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Proof that the Commodre 64 palette is far superior to the Amstrad CPC.

Started by tastefulmrship, 16:24, 13 February 16

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MaV

Quote from: Bryce on 09:26, 16 February 16Yes, but the HARDWARE was made for NTSC and then bodged to work on PAL. So the colour values are wrong. The coding can't change that.
Can't argue with that. :D
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Oliver Lindau

This is one picture by Robin Levy from the comparison collection here. I used an early VIC 6569R1 color scheme, because the pic was obviously pixelled with those lumas.

Up right is still CPC and down right is the default VICE emulator screenshot. Up left is showing the emulator adjusted to my CRT monitor settings, and down left is based on the same settings with CRT emulation to represent the colour bleed effect between black and dark colours and the correct pixel aspect ratio.




I adjusted my Commodore 1084s monitor with an Amiga and - whoops - switching to C64 and colours are way more saturated than a default emulator screenshot. How can that be while emulator screenshots look so different? Well, that is what happens if you force the visuals of a machine never been manufactured for RGB specifications and its video output even surpassing the RGB colour range. You have to lower brightness to get a 1:1 expression including white and yellow and so the result is dark and washed out. The advantage is that pics represent proper luminance value between those colors, but it does not look like similar to the real machine.

Everybody knows that CYMK and RGB are not the same thing, it is similar between the C64 and CPC (which colours are based on RGB). What I did for adopting the colours was using one C64 picture on both machines at the monitor, messing around with the color palette in Deluxe Paint until both match and adjusted the result with VICE settings... result was a saturation value about 1.9 - which is still not the same level as a CPC.


And because there is no standard hardware for C64 there is no single common palette here. It depends on the artist preferences. Joe and Carrion for example prefer low saturated PEPTO - those are a good basis for realistic skin tones. Others - like STE'86, Robin Levy and me prefer those bright oldschool settings.

Some time ago I did a comparison between different palettes here.


"Reflected" was created by Joe who confirmed that he prefers PEPTO (down right picture)


"Wizball" was created by STE'86. His palette is based on early VIC color scheme (up right)


"25 years of yie ar kung-fu" was created by me with my own setup (up left)



btw IMO both systems have great palettes. Both have excellent potential for a wide range of graphic styles and motifs. 'nuff said.

Neil79

Quote from: Gryzor on 08:51, 16 February 16
A bit off-topic, but BoingBoing is crediting IndieRetroNews for the image collection...*sigh*


So you needed to post that here, on our site and on BoingBoing too... Bit low  :picard:


It's not our fault and we did collect the images, it was just from here even mentioned as such. Not sure what else I could've  done
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MaV

Quote from: Oliver Lindau on 12:59, 16 February 16Some time ago I did a comparison between different palettes here.
Welcome Oliver!

Good post, and, hopefully, you'll be inclined to join discussion here in the future too!
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Neil79

Quote from: MaV on 16:08, 16 February 16
Welcome Oliver!

Good post, and, hopefully, you'll be inclined to join discussion here in the future too!


Oliver is the same dev behind this little beauty :)


Caren and the Tangled Tentacles
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beschizza

Sorry about the misattribution at Boing Boing. Gryzor got in touch with me and I just fixed it.


Rob


Gryzor

@Neil79 : low? Er... where did I accuse you of anything? Chill, man :D  I even said, in my comment, that *you* did proper attribution (here, I can use facepalms too:  :picard2:  )


Thanks to Rob for fixing it, although we did miss out on the initial inbound traffic. Oh well!

ukmarkh

Anyone who thinks the C64 has a better colour palette than the CPC, is living in fanboy fantasy land!


Better capabilities and graphics in-game, yes, but at the cost of looking washed out for 90% of games.


I've also noticed over the years that the C64 has less sprites on screen, when compared to Amstrad games, by in large.   

Neil79

Quote from: Gryzor on 16:27, 16 February 16
@Neil79 : low? Er... where did I accuse you of anything? Chill, man :D  I even said, in my comment, that *you* did proper attribution (here, I can use facepalms too:  :picard2:  )



Sorry Gryzor, just had to deal with a few commentors giving me backlash lately over SuTeKH/Epyteor's post!


>:(
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MacDeath

QuotePalette is insignificant. Animation/interaction is what counts in terms of computer art presentation.

These are computers for God's sake. Not just plain canvases. On these grounds C64 already won the war some 30 years ago. While our CPC won the best all around 8bit machine Oscar maybe.
The topic is indeed oriented on pure graphics... so big full screen static pictures with art in them is where it's at.

And it is one of the rare aspect where CPC can actually pass for a powerhouse compaired to most pre-1985-8biters...


So yeah, let's battle for this !!!




also I'm still waiting for some awesome display of what C64 can do in software only sprites...
;D


QuoteCaren and the Tangled Tentacles
Nice one, I too love those tentacle rape fetishes from Japan...
:D

(Also would be great to have a proper CPC/PLUS port of this one... pleeee-ze)

andycadley

Yeah, Caren and the Tangled Tentacles looks like a lovely game and something that would be great to see on other systems. Would be fascinating to read about how it works from a technical standpoint too.

||C|-|E||

I would definitely try to develop something like Karen with if I had the proper framework available for the CPC, something like SCUMM for our machines  :) . Sadly, creating one of these frameworks is way beyond my skills and coding the engine from scratch as well  :-X .

MacDeath

yeah, Carmen and the hairy tentacle... should be a spanish game...
:laugh:
:picard:


and yeah, some proper library for some SCUMM*-like engine on CPC is definitaly somethings that has to be done one day... at last.
But I guess it is get slidy on the topic.


andycadley

Quote from: ||C|-|E|| on 19:51, 16 February 16
I would definitely try to develop something like Karen with if I had the proper framework available for the CPC, something like SCUMM for our machines  :) . Sadly, creating one of these frameworks is way beyond my skills and coding the engine from scratch as well  :-X .

One of the reasons it would be really nice if technical information was available is because we could move towards something that could viably be ported between 8-bit platforms without needing "developer" effort. A kind of P.A.W. for point and click.

SRS

Quote from: ||C|-|E|| on 19:51, 16 February 16
I would definitely try to develop something like Karen with if I had the proper framework available for the CPC, something like SCUMM for our machines  :) . Sadly, creating one of these frameworks is way beyond my skills and coding the engine from scratch as well  :-X .

SCUMM for CPC, not sure. Z-machine - that should be doable without fancy new hardware-expansion or new OS - just good old CPC with lets say 128k RAM.

||C|-|E||

Z-Machine is cool indeed, but yes, a kind of PAWS for point and click would be just wonderful  :D . Then, we could talk about hairy tentacles  :-*

TFM

IMHO it would be better to do a clean rewrite supporting new hardware and using and OS which provides enough freedom and power to the application.  :)
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ivarf

The comparison in the article is not very fair. The graphics is made for the C64 and its palette and because of this often plays to its strengths colour wise. Another thing is that pictures made for the Amstrad CPC can have bigger variation in the placement of colours, you can place any colour where you want. On the C64 this is not the case, not many colours can be placed close to another. The C64 has a fixed palette of 16 colours. The Amstrad CPC can show 16 colours from a palette of 27 colours. With tricks like palette switching it can show 27 colours on screen. It's easy to convert screens from the C64 to the Amstrad CPC. If you try to convert the other way you certainly do not get nearly as good results. The C64 graphics is definetly inferior to the Amstrad CPC

Oliver Lindau

Even with the concept of the opportunity having more colors on the cpc it is also no 1:1 port from C64 to the CPC. There is only one grey, so it is necessary to alienate the colours to get a balanced look. Some of the pictures that are used for comparison got individual colourschemes in parts of the picture.

What seems a bit off to me in this thread is the argument that those C64 pictures only look better on that machine because they have been pixelled with the palette in mind. This is no quality statement, this is natural. If you are working with a specific palette you create shadows depending the luminance levels, creating an atmosphere with transitions that are a good match. Same with all kinds of pixelart, whatever machine has been used. And the selection represents this. Some of the pictures work really well, some look definitely better with CPC colours, some are kinda equal, some of them look worse.

I am missing some examples taken from artists like Mirage, Joe or Mermaid like these:

 

 

 

or probably these two from my collection:

 

ivarf

Quote from: Oliver Lindau on 00:41, 17 February 16
What seems a bit off to me in this thread is the argument that those C64 pictures only look better on that machine because they have been pixelled with the palette in mind. This is no quality statement, this is natural. If you are working with a specific palette you create shadows depending the luminance levels, creating an atmosphere with transitions that are a good match. Same with all kinds of pixelart, whatever machine has been used. And the selection represents this. Some of the pictures work really well, some look definitely better with CPC colours, some are kinda equal, some of them look worse.

This is so true, but working from the start with another palette would very likely given a different picture to suit that palette.

Gryzor

Quote from: Oliver Lindau on 00:41, 17 February 16
What seems a bit off to me in this thread is the argument that those C64 pictures only look better on that machine because they have been pixelled with the palette in mind.


I don't think it was an argument as much as just a fact; the reasoning is, you can't really compare the conversions because the original was tailored to the strengths of the original platform. Not that tailoring them to the original platform is bad!

ivarf

Quote from: ZbyniuR on 03:27, 16 February 16
Take graphics from C64 is ease, so next challenge C+4
Carrion's Gfx - Software Details - Plus/4 World
Would that be hard to do on an Amstrad CPC? A real challenge would be to take graphics from the Amstrad + to the C64

1024MAK

Quote from: Gryzor on 08:51, 17 February 16

I don't think it was an argument as much as just a fact; the reasoning is, you can't really compare the conversions because the original was tailored to the strengths of the original platform. Not that tailoring them to the original platform is bad!
Yes, the best artists always use the medium that they have available for the best effect. Same with computer graphic art on limited systems like the 8 bit computers. Because each 8 bit computer has different colours and pixel resolutions available, comparing them is a bit like comparing different fruits. If an artist starts work on a high resolution display, which has a limited number of colours, they are likely to use dithering and other effects. But if they start work on a system that can display lots of colours and shades, but which does not have such a high pixel resolution, then they will use carefully selected colours to blend the colours to reduce the ragged lines caused by the lower resolution.

The selection of available colours also will have a bearing on what type of image or picture works best.

Mark
Looking forward to summer in Somerset :-)

Oliver Lindau

Quote from: ivarf on 09:01, 17 February 16
Would that be hard to do on an Amstrad CPC? A real challenge would be to take graphics from the Amstrad + to the C64
C16 colors are more like CPC+. c16 has 121 different colors that can be displayed simultaniously even in standard graphics modes (heavily restricted though)... not really on par with a CPC.

Quote from: Gryzor on 08:51, 17 February 16
I don't think it was an argument as much as just a fact; the reasoning is, you can't really compare the conversions because the original was tailored to the strengths of the original platform. Not that tailoring them to the original platform is bad!
Agree.

enthusi

Hi,

I am a coder, not an artist but I am well aware of the restrictions and palettes and color spaces involved.
In the end (and it seems the discussion has reached some sort of dead end?) you can only compare the system's bests against each other, not convert from one to the other and then judge.
May be I am missing something but is there some CPC pixel-art gallery that could be used? Then you can compare (different!) pictures and get a feeling (it will always be subjective anyway) which palette you like most.
This is under the assumption that artists on each system master their palette. My current impression is, that (pixel)art on C64 has evolved much farther than for CPC (yet).
But coming from the C64 and not the CPC, this might be biased.
There is amazing art with any palette (even 1bit, as (mostly) ZX Spectrum people demonstrate repeatedly) - it boils down to: who is producing art?
To me, the shades of C64 feel more natural and the Pepto-Palette that was used in the initial posting is simply the ONE realisation of C64-color-settings that is at least somewhat compatible with RGB color space.
It is too dim/weak by design. C64 was never built for RGB monitors.

I would love to see more original pixel-art for the CPC! It sure has potential. Same with code. The Point-and-click adventure was shortly mentioned. Do not wait for an engine to pop up and do not compare to C64 and evaluate possibly advantages, just go there and code one! Surely, the CPC community would highly appreciate it and so would I, actually.

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