Jump to content

Color Theory and Game Textures


Kicking_Bird
 Share

Recommended Posts

No one seems to care about color theory, which I took my time to explain in my post which everyone ignored. You cannot achieve high quality no matter how hard you try without color theory, the game doesn't look good, to say to the very least. Please take your time reading the below info and trying to understand why this is so. I'm not trying to offend anyone but what my eyes are seeing confuse me and is hard to process naturally and sociologically. This all affects gameplay and enjoyability of the game as a whole, gameplay aside.

0T3NOVA.png

OamXU9S.jpg

AND FINALLY NOISE (3). This is the "noise" that I'm talking about, look at the circle below, do you see how nothing adds up? All the colors and values are broken and distorted and in general @#$%ed up.

http://howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com/2014/11/color-theory-game-design-1-fundamentals/

http://howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com/2014/11/color-theory-game-design-2-4-glyphs/

http://howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com/wp-content/uploads/color-theory-for-game-designers-1.pdf

http://howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com/wp-content/uploads/color-theory-for-game-designers-2.pdf

2Rr7VBV.jpg

7L2JXqi.jpg

BqclxLJCcAEITEY.jpg

colour_blog_hue_saturation_value.jpg

6yZbKVB.jpg

You should always establish the values first and only then add hue (color). A good way to do this is to take a screenshot of the 3d model and paint a visualization in photoshop.

Do you see how dark and @#$%ed up everything is in this beta build of age of empires 2 back in the day? It looks like @#$%.

castle-siege.jpg

gs04.jpg

gates2.jpg

now look at how they fixed the color and value issues for their commercial release of the game:

Age-of-Empires-Gold-Edition-6.png

7_6.jpg

In closing

ZBGwOeE.jpg

Edited by Itms
Set text to normal size and added spoilers for images. Please read the forums rules and remain polite.
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A quick pointer: if you have to preface your argument with "I don't mean to offend anyone", it's because you know very well that you're being rude and offensive. In which situation the sensible thing to do is to calm down and write your thoughts down in a concise, efficient, argumentative manner. People will not take you seriously otherwise.

Indeed I have no idea what you are trying to say with this post except perhaps "this game is ugly and you guys suck" which I am quite certain is not constructive.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay so let´s try to actually make it constructive.

To begin with and for reference here is a very nice video about colors

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj1FK8n7WgY

Then I read the whole post this time. That´s right color variation are a bit hectoc but it´s hard for a non artist eye to percieve why and therefore your post only concerns very few people.

Let´s move to the next step. Among other things I ´m working on a map pack assets for the game.

So here is what i propose. Help me fix the xolor contrast by making new perfect ground textures.

Could you do that ?

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you Lancelot and Stan for being constructive and polite in your replies, and Nicolas for cleaning the post up, it was a bit of a mess.

And to you Nick I say this: It would be a great thing if you would do as Stan says. That way you'd prove that you actually know what you're talking about and can do something more than complain, use swear words, and copy text from elsewhere. This project is a team effort, so being able to communicate in a mature and polite manner is extremely important.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

pwASPBo.gif

Indeed I have no idea what you are trying to say with this post except perhaps "this game is ugly and you guys suck" which I am quite certain is not constructive.

You are a programmer and I am quite certain you did not read the post at all.

To begin with and for reference here is a very nice video about colors
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj1FK8n7WgY

spot on... @57 seconds "however when used incorrectly, it can make the viewer feel lost, nauseous or even irritated, basicly colours can make or break your scene" - which is what I meant when I said the game is "ugly".
@1 minute 21 seconds = value scale black -> white

@Stan as I said I started working on the Persian wonder, I'm going to bundle everything together along with new terrain textures. My break ended and I have classes so I'll be done in around two weeks.

Edited by Kicking_Bird
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is another dimension to this noise topic: Without "noise" the maps don't look natural or organic. Surely a hand trimmed English lawn looks perfect to the eye, but doesn't fit into the game's overall realism. When the goal is to create textures which always work visually a set of low noise textures is good. If the goal is to allow beautiful and realistic scenarios noise or better organic structures are essential. To my eyes the AoE shots above (both) look like cheap plastic. If you carefully work every single tile in a 0AD map, the result looks real and tiling is not an issue. So, I think, the issue is not noise versus no noise, but having textures which look good with maps build in a day and having textures for maps designed in a month.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your example is quite extreme: that specific grass texture is really horrible. Many other textures are actually quite nice. Furthermore, the recognition issues are not caused only by terrain (and well, noisy terrain helps greatly hiding the low quality of some of our meshes).

I personally dislike too uniform textures too as they look like a British golf course lawn, which is just bad.

I do agree that several of our terrain textures are somewhat ugly, too cartoonish, sometimes of varying quality. Reducing their contrast or saturation might help on this. Changing some will be needed.

However, your plank example is ridiculous: on the left you get voluntarily noisy wood, for specific uses only, and on the right you have burned out, washed out planks. Both are legit wood textures and have their uses.

Finally:

You are a programmer and I am quite certain you did not read the post at all.

This will be your one and only warning: please refrain from further comments of that kind.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

yes, but keep in mind that in age of empires 3 units are thick and bulky and buildings are 1/4th actual size. aoe3 also uses colormaps or some way to blend textures so they wouldnt tile at all within the camera constraints.

aoe3 also used a economic set of textures that were 512x512 0ad uses 1024x1024 and you can clearly see the tiling

0ad also has full size buildings or close to full size with skinnier tinier units

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're right that terrain Blending in 0 A.D. is an issue, and generally our terrain is not the nicest part of the game. But it turns out that changing it sensibly is not really the easiest thing either, sadly.

Our units are slightly difficult to distinguish. This comes sometimes from old models, old textures, similar animations, small props, and also the fact that textures can become quite blurry at a regular zoom level.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...