A palette swap is a practice used in video games, whereby a graphic that is already used for one element is given a different palette, so it can be reused as other elements. The different palette gives the new graphic a unique set of colors, which make it recognizably distinct from the original. Palette swaps are commonly used to distinguish between first and second players, for creating visual hierarchies, and for making visually distinct areas for levels in games.
One reason palette swaps are used is to save memory. In early computer gaming, when cartridges were the main storage medium and memory capacity was both scarce and expensive, a single sprite could be reused by changing its palette. As such, many new objects could be created without the need to produce new graphics from scratch, which saved both production costs and development time. Early games in the Mortal Kombat series frequently used palette swapping to introduce new ninja characters. More generally, palette swaps are common in sports games, in which the color scheme of opposing players is used to differentiate between teams.
In certain cases, such as role-playing video games, palette swaps are used to signify a character's status. Prominent examples of this are seen in Final Fantasy, in which a player character afflicted with the "Poison" Status effect will appear purple. By contrast, the main characters of Breath of Fire II occasionally swap their palette colors to indicate an increase in their respective statistics. In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, areas affected by "Twilight" have the colors of their environmental graphics altered to appear less colorful and more yellow, and their normal color is restored once player has completed a certain objective, and in Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World (except in the Super Mario All-Stars versions of the latter three, as well the Super Mario Advance series), and Mario is Missing! (Super NES version), Luigi is a palette swap of Mario having green replacing red.
Famous quotes containing the words palette and/or swap:
“The great God endows His children variously. To some he gives intellect—and they move the earth. To some he allots heart—and the beating pulse of humanity is theirs. But to some He gives only a soul, without intelligence—and these, who never grow up, but remain always His children, are God’s fools, kindly, elemental, simple, as if from His palette the Artist of all had taken one color instead of many.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)
“If we should swap a good library for a second-rate stump speech and not ask for boot, it would be thoroughly in tune with our hearts. For deep within each of us lies politics. It is our football, baseball, and tennis rolled into one. We enjoy it; we will hitch up and drive for miles in order to hear and applaud the vitriolic phrases of a candidate we have already reckoned we’ll vote against.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)