[Prototype Tool] Procedural Color Palette Generator for Unity

hermantulleken

Hi all,

Some of you may have read an article I wrote for Dev.Mag on generating colors procedurally:

http://devmag.org.za/2012/07/29/how-to-choose-colours-procedurally-algorithms/

The article is still very popular, and a few of you have even said you use the algorithms described there. So as an experiment we made it into a Unity tool.

To give you some idea of how these colors can be used, here are some images of a room colored using two different schemes:
<img src="http://www.makegamessa.com/uploads/FileUpload/93/2e0d996c9687f2e82448489acc9111.png" />
<img src="http://www.makegamessa.com/uploads/FileUpload/3a/4d8bb9813ac61a063fb813fcfc81e9.png" />

Modifying colors in procedural content generators is a powerful tool to add variety to content. It's also a lot of fun to play with :P

Here is some images of the interface ATM:

<img src="http://www.makegamessa.com/uploads/FileUpload/99/d63f501f5a92710b73493b94c77c0f.png" />
<img src="http://www.makegamessa.com/uploads/FileUpload/3c/ddedcc6d8aa589cca00719e2070755.png" />

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If anyone wants to try it out, please send me an email at herman@gamelogic.co.za

We would love some feedback!

hermantulleken

Some more screenies, showing a random complementary color schemes, a 3-way color-mix schemes, and a random selection from a gradient. The latest version also has a proper HSL color system, with proper HSL interpolation and gradients. (Unfortunately no UI for the latter yet...).

jsgbailey

We've submitted Colors to the Asset Store :)

We've also made a video tutorial explaining how to use each of the 12 algorithms.

(Yay I've just seen my Skype was open during capturing... happy days)

Fengol

Is there a latest version? When I try to use the one I received it breaks and it gets worse when I try to use it with Grids Pro

hermantulleken

Fengol said:

Is there a latest version? When I try to use the one I received it breaks and it gets worse when I try to use it with Grids Pro

I mailed you (and everyone else who asked) a new version.

Let me know if the problems persist. There are files shared between the packages, so it may be that Unity does not always handle it correctly. If this is the case, please let me know. (You can fix this by deleting the files in the common directory of the grids package, I would imagine, but I am not sure exactly how it breaks. I would appreciate any extra info you could give me).

Fengol

While I love the generation. Updating the material in code means I'm doing a draw call per object (which quickly grew to over 200 draw calls). I need to think of a better way of using the colours (maybe instead of updating each object's material colour, assign the object to a different material).

jsgbailey

Colors is FINALLY available in the Unity Asset Store! https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/29345

We've also made a short video with examples of each of the algoithms.

Thanks to everyone for all the feedback!

hermantulleken

Hi Everyone,

After we got some feedback from people using this tool, we realized that users want more control over how colors are generated, and generally wanted to define relationships between colors of different things.

We have been working a lot with "generators" at Gamelogic - things that generate other things, and can usually be setup in some form of pipeline (similar to how LINQ allows you to process sequences in a pipeline), so we thought that this could work well with colors too. But colors are a bit more two dimensional than sequences, in the sense that you typically mix them together. So we came up with the idea of setting up this pipeline using a node system. Here is how it looks:



The system above defines a tetradic color scheme using a single color as a base.

In script, you can add a InspectableGraphNode field, which allows you to select any node from the graph, and query the colors from that node to apply to materials, lights, post-effects, sprites, or anything you like.

As is, the node system is very flexible, and you can define any of the standard harmonies, and vary any aspect of it randomly. It's now easy to control contrast between elements, without loosing coherence. But you can also define your own nodes very easily. If you understand color well, this is the perfect tool to wield it to your will :P



If anyone wants to give this a try, please send me an email :) herman@gamelogic.co.za. As always, we really rely (and appreciate) early user feedback.