Eye of the Beholder Palette Format
| Format type | Palette |
|---|---|
| Hardware | VGA |
| Colour depth | 18-bit |
| Number of colours | 256 |
| Games |
Eye of the Beholder uses a 6-bit RGB 256-colour palette.
PC version of Eye of the Beholder I
The .PAL and .COL files used in the PC version of EOB I differ slightly from the standard format in that all bytes in the files must be bit-shifted two bits to the left.
Example:
The 4th byte in the file BRICK.PAL, which holds the red channel for the second colour in the palette, reads EA in hexadecimal or 11101010 in binary.
Bit-shifted, it becomes 10101000 or A8 in hex, which is the correct value.
Bit-shifting vs. mathematical scaling
While the above shifting gives visually acceptable results, it is not strictly mathematically correct.
For example, full white in 6-bit RGB (00111111) becomes 11111100 when bit-shifted, which is no longer full white in 8-bit RGB.
For accurate colour intensities, the following formula should be used:
8bitRGB = (6bitRGB & 0x3F) * 255 / 63
Java code to read .PAL files (EOB I PC version)
import java.io.*;
public class PAL {
private byte[] m_rawData;
public byte[][] m_palette;
public PAL(String filename) throws IOException {
File f = new File(filename);
long fileSize = f.length();
m_rawData = new byte[(int) fileSize];
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(filename);
int tr = fis.read(m_rawData);
fis.close();
m_palette = new byte[(int) (fileSize / 3)][3];
for (int i = 0; i < m_palette.length; i++) {
m_palette[i][0] = (byte) Math.round(((m_rawData[i * 3] & 0x3F) * 255.0f / 63));
m_palette[i][1] = (byte) Math.round(((m_rawData[1 + i * 3] & 0x3F) * 255.0f / 63));
m_palette[i][2] = (byte) Math.round(((m_rawData[2 + i * 3] & 0x3F) * 255.0f / 63));
}
}
}
Sources
https://web.archive.org/web/20180516034756/http://eob.wikispaces.com/eob.pal