Feature 05 - Generic 16 color palette

[EyeCraft]

For a non-native english speaker, your vocabularly astounds me.  I'm going to show my ignorance and ask what those words mean, not even google could help me!

Try www.dictionary.com. It's one of my fav websites.

[Arne]

Typing dict equilibrist in the url bar in firefox will send you to some dictionary. I'm sure it's possible to customize these kind of features.

Here's a version with another blue (0,100,140). This mockup is an actual game I've coded and gotten into a working state twice (in early-mid nineties and then in 2001), so I might finish it this time around too. I kinda feature-creeped it now, but it should still be doable.



One idea with the Orange and Pink is that they should both work as shadows for the Skin tone Yellow (to alter the perception of it). However, are they too similar? Should they ramp with each other or be the same value but with differing hue&sat? Should the Orange be just a tad brighter to bring it further from the Brown?

[Cow]

Whilst looking at them side by side, the do seem a little similar, however i think merging them would definitely set this back a stage.  the darker is used as a buffer, as going from orange/yellow to brown would be a very harsh transition.  For some reason i find blues can go from dark colors to light without a buffer and pull it off, but it always seems a bit uglier with yellows.

Good point, yeah. (though on Arne's mockups the colors are rarely used in conjunction, and they look pretty rad I must say)

Should the Orange be just a tad brighter to bring it further from the Brown?

I think that would help. Could maybe use the orange to ease into the pink, then.

[robotacon]

Excellent thread.
It's interesting to see how different people reason about using different colors.

Based on what I've seen here, this is what I've come up with.



EDIT:
And this is what GraphicsGale did to your current test image Arne:



I stepped back from using the 100% white again because I think it's too bright and I picked up a skin tone that replaces the bright yellow.

[happymonster]

Since this thread is so useful, and very interesting, I thought I would post here rather than start a new topic.

I love the palette, but feel that it could do with a few tweaks. Here is one the versions of Arne's palettes (not sure which one now, I think v16, but with less purple in the dark blue):




My new version is below...

I think the red, blue, green and 2 dark grey/blue colours are excellent. As with what Feron said, I think the lightest blue is a little redundant. So, I've sacrificied that colour and added in a 3rd green. Although close to one of the dark blue/greys it does help take some of the greys out of the greens in the trees. Since green is so common and the colour range we are most sensitive to, I thought it was important to add a 3rd green. We still have the 2 dark colours to use and dither with the green as well. In fact we can dither the green with the dark blue to get a darker blue-green as well. The addition of a 3rd green adds a warmer colour to the mix to use as well.

I also added more contrast between the 2 medium brown/oranges as I felt they were a little too closer together.

Finally I have changed the dark grey brown into a dark purple brown. I think this helps adds a dark warm colour in contrast to the dark cold blue colours and also helps add a purplish colour to the palette. This helps remove some of the grey/blue with the images and can be used as a darker skin/flame colour (notice I've used it in the explosions). I think the addition of 2 dark but warm colours helps compliment things against the dark blue/greys and gives more options to the artist.

So, I ran the pics through promotions remap and then did some editing. I think the changes help add a little bit more dynamism to the colours. Here is the new image:

Arne's palette (HappyMonster variation #1)

[Arne]

Interesting. I'll take a look at the palette again, maybe bringing it up to V20:

My monitor was a little bright earlier, when I re-calibrated everything I had done looked a bit bright and grey, including the 16 color palette.

Earlier I could not see darker than 20/255. Now I can see 10 at least, and 5 very very barely if I look a long while in black BG fullscreen mode. I have a CRT.
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/upload/features/05_arne/value.gif

Recalib comparison. I pulled down the darks, and consequently increasing their saturation a notch. Hard to see at first, but look at the saturation in the red for example.


I think this is with the new calib.
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/upload/features/05_arne/jsw_touchup.gif

The old calibration palette has too bright BG colors I think. I wanted those to be non-interfering. They looked dark with my old calibration, but now I think they're too bright. It's a bit of a personal preference perhaps. I like black backgrounds in games, and it's nice to be able to detail it to bring atmosphere into the game (without destroying the readability which black BGs do so well).


re: the bright blue... I could just pull it down a bit... Sky gradients could be useful, and it's nice to have the option for a bright version of the sky. Wasn't SMB 1 pretty bright?


Edit:
I don't have much time to work on this now, so here's v20 without much changes, I just applied my most recent calibration curve to it (slightly lighter than the curve above). Didn't touch the light blue. I think it's maybe too far from the blue, but it should also work to ramp between the mid grey and white perhaps? I think I didn't use max saturation for the light blue since I wanted it to be a viable sky color, and not a plasma-neon color. Also, a less saturated variant of it ramps better with the mid grey.

[happymonster]

The dark greys look ok to me, but I have a LCD monitor which has more difficulty with colours than a CRT. 
It's a pity pink is used so rarely (but importantly), it could let us fit in a more used colour..

EDIT: With regard to the red, I like the blueness aspect of the original, it makes it more interesting to me than normal reds.

Please don't feel you have to change anything in your palette if you don't want to.. it was mainly for my personal curiosity and use.

[Rosse]

Ptoing's pic of all possible c64 50% dither shades inspired me to make these (Arne's Palette V20):





The smaller version is reduced with photoshop (50% size, bilinear) and greyed out in promotion (since photoshop uses other formula to grey out colors). Maybe it's useful for somebody.

[happymonster]

Rosse: That's handy! Is there a way to group the final dither by HSL as well?

Arne: With the light blue/grey that's 5 blue greys in total, when there are only 2 greens and 2 red/pinks. I'd just prefer to have it a bit more balanced, but I suppose everyone will have their say on the logic behind their own colour choices though! 

[happymonster]

Ok. After another test I think it's safe to remove the pink and use the bright orange instead. For small sprites it's very similar. Ironically enough, those two dark grey-blues get in the way a bit if I try to add a darker blue, and the purple/brown does the same if I try to add a darker red. I don't think we need any more grey's, greens or oranges, and I'm not sure if a darker blue is needed. Because of that, and the tendency for the colours to shift in saturation and hue as they darken I thought it best to add a mid-range violet-indigo colour which can be used on it's own, with the dark blue or the grey-blue's or purple-brown. This could be used for sea, sky and other more moody lighting and dark pieces. Since the palette was missing purples and violets previously, I think this helps fill out the colour range a bit more now.

(HappyMonster v2)