PLAYPAL

Doom Palette 0

Doom palette, with each colour numbered

A PLAYPAL is really a collection of palettes used for various purposes. It has a total of fourteen palettes, each 768 bytes. Each palette has 256 colors of three unsigned bytes each (0-255); one for each of red, green and blue. Furthermore, the COLORMAP resource also affects the display of colors on screen.

The palettes each have a specific function:

Palette number	Use
0	Normal
1	Unused
2-8	Progressively more red (8 is most red). Used to show pain when the player is hurt, and reddens the screen when the player picks up a berserk pack.
9	Unused
10-12	Progressively more white. Used very briefly as the player picks up items.
13	Green tint, used when the radiation suit is being worn

An examination of the Doom source code reveals that the unused palettes (1 and 9) were likely intended to be the first levels of the red and white tinting effects. Because of the logic used in the palette code, they are never used.

See also

• COLORMAP

Source

• This information is from the Unofficial Doom Specs.