🚀 go-pugleaf

The idea of having 16 million colours (24 bits worth), that are simply
"chosen" rather than using a palette sounds neat, in SOME ways, but is
it ultimately ALL that great?

(Note:  There WILL be an implicit palette, made up of 16M colours, in
which the entries are fixed.  Looking at it this way is probably
useful in critiquing the idea of "True Color".  It should be noted
that I am NOT a graphics programmer, and people who've done such
things should be the ones that continue any subsequent discussions...
Also, as a Canadian, I kind of like British spellings, like "colour"
versus the "color" used by those people in North America that live
south of the 49th parallel.  We're ALL Americans, whether we live in
Canada, Mexico, or the United States.  Of course, the "Americans" that
live in Canada get better service from Atari, but that's another
issue!)

1) It means that if some of those colours never get used, whether in a
particular application, or possibly EVER (who'd want THAT putrid shade
of green?), then that part of the implied palette is wasted.  It might
be a better use of resources to have a smaller palette that contains
the colours that are actually USED.

2) I have often seen palette switching used to do animation/"editing"
of pictures.  You change colour #1 from White to Black, which seems to
be a pretty useful thing.  "True Color" seems to throw this sort of
feature away.

Any comments from people that are more involved in graphics?
Could the "True Color" mode be merely one of many, where the OTHERS
would have palettes?

-- 
Christopher Browne
cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca
University of Ottawa
Master of System Science Program