color_map(3alleg4)

💖 color_map — the glow-up your 256-color vibes needed 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to the color_map(3alleg4) page from the Allegro manual (yes, the Allegro game programming library, we love her) 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

color_map — global pointer to the color mapping table. it's giving Allegro game programming library energy, no cap 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <allegro.h>

extern COLOR_MAP *color_map;

like, that's the whole vibe. one global pointer. iconic behavior honestly 💅

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

so color_map is a global pointer to the color mapping table. that's it, that's her job, and she takes it very seriously ✨

but here's the tea, bestie, and you need to hear this part: you have to allocate your own COLOR_MAP — either statically or dynamically, dealer's choice — and set color_map to point at it before you use any translucent or lit drawing functions in a 256-color video mode. not after. before. this is not a drill 🚨

the manpage literally provides the example, so here it is, verbatim, don't touch it:

color_map = malloc(sizeof(COLOR_MAP));
if (!color_map)
   abort_on_error("Not enough memory for color map!");

see how she checks the pointer and yells at you if memory didn't come through? that's main character energy. always check your mallocs, periodt 👑

no cap: skip the allocation and your translucent/lit drawing in 256-color mode is gonna have a bad time. allocate first, vibe later 💀

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

the whole friend group, and yes they're all in section 3alleg4:

• create_color_table(3alleg4)
• create_light_table(3alleg4)
• create_trans_table(3alleg4)
• create_blender_table(3alleg4)
• set_trans_blender(3alleg4)
• draw_trans_sprite(3alleg4)
• draw_lit_sprite(3alleg4)
• draw_gouraud_sprite(3alleg4)
• drawing_mode(3alleg4)
• ex3d(3alleg4)
• excolmap(3alleg4)
• exlights(3alleg4)
• exshade(3alleg4)
• extrans(3alleg4)

and that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 tysm for reading, this was Allegro version 4.4.3 serving color_map(3alleg4) realness, mwah 💋✨ go allocate that map and slay 🌈💖