Customizing a palette

A custom palette lets you work in a different color system, modify or name a color in the palette, reorganize the colors, or create a spread of colors in the palette.

This section looks at custom palettes and steps you through:

Working with the 3DO palette
Working with a custom palette
Saving and loading palettes

Working with the 3DO palette

If you're not satisfied with the palette 3DO Animator generated for a document, you can modify the 3DO palette by changing one or more colors. You then have to update or remap the document before you save it.

Selection in the 3DO palette

Before you can change colors in the 3DO palette, you have to understand its selection mechanism. The table below provides an overview of the things you can do:

Table: Overview of multiple selection mechanisms.
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To do this...        |Use these keys                    
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Select more than one |Shift-click.                      
color.               |                                  
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Deselect only one    |Shift-click on a selected color.  
color in a multiple  |                                  
selection.           |                                  
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Blacken a selection  |Control-click the selection.      
(replace with 0, 0,  |                                  
0).                  |                                  
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Replace the color in |First Option-click a color to     
a blackened          |replace black. Then Option-click  
selection.           |on blackened colors to replace    
                     |them with the selected color. If  
                     |you click on a nonblackened color,
                     |it does not change and becomes the
                     |color that replaces the next      
                     |blackened color you select.       
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Set the P-Mode on a  |Select more than one color and    
multiple selection.  |click the P-Mode checkbox. The    
                     |P-Mode is inverted for all        
                     |selected colors.                  
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Changing the palette

You can modify the palette one or more colors at a time, move colors, and reorganize the palette as follows:

Table: Changing the palette.
--------------------------------------------------------
To do this...  |Follow this procedure                   
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Modify one     |* Click on the color to select it.      
color.         |* Change the RGB (or HSV) values by     
               |moving the small cursors next to the    
               |color bars or clicking on the box and   
               |then typing in the RGB or HSV color     
               |value.                                  
               |You can view the color in the sample    
               |area above the color bars, as well as in
               |the selected cel of the palette grid.   
--------------------------------------------------------
Move a color.  |Click on the color in the palette grid  
               |and drag it to its new position.        
--------------------------------------------------------
Create a spread|Hold down the Command key and click on  
of colors      |the two colors. All colors between the  
between two    |selected two colors are replaced to     
colors in the  |create the gradient.                    
palette        |                                        
--------------------------------------------------------
Reorganize     |* Hold down the Shift key while clicking
colors.        |on the colors you want to reorganize.   
               |* While still holding down the Shift    
               |key, drag your selection to the palette 
               |location for the first color of the     
               |group. When you release the mouse       
               |button, the colors are displayed in the 
               |order selected starting at this new     
               |position.                               
               |* To deselect a color you selected in a 
               |multiple selection, hold down Shift     
               |while clicking on the color.            
               |* Click Remap Document.                 
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Working with a custom palette

After modifying a palette, apply it to the document using the Remap Document button or the Update Document button.

Remap Document-Updates the document, mapping each color to the closest one in the new palette. If the document is an animation, 3DO Animator remaps each frame. Remap Document always creates a new document, with the cel type as a suffix in the document name.
Update Document-Updates the document on the screen but does no remapping; that is, does not recompute each color unless the palette has fewer colors than before.

Example: Using Update Document or Remap Document

Update Document differs from Remap Document in the following ways:

Assume you select a shade of yellow in the document and change it to a shade of purple.

If you choose Remap Document, all yellow pixels in the document will have a new index. The new index stays as close to yellow as possible within the range of the palette.
If you choose Update Document, all the yellow pixels will become purple.

Note: Use Update Document for an image or cel that uses 256 colors.

Saving and loading palettes

3DO Animator lets you save and load palettes, making it possible to use the same palette with more than one cel or image. Certain palette choices can be used to de-noise video frames or to enforce color schemes.

Note: You should save and load palettes for coded cels in 3DO PLUT format.

This section steps you through saving and loading a palette.

Saving a palette

To save a palette, follow these steps:

In the Set 3DO Object Type dialog, click the Save Palette button.
A dialog appears.
Choose between saving in Macintosh format or in 3DO format, change the filename if you like, then choose Save.

Figure 1: Save Palette dialog.

Loading a palette

To load a palette, follow these steps:

In the Set 3DO Object Type dialog, click the Load Palette button.
In the file selection dialog that appears, choose a palette saved either in Macintosh or in 3DO format.
The new palette is displayed in place of the previous palette, but the system does not remap or update the document.