[FlamingCobra]

I've been doing some investigations into how Samus' color palette works in Metroid Fusion.

Codebreaker codes for GBA are written in Hexadecimal. I think. Just like the game itself. I think. Anyway, here's what I've come up with:

83004D28 4E73 - ?????
83004D2A 0000 - ?????
83004D2C XXXX - Shoulder, Kneecap, Elbow, part of feet
83004D2E XXXX - Front of Legs (shin), part of back and arm, part of feet
83004D30 XXXX - Back of legs, arms, and backside
83004D32 XXXX - Shadows -- OVERWRITES MAGENTA IN SCREW ATTACK
83004D34 XXXX - Two pixels, one on shoulder, one on leg
83004D36 XXXX - Part of armor layer 2 (yellow areas)
83004D38 XXXX - Part of helmet
83004D3A XXXX - Part of helmet
83004D3C XXXX - Most of helmet (maroon)
83004D3E XXXX - Visor
83004D40 XXXX - Dark Yellow areas on inside of leg
83004D42 XXXX - Backpack (gray), oxygen pipe on helmet, top of arm cannon while running
83004D44 XXXX - One pixel on back, middle of gun while running
83004D46 XXXX - Outline

The first number set points to a part of Samus' suit. The second, four digit set assigns a color value.

At first I thought it was RGB. That didn't work out. Then I began to believe it a hex color code, but on Wikipedia and all other websites, hex color codes have six digits. I eventually decided to work it out on my own.

The general pattern I came up with is this:
XXXX -- the first digit refers to blue
XXXX -- the second digit refers to green
XXXX -- the fourth digit refers to red

This led me to believe the third digit referred to yellow. In fact, it turns out to be doo-doo yellow-brown.

Anyway, these digits are hex digits; values can range from 0 to F. You can mix these colors kind of like paints. Well, more like mixing light, because when you put them all together you get white. The higher the number, the more you put in it.

F000 does not give you bright blue, as you would initially expect; you get navy. 0F00 gives you dark green, and 000F gives you maroon.

Mixing them like paint (or light) is a pretty good rule of thumb, but it only works up to a certain point. For example, after trying several combinations of values in an attempt to get a brighter shade of red, I accidentally mixed in a high value of green with the red. And I got bright red. This is one of the most basic examples of the many perversions of the pattern that I came up with.

Which leads me to believe that the pattern I came up with is not the way it works at all and is merely a coincidence. Could anybody here offer some insight?

[watsisname]

I like Metroid Fusion.

[FireSpawn]

That's a rather intresting find you've made FlamingCobra. I myself know bugger all about coding of any kind, apart from there being 10 kinds of people who can read binary.

Your mission now, if you choose to accept it, is to take this knowlege and apply it in the manner of Rule 34.

That is all.

[BloodEagle]

I myself know bugger all about coding of any kind, apart from there being 10 kinds of people who can read binary.

Fail.

[IronBeer]

Erm... 10 in base 2= 2. (1*2^1)+(0*2^0)=2.

It's a compsci joke. Unless, of course, you're being facetious.

[BloodEagle]

It's a compsci joke.

No way.  Really?

[FireSpawn]

Erm... 10 in base 2= 2. (1*2^1)+(0*2^0)=2.

It's a compsci joke. Unless, of course, you're being facetious.

Yeah....lets go with that..... 

[Polpolion]

Yeah....lets go with that..... 

oh u

[Klaustrophobia]

Erm... 10 in base 2= 2. (1*2^1)+(0*2^0)=2.

It's a compsci joke. Unless, of course, you're being facetious.

there aren't 10 kinds of people that can read binary.  there are 10 kinds of people.  those who can read binary and those who can't.  that's what he mean by fail.

[FireSpawn]

In my defence I hadn't heard ther joke in almost two years.

[deathfun]

I've never heard the joke and I understood the issue with it

[Davros]

There are also only 10 people who understand trinary
those that do, those that dont and those who get if confused with binary

[phatosealpha]

On a note that may be of more practical value, the GBA uses 5 bits per channel, not 8.  The highest value would be 1F, not FF.  If it is overflowing and ignoring the larger bits, F0 would be binary 11110000.  That would truncate to 10000 for 5 bits, or about half maximum brightness - seems about right for what you're seeing. 

[Ghostavo]

There are also only 10 people who understand trinary
those that do, those that dont and those who get if confused with binary

First FireSpawn and now you too?

Seriously, the joke starts with "There are 10 types/kinds/whatever of people period", not with "There are 10 people who can understand base N". This is especially cringe-worthy when you then contradict yourself and say one of those people doesn't understand base N afterall.

[deathfun]

There are two kinds of people that understand how to do this joke properly
Those that make the joke properly, and those that piss on the people who don't know how to do it

[Polpolion]

the set of all people that understand set theory contains two kinds of people: all of the people that understand set theory and nobody.

[Davros]

you left out those who confuse it with binary

[FlamingCobra]

On a note that may be of more practical value, the GBA uses 5 bits per channel, not 8.  The highest value would be 1F, not FF.  If it is overflowing and ignoring the larger bits, F0 would be binary 11110000.  That would truncate to 10000 for 5 bits, or about half maximum brightness - seems about right for what you're seeing. 

wut?

[phatosealpha]

The GBA's display doesn't store channel values as 0-255.   It uses them as values from 0-31.

Assume 100% is going to be 31, or 1F in hex.

[Nuke]

its probibly 16 bit color, like 5'6'5. 4 hex digits = 2 bytes.

you need to right shift the value 11 places to get the first channel
then rightshift 5 places and mask it (logical and) with 3f to get the secontd channel
third channel just requires masking with 1f (again logical and)

the reasont he second digit looks brown is because its sharing some bits with both the 3rd channel (red) and the second (green). not sure about the endianness here , but the last difit contails the 4 least significant bits for red, while the second to last has a red most significant bit, and the 3 lsbs of green (the other 3 being in the second digit wit one of the blue bits). all signs point to 16 bit.

that assuming 5'6'5, some archaic implementations use a bit for alpha. it could be 1'5'5'5 or 5'5'5'1. this was common on sprite engines. the bit could also be completely ignored. these are the things you lear when you build a video card from scratch using 74xx series logic chips and some microcontrollers and srams.