Difference between DM2 Versions

About palette matter

There are 6 known DM2 platform versions.

DM2 for PC

DM2 Beta for PC

DM2 for Macintosh

DM2 for Amiga

DM2 for Sega CD

DM2 for PC-9801

About next 3 versions, there is no palette restriction.

Next table shows the reasons by my guess and from test results.

Version	Reason
DM2 for PC	4 and 8-bit Image is supported. VGA (SVGA) device supports full 8-bit color depth.
DM2 for Macintosh	4 and 8-bit Image is supported. I believe its display device support 8-bit color depth of course.
DM2 for PC-9801	4-bit Image is supported. It is not capable to display 8-bit image due to hardware limitation, it renders images with dithered quality in 4-bit color depth. So, it’s possible to display 256 colors simultaneously (however each image have only 16 colors at once).

About next 3 versions, there is palette restriction.

Next table shows the reasons by my guess and from test results.

Version

Reason

DM2 for Amiga

DM2 for Sega

4-bit Image is supported.
DM2 will have 2 independent screens and palettes (dungeon and interface) simultaneously on hardware level.
For dungeon images, DM2 uses dungeon screen plane to render. You cannot select another color that is not in current dungeon palette.
For item images, DM2 uses interface screen plane to render. Same as above.

DM2 Beta for PC

4-bit Image is supported.
Although Its display device seems to support 8-bit color depth, DM2 won’t use more than 32 colors in hardware palette.
Limitation will be same as above.

About these 3 versions, you have to care about palette whenever you compose your image.

There are known 7 palette sets. They are from 6 scenes and an interface palette.

Scene palette

Each scene palette set has 6 palettes.
They are grouped by intensity.
First palette is most bright. Last one is most dark.

If you compose your image, 2^nd palette (from most intensity one) should be selected. Game seems to use its palette in brightest light condition.

Each image against scene (dungeon, door, ornate images and so on) must have transparent color.
It’s different between scenes.
About some images like door ornate and floor/wall ornate images can have another transparent color.
They (door and ornate images) may have two transparent colors for special purpose (for example, transparent for cross scene).
You cannot have the color/colors that is/are assigned to transparent color/colors in your image.

Interface palette

There is always single palette.
Some interface images like “FOOD”, “WATER” and “POISONED” images have transparent color.