More colors

For a while now, I’ve been meaning to add some more builtin colors to ProffieOS. However, first, I wanted to inventory the colors we have so that we can add new colors in areas of the color wheel that doesn’t already have a bunch. I finally got around to doing the first step, and here is the result:

As we can all see, there are large areas which have no colors, which seems like a problem, like for instance to the left of the chart.

This chart is in linear HSV space, with V fixed to 1.0. That means that all colors on this chart are at their maximum brightness, it is not possible to make the color brighter without also changing it’s hue or saturation.

Anyways, I could use some help with figuring out names for these new colors…

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Looks like X11 calls the color on the very left side “Electric Purple”

Found three more suitable colors on wikipedia:

  • Electric Violet
  • Electric Lime
  • Amber

The chart now looks like:

I’ve found colours quite tricky because they sometimes look quite different on a computer screen or on the style editor compared to a lightsaber blade in real life.

As such, I routinely add at least two new colours to my installs which don’t seem to be represented. I’ve given them new names, but they are:

Pale Green - Rgb<28,255,28>
Flamingo - Rgb<255,80,154>

Also I notice that Lime and Green are both Rgb<0,255,0> so I guess that could do with tidying up too.

I’ve thought about adding these colours to the colour list myself for my own builds, but I haven’t for two reasons: firstly it means with every new OS I need to remember to update that file, and second because the style editor won’t recognise them.

Another thing that might be worth thinking about adding is fractional colours. For instance, If I want to set up a random flicker for a blue blade with the flicker alternating between full blue and half blue, currently I need to define those colours as Blue and Rgb<0,0,127> respectively. If I then find the flicker is too subtle, I need to try something like Rgb<0,0,62> for the second colour.

This is easy on primaries, but quickly gets a bit laborious if you’re using more complex colours which mix all three channels.

Again Ive thought of adding fractions to my own colour list along the lines of:

ThreeQtrBlue Rgb<0,0,192>
HalfBlue Rgb<0,0,127>
QtrBlue Rgb<0,0,64>
ThreeQtrDSBlue Rgb<0,102,192>
HalfDSBlue Rgb<0,68,127>
QtrDSBlue Rgb<0,34,64>

This would make building bladestyles manually much easier, but again I’ve not done it for the reasons given above.

But if you’re looking at adding new colours to the colour list, maybe it would be worth looking at or getting some consenses on it.

Just my fourpenneth.
:slight_smile:

So far I’ve mostly been using the Color List in edit mode, so this is very exciting to me, there’s a lot of variations of white and blue, but only 2 greens. So, yay! more green! (But it might also just be cause my favorite jedi is Qui-gon Jinn)

I tried adding these, at least “Flamingo” is fairly distinct from other colors.
I’m more interested in colors on the edge of the circle though.

Removing colors breaks backwards compatibility.

None of these “full bright” colors, so they don’t show up on this chart, and I’m not interested in adding them to ProffieOS.

In general, I expect people to mix the builtin colors with black to get darker colors.

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For the record, Edit Mode’s Color List colors are just “start points” based on the main saber colors users wanted from canon or EU (and for Spoken Color).

The Color Zoom control let’s you dial to any color you want :wink:, you can get to every possible color using Color Zoom, Edit Black level and Edit White level in Edit Mode you’re not restricted to the Color List.

If you’re not familiar with ColorZoom refer to the controls in my prop.

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Found some more color names:

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These are excellent. I am very picky about purple and there’s some great choices in that range.

Dialing in colors with zoom is a great thing, but having more named choices would be great :slight_smile:

lol BrainFreeze.

@profezzorn
They look pretty!

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I’m thinking we should update the live style editor before we add the new colors in the code though, since the new colors won’t be available for most people until ProffieOS 8 is out. I filed a ticket to remind myself to do it later. :slight_smile:

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Although, maybe it would be better to make a 7.x branch of the style editor, and then add new features to the main branch right away…

either way, i can test branches for you as soon as they’re up :slight_smile:

Just to clarify and avoid confusion, “named” colors just refer to being able to use the color’s “name” in a style or the Editor in place of Rgb<>. This is separate from Edit Mode’s Color List.

Long term if there are “named” colors that have a lot of use they could make their way into the Color List, but adding these names to the OS does not automatically make them part of the Color List.

The Color List is a specific list of highly used colors in Edit Mode (and supported in my library) that can be selected -or- used as a starting point in Edit Mode (in combination with Color Zoom / Black Level / White Level). In particular, exact colors like Red, Green, etc were often hard to dial into using the Color Wheel so I built the Color List so users could get those exact colors much easier but if they want to adjust they just use Color Zoom to shift. It’s easier to start at “Red” and maybe adjust a little than to try to get actual “Red” in the Color Wheel. So that’s where Color List came from, it’s a part of Edit Mode and my library built for ease of use.

The Color List also corresponds to spoken color names when Spoken Color is enabled in my prop. In order for a color to be added to the Color List I will need to update my prop and we will need to update the Voice Packs to support when Spoken Color is used. The Color List already has some colors with “names” I’ve given that are not actually “named” colors in the OS, these are colors I’ve cultivated in the Library that are popular and often used like Silver, Gold, Purple, Indigo, IceBlue, etc. they weren’t “full” color so they are not actually “named” in the OS, but due to their use I have them named in Color List and my Library for easy selection.

Finally, the Color List in Edit Mode is also used in the library to keep everything in synch. So adding to the Color List also entails updates to the library to support.

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no small task at this point, that much is certain.

Oh I know, that’s why I want to clarify before users started thinking these were all just going to magically appear in the Edit Mode menu all of the sudden. There’s more involved with adding colors to the Color List and I would only add more to the Color List with a high consensus/demand and if you were able to support in the Voice Pack, otherwise these colors (and ALL colors) are already achievable in Edit Mode, they’re just not “named”.

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I would love to see the editor be able to have these colors as options to pick from, even if they just push into the Style Code the RGB/RGB16 values would not be bad either.

Which colors, the ones in this post?

I added them. Style Editor just hasn’t been updated officially yet.
You can play here

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I found an RGB color table and have been using it as parameters for “using” functions:
ColorTable - Pastebin.com

Many are repeats, but I think there are some new ones. They don’t all look as good as I’d like… “mars-orange” was just not right for a Baylan Skoll blade, no matter how much I wanted it to be…