Color cycling, also known as palette shifting, is a technique used in

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

in which colors are changed in order to give the impression of animation. This technique was mainly used in early computer games, as storing one image and changing its palette required less memory and processor power than storing the animation as several frames.

Examples of use

* The

Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced from 1995 to 2000, which were based on the Windows 95 kernel and its underlying foundation of MS-DOS, both of which were updated in su ...

boot screen used color cycling to provide animation. * The 3D maze screensaver included with earlier versions of Windows used color cycling to animate the four fractal textures available. * The Amiga Boing Ball cycled the ball's checkerboard pattern between red and white to create the illusion of the ball rotating. The same technique was used by

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is a 1994 platform game developed and published by Sega for the Genesis. Like previous ''Sonic'' games, players traverse side-scrolling levels while collecting rings and defeating enemies. They control Sonic and Tails, who attempt to retrieve ...

on the Sega Genesis in its bonus stages featuring a rolling checkerboard sphere. * ''

SimCity 2000 ''SimCity 2000'' is a city-building simulation video game jointly developed by Will Wright and Fred Haslam of Maxis. It is the successor to '' SimCity Classic'' and was released for Apple Macintosh personal computers in 1993, after which it wa ...

'' made extensive use of this technique: every building with animation had its animation provided by color cycling. This was used to provide effects such as blinking lights, cars moving on roads, and even four frames of animation displaying on a tiny movie screen in a drive-in theater. *Many adventure games used color cycling to simulate moving water, lava and similar effects. *''

Mickey Mania ''Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse'' is a 1994 platform video game developed by Traveller's Tales and published by Sony Imagesoft for the Super NES, Sega Genesis, and Sega CD. In the game, the player controls Mickey Mouse, ...

'', on the Sega Genesis, used color cycling to simulate ground movement in a pseudo-3D section.

Approach

Color cycling is powered by changing specific colors in a color pallet that gives the illusion of animation. To quote Mark Ferrarri:

References

External links

Gallery featuring the color cycling effect through HTML 5Gallery featuring the color cycling effect through HTML5 with extra features
Computer animation Demo effects Amiga {{compu-graphics-stub