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New color system: I'm feeling like a dummy


Andikki
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1. Dual-colored pickers

I've been fighting the new emisive & energy dual-colored pickers and I can't for the life of me figure it out.

I've seen an explanation that, as far as emissives go, one is a base color and another is some kind of an aura around it. Maybe that's how it is, but the result I see is like this:

  • If I only pick the first color, I guess I get what I want.
  • If I pick the second color, it completely overwhelms the first one. Unless it's really really dark, in which case it dims the first color.
  • In most cases, even if the less dominant color does some changes, they are so minor that are completely negligible to my eye.

Is my color perception particularly bad and the majority of players can actually make sense of the system? Or is there something wrong in my video settings or my display? Or were we given tools that are too advanced and confusing for people who are not design professionals?

Example: green base emissive color vs orange, with the second color bright green and unchanged.

KDsUFd1.pngmcVUOkM.png

Maybe I do see a slight change in tint comparing them side by side, but definitely nothing I would worry about, it's not like someone would examine my warframe with a magnifying glass. Besides, I have no idea how to achieve a particular result with these two pickers.

Full screenshots:

Spoiler

4X0EfnF.jpg

mM2KzXQ.jpg


Frankly, I feel like one color was good enough.

I can imagine a dual-color approach being more dummy-friendly if two colors did any of the following:

  • If different colors applied to different parts. Although that's pretty much introducing another color alongside primary, secondary, tertiary, accents and emissive. Too much.
  • If two colors applied a gradient. Though that'd be difficult with small dot-like emissive areas, but then the gradient could go across the warframe/weapon/etc, so that emissive areas would gradually change color from top to bottom of the warframe or along the weapon.
  • If the emissives changed between both colors over time.

2. Energy

Separating Emissive and Energy is a very welcome addition. It's straightforward and makes perfect sense. On warframes.

It took some time to figure out what Energy means on weapons - in case of beam weapons it's the color of the beam, in case of melee weapons it's the color of the trace and other visual effects they do as you swing them. For some bullet weapons it's the trace of the bullets. And on weapons like sniper rifles I don't think it does anything?

At least I did see the effect of dual colors on a beam weapon (Glaxion). One color was the beam itself, and the other was for the particles swarming around it.

Spoiler

lWNULtY.jpg

Maybe it could be made clearer what Energy does for weapons. Or maybe separating Emissives and Energy on weapons is an overkill. It's like Simulacrum is becoming a requirement for fashionframe.

And then there are syandanas, sugatras and other attachments. What do they need Energy for?!

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It's pretty easy: You use a light color as the Primary because it affects the source of the light, then pick a Secondary darker tone of the same family so it degrades properly (ie: primary light blue from ice palette, Secondary Dark Blue from Tenno Palette, like Rhino). It's exactly what DE has been using all this time to set up the default emissives ._.

7 minutes ago, Andikki said:

And then there are syandanas, sugatras and other attachments. What do they need Energy for?!

On this instance, a Syandana like the Pyra Prime has the body emissives (the dots) colored by the Emissives, while the flames are colored by the Energy. It's pretty sweet.

Also Channeling Effects.

Edited by NightmareT12
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5 minutes ago, NightmareT12 said:

It's pretty easy: You use a light color as the Primary because it affects the source of the light, then pick a Secondary darker tone of the same family so it degrades properly (ie: primary light blue from ice palette, Secondary Dark Blue from Tenno Palette, like Rhino). It's exactly what DE has been using all this time to set up the default emissives ._.

Then maybe it would better work as a base color picker and some additional slider (or two) instead of the whole palette? I wonder how many players figured out what you've figured out. And how many of those can achieve the desired effect on a warframe.

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2 minutes ago, Andikki said:

Then maybe it would better work as a base color picker and some additional slider (or two) instead of the whole palette? I wonder how many players figured out what you've figured out. And how many of those can achieve the desired effect on a warframe.

Honestly, changing this would be a waste: of potential, of resources (after all they redid this because we complained en masse) and overall a bad decision.

First of all, because it's explained in the patch notes (and I hope it gets better explained when the new UI rolls out in game so everyone gets it faster), secondly, because we got rid of a number of issues that were present on the old system (using defaults only was copying one of the colors of the emissive, either the high or the low, and then there would be an absolute inconsistency all over the helmets, the Syandanas, etc.), and third, because that would require a lot, LOT of time and a lot, LOT of testing. Even the changes they just rolled out still need fixing here and there, and the code needs refining.

It's not viable, people would lose some freedom on their choices (and from what I can see most peole seem pretty adjusted and happy to the new system) and it'd be a step back.

If you need some help ask away though, I'll be happy to lend a hand 😄

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Dual energy effects on frames are hard to notice on smaller emissive zones. You can see it really well on Oberon Feyarch:

Spoiler

 

Single energy choice:
Warframe0001.jpg

Dual energy, rose/light purple:
Warframe0002.jpg

Dual energy, rose/shade of black:
Warframe0003.jpg

 

Unfortunately the issue that you're seeing, here, is that you either barely notice it, the secondary color overtakes the first in a large way, or the secondary color simply mutes the primary color.
The effect could have been accomplished by going through and normalizing every frame's emissives with a forced, "degrade," as @NightmareT12 put it.

Decoupling power energy from emissive energy is a 100% step in the proper direction, though. It does ruin using full default colors on many frames, however, as there are many cases where the energy and emissives aren't the same colors. This is especially true if you run default deluxe skins. Oberon/Prime with Feyarch will have his emissives be orange and yellow but his projected energy be blue and green leading to many syandanas and attachments having mismatched colors.

Edited by Chipputer
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  • 1 month later...
35 minutes ago, (XB1)ReverentSea48 said:

@Andikki I'm on xbox one and can't figure out how to change my secondary energy and emissive colors.  Could you help me out?

Make sure the cursor center is on top of the secondary box. The UI team should try to make these boxes bigger when the eventually update the screen.

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