Edited by - MarkyD on August 12, 2001 9:31:29 AM

Well... you can define a few extra colors in MS Paint. If you didn''t already know how to do it, simply double-click on one of the colors in the palette, and either choose a replacement from their predefined colors, or create a custom color.
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WNDCLASSEX Reality;
...
...
Reality.lpfnWndProc=ComputerGames;
...
...
RegisterClassEx(&Reality);


Unable to register Reality...what''s wrong?
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Dan Upton
Lead Designer
WolfHeart Software

Sorry Dan, that''s not what I mean. What I''m talking about, or at least trying to talk about, is the actual palette for when you save a bitmap as a 256-color bitmap. Here''s a better example:

Say I was creating a bitmap that can only use 16 colours. I can change the palette at the bottom of the screen to any colour I want. I can then draw onto the screen the color I chose. But when I try to draw my 17th different color to the bitmap, it is automatically mapped to the closest color that already exists (as long as it is already saved as a 16-color bitmap). That''s because I would have used up all the colors in that palette.

Look, I know that I''ve made a right s***ty job at describing this to you, but I can only hope you are following it. As for my own program, thank you Mr. Annonnymous! It''s going well!

OK, forget about this now. I''ve managed to get a copy of Paint Shop Pro. (found it on a disk somewhere)

~ There''s no substitute for failure ~