FF7/Field/Palette
Section 4: Palette (Terrence Ferguson)
The following is an overview of the palette data.
Section 4 Format
| Offset | Size | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0x00 | 2 bytes | Length (Repeat of previous length header) |
| 0x02 | 2 bytes | Unknown |
| 0x04 | 1 byte | Unknown (often blank) |
| 0x05 | 4 bytes | Number of colors in palette |
| 0x09 | 1 byte | Unknown (often blank) |
| 0x0A | Varies | Palette data |
After the first length indicator comes another integer, also indicating length. Useless, but it's there. Then there's one more integer; unknown purpose. Then one byte; unknown (blank often). Then a word; number of colors in the palette plus one. No idea why. You can work numcolors out from the section length, but FF7 stores it anyway; why add one? Dunno. One more byte; unknown (blank often). Then the actual palette data.
Each palette entry is a 16-bit color. This is unusual - normally palettes store as high quality data as possible, usually 24/32 bit. However since FF7 only ever runs in 16 bit I guess there isn't much point storing any other kind of data. Actually, the data is 15-bit (5-bit Red, 5-bit Green, 5-bit Blue, and 1 mask bit).
| Palette Data | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red | Green | Blue | Mask | ||||||||||||
| r | r | r | r | r | g | g | g | g | g | b | b | b | b | b | m |
Palettes generally contain a number of colors that's a multiple of 256. This is because the palette is split up into 256-color 'pages' internally. So the first color is page 0/color 0. Color 256 is page 1/color 0. Color 628 is page 2/color 116. You'll see why in the background section.
