Message-Id: <199710060126.VAA19160@delorie.com>
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 21:51:58 -0300
From: Cristovao Braga <overlord AT directnet DOT com DOT br>
Reply-To: overlord AT directnet DOT com DOT br
Organization: World Domination Inc.
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: allegro AT mail DOT canvaslink DOT com, djgpp-announce AT delorie DOT com
Subject: ANNOUCE: new version of UNIPAL
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This is to announce a new, improved version of Unipal v1.32. For those
who do not know, Unipal is a lightning-fast tool for managing 8bit gfx. 
Unipal's purpose is to quickly and painlessly create an optimal palette
for people working with lots of gfx (i.e. sprites) in an 8bit colour
environment (a game or gfx program with Allegro, Jlib, GRX or anything
else).

Unipal will then read any number of bitmaps, create a palette which will
suit all of them well, update the gfx to the new palette and save them
under different names - starting with '_' (abc.bmp -> _abc.bmp). Unipal
is smart enough to skip any files which names begin with '_' so that you
won't have to delete them. It can also be called with wildcards so that
you don't have to type file listings.

There are options to suit the image conversion to many needs. You can:
   - Tell it to map any solid background to index 0 (transparent)
   - Tell it to use only palette indexes in the range x...y
   - Tell it to change a non black background to black later
   - plus lots of options to suit almost every need.

Unipal is made with djgpp + Allegro and full source is available.

Remarkable changes are a new colour-selection algorithm which works much
better when you have colour gradients and dramatic speed increases. The
exact revision history is in my homepage.

You can find it at: http://www.directnet.com.br/~overlord/eunipal.html

Please e-mail me any comments and don't be afraid of asking for help.

Thanks,
-- 
+-------------------------------------+---------+
| Cristovao Barbosa Braga Dalla Costa |         |
+----------------+--------------------+---------+
|                | overlord AT directnet DOT com DOT br    |
+----------------+------------------------------+