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Terminology
About the use of “Green” and “Magenta”
As has been mentioned many times in many posts in many threads it is the location in the palette/colormap that determines what is invisible in-game – not the particular color. The standard game files use bright Green (RGB 0 255 0 ) and Magenta (RGB 255 0 255). The reason those two colors were used is because they are highly visible and rarely used for in-game content so it is very easy to tell what will be invisible. So most of us use the same for our files. Makes seeing what other people have done in creating graphic files easier. Same goes for understanding illustrations accompanying posted explanations and tutorials. For all of those reasons
it has become common practice on the forum to write “green” and “magenta” as shorthand for “the colors in the last two slots of the palette which are reserved for what needs to be invisible in-game.” The explanation below follows the common practice in both text and pictures. But keep in mind any colors can be used. This comes in handy if your pcx includes pinks and greens that are close enough to those colors to be confusing.
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Techniques
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The last two slots in the colormap are where the game engine looks for the “invisible colors”.
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To change colors in the colormap:
This is useful
if you
want to have green and magenta
as the invisible colors but they aren't in the colormap.
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Summary
- It's whatever colors are in the last two slots of the colormap that are invisible in game. We use and talk about green and magenta as the invisible colors only because they are what Firaxis uses in the original game files.
