Visual Style: Difference between revisions

Visual Style (view source)

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-{{stub}}
+{{Gamename}} employs a restricted “low-res” visual style that complements its history-focused themes by referencing and paying homage to hardware and software of the past.
-''Caves of Qud's'' in-game art employs a restricted visual style that can ''generally'' be described as follows:
+==Graphics==
-* The palette is limited to 18 specific colors.
+In-game screens display [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vignetting vignetting] and visual [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scan_line scan lines], which give the impression that the game is being viewed through an older style of computer terminal. (Either or both of these effects can be disabled from the options menu.)
-* Each tile (sprite) can have up to three colors: foreground, detail, and background. (The background color is usually left as the default black; see the [[Visual Style#Palette|Palette]] section.)
-* Each tile is 16 pixels wide by 24 pixels tall.
-Additionally, composite screens in the game as well as art pieces in its style employ:
+Each rendered tile (i.e., sprite) is 16 pixels wide by 24 pixels tall and may contain up to three of the game's 18 fixed colors, referred to as the primary, detail, and background colors. Usually the background is left black (the color referred to in the game code as <code>k</code>, and fanonically called “Qud viridian”; see the [[#Palette|Palette]] section). The tiles may be scaled to fit the actual size of the game window.
-* a vignette effect, darkening the corners of the screen slightly.
+===Exceptions===
-* a scanline effect, emulating the look of images on an old CRT TV by superimposing faint, horizontal lines over the image.
-* a desaturation effect, moving all displayed colors slightly closer to grey.
-The vignette and scanline effects can be disabled in the options menu.
+Some tiles use colors outside of the fixed palette. These colors are always some mixture of the primary and detail colors of the tile. (See [[Modding:Tiles#4th Color]] for details.)
-Some art in the game doesn't strictly follow the limited palette, and employs a unique trick (see: [[Modding: Tiles#4th Color]]) to create a theoretically much larger palette as long as the color produced can be created by mixing two of the 18 pre-defined colors.
+Game mods are allowed to specify that their tiles are of sizes other than 16 by 24, however the base game itself doesn't use this function. (See [[Modding:Tiles#Tile_Size]] for details.)
-=Palette=
+==Palette==
-''Caves of Qud'''s palette comprises 18 specific “ideal” colors (before any screen effects), given in the following table:
+The tile palette comprises 18 colors, which are given in the following table:
 {{Color Table}}
-==Palette Files for Pixel Art==
+===Palette Files for Pixel Art===
-===JASC palette format (.pal)===
+====JASC palette format (.pal)====
 The JASC palette format is useable by a variety of pixel art programs, including Piskel and Aseprite. (It isn't useable by GIMP; see the [[#GIMP palette format (.gpl)|GIMP palette format]] section.)
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 255 255</pre>
-===GIMP palette format (.gpl)===
+====GIMP palette format (.gpl)====
 Save the following as <code>Caves of Qud.gpl</code> in your GIMP palettes folder. This folder's location varies by platform:
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   84 207	Violet (m)</pre>
-=See Also=
+==Trivia==
+{{Opinion}}
+* The game code's tendency to refer to object sprites as “tiles” may be an allusion to the phrase “tileset“ as it is used in roguelike circles to refer to optional graphics for a game that can be used in place of the usual text terminal. However, {{Gamename}}'s tiles mode isenabled by default.
+==See Also==
 * [[Modding: Text Color Codes & Object Rendering]]