I'm making some Sonic 2 styled sprites, and was wondering:
1. How many colors can be used on each sprite?
2. Regarding tilesets, does each tile have that specific amount of colors, or the whole tileset?
Thanks in advance!
Sonic 2? Okay.
The SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive has 4 palette lines available. Each palette line has 16 colors, with RGB components that are multiples of 34 (there are exceptions to this, but they are rather complicated and rarely seen, so we'll ignore them).
Developers can use the lines however they want, but generally (and in Sonic 2) the first two lines are reserved for sprites, and the last two lines are reserved for foreground/background.
The first line is the main sprite palette, which does not change between levels, and is used by Sonic, Tails, and almost all global sprite objects (monitors, etc). The second line has the palette for rings, as well as level-specific sprite palettes (namely, badniks; I'll explain in a moment). The third palette line is the background palette, and the fourth palette line is the foreground palette.
All graphics are assembled from 8 pixel by 8 pixel tiles, even the sprites (which are stored separate from the foreground/background tiles). Each tile uses ONE of the four palette lines. There is no limit as to which line it can use; level-specific obstacle sprites generally use the foreground or even the background palette!
Level tiles (foreground and background) are constructed as follows: 8x8 tiles are formed into 16x16 metatiles which are then formed into 128x128 chunks. If you strive for accuracy, I suggest working with a tool like
SonLVL when creating level artwork.
Hope this information helps!
i can guarantee that was way more info than you ever expected to get.