Palettes and Remaps

OpenRA loads native RA/CnC palettes which are a list of 256 colors in the Westwood PAL format.

Certain color indices have hard-coded meanings as transparent or shadow colors. Index 0 is always mapped to transparent. The color (index) that is mapped to transparency can be custom defined in system.yaml.

Palette Traits

Palettes must be defined with a trait before they can be used ingame. The Name field is used both by internal palette lookups, and by custom palette overrides on unit Render* traits.

The following traits can be added to the World actor. This is the most basic palette definition:

PaletteFromFile@chrome:
	Name: <string>                    # Internal palette name
	Filename: <string>                # Filename to load
	Tileset: <string, default null>   # If defined, load the palette only for this tileset
	ShadowIndex: <list of integers>   # Map listed indices to shadow

RA/CnC ShadowIndex is both at 4, the color does not matter as it is replaced by the engine. 3 is used by the GPS dots that were introduced in OpenRA.

The index that is mapped to a transparent shadow can also be defined in cursors.yaml:

    ShadowIndex: <integer>

PaletteFromCurrentTileset:
	Name: <string>                    # Internal palette name
	ShadowIndex: <list of integers>   # Map listed indices to shadow

The PaletteFromCurrentTileset trait loads the palette specified in the current tileset definition.

PaletteFromRGBA:
	Name: <string> # Internal palette name
	R: <0-255>     # Red color component
	G: <0-255>     # Green color component
	B: <0-255>     # Blue color component
	A: <0-255>     # Alpha color component

The PaletteFromRGBA creates a single color palette without any base palette file. This is used to define the palettes for iron curtain and low-power.

ShroudPalette:
	Name: <string> # Internal palette name
	IsFog: <bool>  # True for for, false for shroud

The ShroudPalette adds the hard-coded fog and shroud palettes to the game.

Player color palettes

Player palettes work slightly differently to the other palette definitions. The PlayerColorPalette trait is added to the Player actor definition.

PlayerColorPalette:
	BasePalette: <string>                # The Name of the palette to base off
	BaseName: <string, default `player'> # The prefix for the resulting player palettes
	RemapIndex: <list of integers>       # Remap indices, see below

This trait takes the specified base palette and remap index. It and creates a palette for each player in the game using the color they chose in the lobby. Internally, each definition is mapped to N "normal" palettes named i where i is the player index from [0-N). Multiple per-player palettes can be defined by adding multiple PlayerColorPalette traits to the player actor.

OpenRA supports remappable ranges for player colors that can be defined RemapIndex with .

• ra: A ramp of 16 colors, starting at index 80 (default): 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95
• d2k: A reversed ramp of 16 colors, starting at index 255: 255, 254, 253, 252, 251, 250, 249, 248, 247, 246, 245, 244, 243, 242, 241, 240
• cnc: Two ramps of 8 colors each, starting at index 176: 176, 178, 180, 182, 184, 186, 189, 191, 177, 179, 181, 183, 185, 187, 188, 190

Required palettes

• terrain is used as a basis for the player palette (requires remapping)
• player is the default name for the remapped player color palette
• chrome is used for icons
• effect is used for explosions, bullet traces, etc.
• shadow is a transparent grey color for shadows (airplanes, buildings)
• cloak is the color seen by the owner of invisible units
• invuln is the color used for the iron curtain in RA
• disabled is the color buildings that are powered down

Using custom palettes

Actor rendering is handled by the family of the Render* traits. The behavior for specifying custom palettes is defined in the common base class to these traits, which means that it is the same for all of the Render* traits.

Render* will render the unit with the default player palette by default. This can be overridden with a custom player palette by adding a PlayerPalette override that gives the BaseName of the desired PlayerColorPalette.

Render*:
    PlayerPalette: <custom PlayerColorPalette BaseName>

If you want to disable player colors, you can also specify a static palette by overriding the Palette with the name of the palette to use.

Render*:
    Palette: <custom palette Name>

Palette Modifiers

World:
     WaterPaletteRotation:

will add rotating blue pixels starting at Base: 96 (RA) and Base: 32 (CnC) for beaches and waterfalls.

World:
     LightPaletteRotator:

uses the same mechanism to have blinking dots on the RA radar building.