Talk:Hi Octane
Table files
I just noticed the File:HiOctaneTable.png file, and I thought I'd help any researchers out here, because I've seen files like that before. If you look at line 32 in the image, every colour on that line is exactly its index on the colour palette. In fact, the block of the first 64 lines are brightened and darkened versions of that same line, matched back to their closest match on the palette. This means the table is most likely used for brightening and darkening effects. As you progress down the table beyond line 63, you can see those are various other effects on the palette, such as changing the colours to be more yellow, red, green, blue, etc.
In other words, I'm pretty sure these are remap tables used for shadows and lighting effects, to instantly find the closest palette match for a certain effect without needing any calculations. Command & Conquer has a similar format (Interpolation Tables; not documented on the wiki so far) for finding the closest in-between palette match between two pixels on a palette, used for stretching out animations, and the way those tables look are pretty similar; each separate line of 256 pixels also matches a permutation of the entire colour palette.
That said, I don't think the last 8 lines of the HiOctaneTable image are the same kind of data; they seem unrelated to the basic colour palette. Not sure what those are.