Questions regarding MODs, and 8bit graphics mode problems

[Scavenger]

Okay, so I'm working on the second part of my game, and there are a few stumbling blocks I'm finding difficult to overcome:

Regarding tracker music: Is there any way to control the volume of the individual tracks on IT files while you're playing them in AGS, or is the MOD-etc playing library a black box (i.e, I'll have to write a plugin for it and handle music playing myself)? I think this would be incredibly useful in implementing dynamic soundtracks - for example, if you have a more furtive melody that follows the same bassline, you could reduce the volume on the calm melody's track and increase the volume on the furtive melody to create a simple iMuse style thing with tracker music. If it were, theoretically, implemented into AGS's new sound system or as a plugin, I'm guessing the format could be something like:
aMusicTrack.trackvolume[0] = 100;

I'm curious, is this possible at all in the tracker library that AGS uses? It would be very useful for me.

Regarding 8-bit graphics: Exporting a background in 8-bit mode seems to export a 24bit bitmap rather than an 8bit one, which struck me as kind of counter-intuitive when I tried exporting a background to change its palette.

Also, I used to be able to export a complete palette file by opening a room and changing the room-specific palette slots to gamewide, thus giving me a full 256 colour palette to work with in case I needed to add objects to the room that weren't interactable. Unfortunately, the new versions of AGS seem to keep the palette slots black.  And I don't know a proper workaround for this - is there any way to merge the game palette with the room palette? Exporting backgrounds doesn't work, and the colours panel has lost this functionality?

((Finally, as an aside, does anyone have a weather plugin/module that can render to a screen sized dynamic sprite instead of the framebuffer? It's the only way I'd be able to get it to render translucent instead of solid in 8bit colour mode and I'm not skilled enough to write a rain routine myself.))

Thankyou, everyone

[Khris]

Under certain circumstances, 8bit is the same as 24bit, it's just a naming issue.
8bit is 2 to the power of 8 or 256.

Now 8bit can either mean that a picture has a total of 256 different colors (max). Think GIF format.

However, e.g. in Photoshop or scanning software, 8bit refers to a channel having 256 levels, meaning that a single pixel has a red, green and blue component with each ranging from 0 to 255. This amounts to a total number of 2^8*2^8*2^8 = 2^24 colors (24bit).

[Gilbert]

I think Scavenger knows about this and what he meant by 8-bit was clearly 256-colour palettised ones.

I'm not quite sure how the editor handle the images, but if it's the same as the standard "copy-to-clipboard" call used internally by Windows we're out of luck, as that sucky function cannot really handle palettised images, so unfortunately it's always best to keep your original working files safely (make backups).

Saving a screenshot in the game, however, should save an image correctly in 8-bit mode.

[Pumaman]

Regarding tracker music: Is there any way to control the volume of the individual tracks on IT files while you're playing them in AGS, or is the MOD-etc playing library a black box

As far as I know, the library that AGS uses is a black box in this respect, and can only control the overall volume of the IT.

Regarding 8-bit graphics: Exporting a background in 8-bit mode seems to export a 24bit bitmap rather than an 8bit one, which struck me as kind of counter-intuitive when I tried exporting a background to change its palette.

I appreciate that this is not ideal, but there simply aren't enough people still making 8-bit games to justify fully implementing functionality like this.

Also, I used to be able to export a complete palette file by opening a room and changing the room-specific palette slots to gamewide, thus giving me a full 256 colour palette to work with in case I needed to add objects to the room that weren't interactable. Unfortunately, the new versions of AGS seem to keep the palette slots black.  And I don't know a proper workaround for this - is there any way to merge the game palette with the room palette? Exporting backgrounds doesn't work, and the colours panel has lost this functionality?

You can right-click the colours area to export the palette, but the easiest thing to do here is use the in-game SaveScreenshot function as Gilbert suggests, which should give you an 8-bit bitmap with the palette intact.