FCEUX palette origins?

Discuss emulation of the Nintendo Entertainment System and Famicom.

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Tamagon
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FCEUX palette origins?

Post by Tamagon »

I'm making a video on various NES palettes, and I'm quite curious about the FCEUX palette.

I initially assumed that it was just an early NES emulator palette picked out of a hat, but then I noticed that it's actually very similar to the palette Capcom uses for their emulated NES games (think Rockman Complete Works). It's also what the 3DS Virtual Console uses. So it's a palette with some "legitimacy" behind it.

Does anyone know how this palette was made? I've heard from the current FCEUX devs that the palette was made by a "Chuck Mason" but they don't know the specifics. They suggested that I email the guy but I don't know if I'm comfortable tracking down some guy over a palette he made over a decade ago :?

Has anyone here reverse engineered the palette? Or has any light to shed on it? It's interesting to me that this emulator palette ended up on Nintendo's virtual console.

Edit: To clarify, this isn't it to pick fights over any palette. I actually kinda like how vibrant the palette is.
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Dwedit
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Re: FCEUX palette origins?

Post by Dwedit »

Where do NES colors come from? They come from a 12-step square wave that alternates between two voltages, and being interpreted in the YIQ color space.
I would say that the Nintendulator palette is pretty much the perfect NES palette. It looks nice and colorful, and it's based on the actual math a TV would perform on the video signal. If you can convert the palette to grayscale, all colors in the same row become the same brightness level.

As for FCEU's palette, it's probably just another handmade palette made by guesswork. Until people worked out the math properly, guesswork and hand tweaking is what people did.
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Tamagon
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Re: FCEUX palette origins?

Post by Tamagon »

Dwedit wrote: Tue Jun 01, 2021 4:39 pm Where do NES colors come from? They come from a 12-step square wave that alternates between two voltages, and being interpreted in the YIQ color space.
I would say that the Nintendulator palette is pretty much the perfect NES palette. It looks nice and colorful, and it's based on the actual math a TV would perform on the video signal. If you can convert the palette to grayscale, all colors in the same row become the same brightness level.

As for FCEU's palette, it's probably just another handmade palette made by guesswork. Until people worked out the math properly, guesswork and hand tweaking is what people did.
Oh I know where NES colors come from. What I'm asking is how a handmade fanmade palette ended up looking so close to multiple, independent "official" palettes. Obviously not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things but it's something I'm mildly curious about.
Also yea, the Nintendoulator palette is pretty nice too and probably the one I would stick with. I do like using the more colorful ones depending on the game though :P
lidnariq
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Re: FCEUX palette origins?

Post by lidnariq »

I think you're going to have to dig around in ancient versions of FCEU to get anything resembling an answer. "git blame" says that, other than a brief stint with "luke's .16+ palette" from 2006 to 2008, it's the same palette that was used in FCEU-0.98
Tamagon
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Re: FCEUX palette origins?

Post by Tamagon »

lidnariq wrote: Tue Jun 01, 2021 4:52 pm I think you're going to have to dig around in ancient versions of FCEU to get anything resembling an answer. "git blame" says that, other than a brief stint with "luke's .16+ palette" from 2006 to 2008, it's the same palette that was used in FCEU-0.98
Yeah I've looked into it. The palette seems to predate even FCEU 0.98. The original FCE from 1998 uses a palette that's almost exactly the same, just with some slight tweaks. All it has to say though is "Automatically generated by a program chuck wrote"

Interestingly enough, the original goal of FCE was to write a NES emulator for PlayStation. Probably a coincidence, but since those Mega Man emulations I mentioned did start out on PS1, it does make me wonder if the author used that as a source. After all, it'd be an official example of what NES colors would look like on PS1.

Edit: Double checking the release dates, FCE actually predates those Mega Man emulations. Huh.
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