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#1 Technically, no, it can use any palette you want. It goes by color index, not by brightness, though. Color index 127 will always be ?0? altitude. Every index below that grows increasingly lower, and every index above that gets increasingly higher. It?s very easy to change the palette if you remember that. Grayscale is just the ?natural? palette for that kind of setup. There is no technical limitation requiring it to remain grayscale, though. So feel free to change the palette to make it easier to detect differences in altitude, but just remember it goes by color index, not by actual color.
#2 Again, nope. There is no technical reason why a .raw file has to be grayscale or true-color. A raw image is just the raw image data ? exactly the same image data that is in a bitmap, .jpg, .gif, or any other image format you want, the difference is that a .raw file has no header (which is why it doesn?t remember the size of it after you close it) and no compression. That?s why I chose it ? it?s very easy to deal with programming-wise. A bitmap happens to be exactly the same, but with a simple header and the image is flipped. The reason I didn?t go with BMP, though, is because I didn?t want to deal with flipping the image? it?s annoying and I wasn?t originally intending to release this version to the public so it didn?t matter.
The real reason I chose 24 bit is because it allows you to do something very neat: not only can you have tile types that place random grass tiles etc., but you can literally have every single tile encoded individually. What?s the point in that, you ask? Heh, guess what that means?! You can dissect *ANY* map0.mul and turn it back into a fully-working image right away!!! You can literally turn the original UO map0.mul into an image that works with TSMC, and then turn it back to the original map0.mul via TSMC with absolutely NO ERRORS! You can?t even come close with Dragon. With TSMC, thanks to it being true-color, you CAN. So you can turn the hamburger back into a cow and then back into a hamburger with absolutely no errors or differences if you so choose!
Look at STIC (also on my download page) ? that?s what it does, takes a map0.mul and turns it into two images, one for tiles and one for altitude. The problem is that you have to have a config file that has every single tile type defined in it, so unless you?re bored enough to do that, it?s not going to work that well. Plus that version of STIC was designed to work with TSMC 2 (I believe), so it uses a completely different config file for colors, which just adds to the headaches.
But it can be done, and, in fact, it has been done. Ryandor successfully made the original map0.mul into a tiles.raw and alt.raw files, which, when ran through TSMC 2, turned back into the original map0.mul. It might still be floating around the forums someplace? He was very discrete about it, though.
At any rate? the config files for everything in this version of TSMC are VERY minimal. The transition scripts are fully functioning, but non-existent for the most part. You?ll have to add the other transition types manually. It?s not hard to figure out, though. Hopefully, if I get any support, I?ll go further and make them easier to work with.
As for water ? yeah, I know, it?s a bug in the transition script that I didn?t bother to fix. Just look for the all-water one? below the tiles (which are all -1 for ?don?t change? if I remember right) is a list of statics? I didn?t place the solid water tiles for corners right.
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