Civ Color List

[GEChallenger]

I asked earlier about civ colors, and pdescobar pointed me to the palette file in the Units folder. I wanted to have a list of all the colors, so I could see them out of the editor and have an easier way of figuring out what color to give what civ. So I went ahead and created this jpeg image in paint:

 

[pdescobar]

Nice , I was just in the middle of doing something similar, but incorporating the full palette ramps since I'm actually planning on editing the darned things

 

[GEChallenger]

I hope this helps someone! It certainly is useful to me.

Thanks again to pdescobar for pointing me toward the right files and providing the color names.

Oh, and I've attatched a zipped file that includes the following:

-A folder with 100x50 pixel BMP images of each civ color color
-A TXT list of civ color names only
-A BMP version of the picture above (it seems a bit sharper to me than the JPEG version)
-An Excel worksheet with the colors inserted in it

I don't really know why this file is useful, I'm just posting in case anyone needs this sort of thing.

 

[GEChallenger]

Thanks pdescobar

 

[pdescobar]

Here's more for you to add to the package, a zip containing PSP .pal files for the palettes and a BMP containing the full palette ramps which makes a much better example than that histograph business I posted earlier. (half-size preview of palette ramp will follow)

 

[pdescobar]

The ramp preview (50% of actual size):

 

[kring]

Thank you both.

I will download it when I get to my Civ 3 computer.

 

[Kal-el]

ok, so what do you do with those files in order to change the civ colors?

 

[pdescobar]

Edit their palettes. If you look at my ramp image, there are a dozen or so colors which should remain the same (the solid grey and brown lines), but the rest of the palette contains differing shades of the civ color.

So, for a quick and dirty example, to make Rome's Red darker, you could open up Art\Units\Palettes\ntp01.pcx in Paint Shop Pro and choose "Adjust Brightness and Contrast" from the Color menu and crank the brightness down. Then choose "Edit Palette" and restore those browns and greys to their original colors. Then save your changes and that's that.

Of course, since the actual PCX image is a single pixel, you can't preview your changes decently so it's a pretty unfriendly process. I never got around to creating a decent method for editing the colors, so here's a quick alternative. Attached is a zip containing the 32 .pal files I created from the pcx images, the full ramps BMP I previewed above, and 2 "palette sampler" PCX files which are simply images with squares of the first 70 colors of the palette large enough to view without zooming in.

Open up one of the PCX files in Paint Shop Pro or some other program that understands .pal files. Then load the palette file for the civ you want to change into this image with the "maintain indexes" method and mess with the colors. When you are satisfied, save out the palette. Then open the ntpXX.pcx file from the game for that civ and apply your saved palette to it, again using "maintain indexes." Voila, you have a new civ color.

One other note, the histograph screen seems to use palette entry 7 (counting from 0) for the bar and palette entry 69 for the name, so make sure they have good contrast, unlike the dark orange/pink nonsense in the default ntp23.pcx

 

[Kal-el]

ok, I'll give that a go. Thanks.

 

[mrtn]

On a connected note, I've noticed that the coloured dots and stripes on the flags of Armies use the same colour as the barbarians. This is a screenshot of a orange barbarian (bottom of the pic), and a orange Army (top of the pic).

 

[pdescobar]

Originally posted by mrtn
On a connected note, I've noticed that the coloured dots and stripes on the flags of Armies use the same colour as the barbarians. This is a screenshot of a orange barbarian (bottom of the pic), and a orange Army (top of the pic).

Interesting. Do you mean the color which is assigned to the barbarians via the editor, or the colors in ntp00.pcx (i.e. the first color on the color list)? In a thread like this, that distinction is necessary

 

[Kal-el]

I believe he means the color assigned to the barbarians, because they are not Orange by default.

 

[pdescobar]

I expect that (and could probably just test it), but the barbs can be alternatively made orange by changing ntp00.pcx, which is why I ask

 

[Kal-el]

but only you would be so brave/foolish as to actually go in and change ntp00.pcx.

 

[pdescobar]

You have a point there

 

[mrtn]

Originally posted by Kal-el
I believe he means the color assigned to the barbarians, because they are not Orange by default.

And the winner is... Kal-el!
Yes, this is the assigned colour.