MTM2.com

I remember seeing some posts recently about the Track palette, so I thought I would post some notes I had made about it. This is for Photoshop, but maybe someone has done similar things with Paintshop?

The whole track has a single palette. It is trackpodname.act. If you are using Traxx 1.2, you get a copy of Tpark.act from Farmroad. In Traxx 1.4, you can select any of the stock track's palettes, or let Bill's palette generator make a custom one for you.

With Photoshop, you can see what your new custom texture is going to look like with a given palette, by converting it to Indexed Color Mode, and applying that specific palette to it, instead of letting Photoshop calculate a new one for you. There is probably a similar method using PaintShop.

With your texture opened up in Photoshop in RGB color mode, from the Menu select Image -> Mode -> Indexed Color. A dialog box pops up asking if you want to "Flatten Layers", so say yes. Then, the Indexed Color Dialog box pops up. In the Palette selection box, select Custom, then the Color Table Dialog box pops up and shows you the "Custom" generated palette for your texture, BUT, don't use that one. Instead select "Load" and go find your podfilename.act palette. For Tpark.pod, its Tpark.act hehe. Then you will see a new palette, like the two below, and you just "OK" out of the Color Table and Indexed Color Dialog boxes. Your texture will now "adjust" to how it is going to appear in the game.

You can remain in Indexed Color Mode and do some editing, and the colors will be the same as you will see in the game. You can see in the two palettes below, the one on the left is from Farm Road, on the right, Breakneck. Even though the terrains and colors on those two tracks are very different, the palettes are surprisingly similar. Perhaps some of the brighter colors near the end or beginning are for the trucks and are the same in every track?
http://www.qnet.com/~kwj/boardpics/palet.jpg

If you have trouble getting that special shade of purple to show up in a track, it may be because it is not in the track palette. I have "picked" colors right out of the track palette before when I had trouble getting a certain blue to show up.

Great info, thank you.

I had wondered WHEN the track palette gets set when I start a new track in Traxx 1.2. Like.... do the first textures loaded set the palette?

Are you saying up above that all traxx1.2 tracks automatically use the farmroad palette and that is the palette I am always working with?

Dang, you caught me talking over my head. I should learn not to post comments saying "Traxx does this.." without running it by Phin first hehe.

When I reread my post, I think I should have skipped the whole paragraph about what palettes Traxx picks, it's not relevant to the topic of opening a custom texture with the track palette.

Sometimes I confuse what I "believe" with what I "know". I have done nothing to prove Traxx 1.2 uses the Tpark.act file automatically, I guess I was just interpreting things I have read here and there, here's one now..

http://mtm2.com/~mtmg/traxx/component.html

Oh, not so, you were correct and it was very relevant and highly useful to me. Once it settled into my brain, which took much longer than it should have, and when I put it to use, it cured one of the most frustrating things I'd been dealing with in texture making! Getting textures to look the same in the game as they do in my paint program.


Things I wonder:

If the track palette is 'it' then why does every stock texture have it's own unique palette? Or why do "metalcr2" palette based model textures seem to display perfectly in in mtm2 spite of the track pallete - the two don't seem to overlap very well.

As I understand it, the original MonsterTruck Madness only uses one track palette for all tracks, covering both models and textures, the "metalcr2.act" palette. Hint: make your MTM (as opposed to mtm2) textures using this palette and all will be well.

There, now you have five months til you have to reply to me, heehee.

>>There is probably a similar method [of loading color palettes] using PaintShop.

Yes, and very easy to do as well. Colors>Load Palette and it's done. If the image is not 256 colors, psp changes it for you. The only trick is psp will not load ACT files directly so you must first convert it to PAL format. You can use mdmre's palette master utility or the new traxx palette feature to do the job.

>>Oh, not so, you were correct and it was very relevant and highly useful.

Agreed. However, this topic brings with it an incredible sense of deja vu. I'm sure I've spoken of it at great length in other places and at other times. But let's not let that stop us again. The confusion about what track palette is being used probably stems from the evolution of traxx itself. See in the graphic below that Traxx 1.2 has no setting whatsoever for the color palette. MIYH is correct in that tpark.act (an excellent choice by Guitar Bill) was automatically set as the default palette (in traxx and when writing the pod). Traxx 1.3 allowed a selection from stock palettes and Traxx 1.4 allowed that as well as the additional option to create your own palette.

<center><table BORDER ><tr ALIGN=CENTER VALIGN=CENTER BGCOLOR="#993300"><td><font color="#33CCFF">Traxx 1.2</font></td><td><font color="#33CCFF">Traxx 1.4</font></td></tr><tr><td><img SRC="http://mtm2.com/~mtmg/traxx/images/comp09.gif" ALT="Traxx 1.2" NOSAVE height=344 width=266></td><td><img SRC="http://mtm2.com/~mtmg/traxx/images/comp02.gif" ALT="Traxx 1.4" NOSAVE height=344 width=266></td></tr></table></center>

I did not include a picture of the 1.3 track component box because it "looks" identical to 1.3. It's the behind the scenes functioning of 1.4 that makes it the superior program of the two.

For the rest, I'll try to respond with my limited knowledge.

>>If the track palette is 'it' then why does every stock texture have it's own unique palette?

ROFL, I won't repeat verbatim the explanation I had on this topic (it had something to do with a certain game making company shooting themselves in a place that would make the use of a chair extremely uncomfortable), but I can say a bit. First off, the track palettes are generated from these act files. We shouldn't underestimate this. That is how we can have different palettes for each track. Textures can be made using the 16 million color mode, then reduced to game-ready size with it's own palette to make it display appropriately. Then to conserve valuable resources, these palettes were merged into one which would be shared by all. In essence, this is what Traxx 1.4 does with it's custom palette generating option. In theory, of course, after a track has been made and the palette created, you could delete all the "unused" act files. But there's reason not to.

>>Or why do "metalcr2" palette based model textures seem to display perfectly in mtm2 in spite of the track pallete - the two don't seem to overlap very well.

There is a hierarchy of palette usage. TRI wanted mtm2 to be backward compatible with mtm1, which used the "metalcr2" palette exclusively. The finer details are fuzzy but it probably goes something like this. When a track loads, the game checks that all files are present and accounted for. A comparison of textures and palettes takes place. If the act of the same name exists, then it uses the track palette. In the absence of the appropriately named act file, the game defaults to metalcr2 - not the track file. This was done so that mtm1 tracks will display as intended. You'll note that metalcr2.act can be found in the mtm2 startup.pod. It "had" to be included to ensure its presence for the proper functioning of mtm1 tracks.

>>As I understand it [. . .] Hint: make your MTM (as opposed to mtm2) textures using this [metalcr2] palette and all will be well.

If you are making an mtm1 track, then undoubtedly yes.

If you are making an mtm2 track, then no, unless you are content to limit yourself to this set of colors. One of the best improvements of mtm2 over that of mtm1 was getting away from the tyranny of the metalcr2 palette. I might add that one of the best improvements of 4x4e over mtm2 will be getting away from the single track palette altogether. But anyway. Ideally, you would have traxx 1.4 and just create your own color palette. That! will give best results. If you're working with 1.2, then the next best thing would be to find a beta tester who has 1.4 as well as the wherewithal to return you a track palette with their beta report. Barring any of the above, and here I would like to come full circle, the best thing would be to find the stock track whose color and appearance you like most and use that palette in the way MIYH outlines.

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<font size=1>Edited by Phineus (07-12-2002)</font>