Alpha 8.5 - Feedback: Infinite Color Palette & Device Texturing

Discussion in 'FAQ & Feedback' started by Hummel-o-War, Aug 27, 2018.

  1. Hummel-o-War

    Hummel-o-War Administrator Staff Member Community Manager

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    Infinite Colors & Device Texturing:

    Custom Color Palettes:
    - You can now set up your very own color palettes (free color picker!) beyond the 31 predefined colors we had before
    [​IMG]
    - Each color palette can then be used for a certain structure (Base, CV, HV, SV)
    - Added second default color palette (more to come)

    Device Texturing:
    - It is now possible to add custom textures to some of the devices: Thrusters (not the Jet Thrusters), Modular Wings and Heavy Window Blocks
    [​IMG]

    5
     
    #1
  2. Hummel-o-War

    Hummel-o-War Administrator Staff Member Community Manager

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    Known issue: Textures on Devices sometimes do not scale identically to the blocks around them.
     
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  3. Frigidman

    Frigidman Rear Admiral

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    Feedback for the color palettes:

    1)
    The buttons across the top may be limiting (is this a hard limit, or just a UI choice?). I'd suggest maybe a flip out left panel that lists all palettes someone may make/collect (along with ability to name them?).

    Second screenshot was the idea (with that old 2016 UI lol, ignore the rest of the post):
    https://empyriononline.com/threads/color-pallet.12073/#post-141890

    2)
    You should not allow the editing of the upper left color slot. You should gray out the sliders with maybe an overlay of "Cannot change the Non-Color slot".

    3)
    Under "How to use" the text for step "1: Set up custom color palettes on the tabs 1-5" wraps the "1-5" to the next line making it a bit weird to look at.

    4)
    It may be confusing to people to have both sets of sliders all together with no break. They may wonder why moving one sliders adjusts other sliders. Possibly add a divider with " - or - " ?
     
    #3
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  4. geostar1024

    geostar1024 Rear Admiral

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    As many have mentioned already, the main thing missing now is an eyedropper mode. Something like a button that, when clicked, would temporarily close the interface and copy the color from the next clicked block. Alternatively, it could be a mode toggle like the replace and color-whole-block modes.
     
    #4
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  5. Gary Parkin

    Gary Parkin Captain

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    I had a friend help me check this out in coop. It works kinda weird.

    "define weird?"...
    Ok when I change the color of a wall to blue from the standard pallet, he sees it blue.
    When I change the blue splotch to RGB orange, and paint the same wall, he still sees it blue.

    So how do we keep the multiplayer pallets in sync? That's the weird part. We spent like an hour trying to figure out this thing.

    How can I paint a wall with an arbitrary RGB color, then have him get the SAME color to continue painting a new wall we just added.


    As a side note, the texture pallet in the gun looks washed out and unclear now...
     
    #5
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  6. Frigidman

    Frigidman Rear Admiral

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    Its also a bit "weird" and confusing with the lower right 'color chosen' box. If you aim at two different SV (or any different entities), which have two different colors for the selected slot... the lower right box does not change.

    You know how when you aim with the texture tool at concrete, and steel, and wood, and the lower right box changes based on what you are aiming at? That is not happening with the color tool when looking between two entities that have different colors palettes setup.

    Also (slightly off topic), would it be too hard to get the right-click to close the color selection UI? Since right-click does nothing else when the selection UI is up... would be nice if right-close closed it (since it opened it).
     
    #6
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  7. Ian Einman

    Ian Einman Captain

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    As far as color goes, what is still missing is the ability to make it somewhat reflective/emissive. I'm not really sure if this is a color or texture, but here's the problem.

    Place a railing down (e.g. "Railing Round"). Now try and color it in such a way that it looks like shiny chrome. Or shiny gold. You can't do it.

    However, if you take one of the two last textures (the ones that look like they have green/red lights) and then paint that a yellowish orange, you can make it look sort of like gold. Also, some of the metallic textures look sort of shiny, as does the marble texture. So it seems that the game engine has the capability of having textures that are somewhat emissive or somewhat reflective. But there's no way to paint something so that it looks "shiny".

    What would be cool is one of the following:
    • A "metallic" or "gloss" paint mode that would make whatever you are painting look shiny
    • A texture that is inherently high-gloss/reflective, and you can then paint it any color
    However, for the second method to be useful you'd really need the ability to texture devices like railings, window frames, and furniture that currently can't be textured. So adding a flag to the color itself may be the easiest way.
     
    #7
  8. Fishy

    Fishy Ensign

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    I am a big fan of the new colour tool. I do have two requests that I feel would really improve the system even further, and I don't see either taking much time to implement...

    1) Please can we have a button to the right of the "Apply to Current" that allows us to to take the current pallet and apply to the tab. Would really help with transferring themes between ships!

    2) Make pallets persistent, so when I log off a server/single player save, I don't lose my carefully selected colours. Having to manually copy all my colours back into the pallet is a pain and seems like there could be an easy way around!

    EDIT:

    Alternatively, forget all of the above and make a new button that saves current tab to a custom preset. That would be mega funky
     
    #8
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2018
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  9. Fishy

    Fishy Ensign

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    A little follow up on my last post:

    Pallets are now persistent! Good job guys, that's really neat. I do however have a little moan:

    Changing the pallet in an online game will not update over the network. If I make my ship bright pink, my friends/enemies cannot benefit from my superior style which is sad. This is actually pretty frustrating as everyone is referencing ships by their colour so this leads to much confusion. I cant imagine it would be a big fix to implement...? Pretty please xxx
     
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