Ability to change other players' colors

[chills]

This is just a simple feature request. I'd like the ability to change how other players' bike and trail colors are presented on my screen. Depending on one's video settings, display preferences, moviepack, monitor quality, etc, it can be very difficult to see certain color bikes and trails on the grid. For example, it's hard to see really dark blue walls and bikes on my screen. Black bikes are pretty hard to see, as well.

By default, I think they should display as-is, but I'd like the option to change how other people's bikes look on my screen. Personally, I don't think bike/wall color being used as camoflauge makes the game more fun to play. It just forces me to crank up the brightness and contrast on my monitor to ridiculous levels just so I can see my opponents.

Any thoughts on this proposed feature?

[dlh]

My client right now makes everyones trail color white (the bike stays the color they choose). I did this because I have a tough time seeing darker colors. It wouldnt be too difficult to add a "Change Trail Color" menu in the Player Police menu, and if enabled for that specific player it changes their trail to a color set by your client. I can make the mod, unless a dev wants to take it.

[Lucifer]

If the problem is contrast, how about a way to scale trail walls into a certain range? For example taking all player colors and scaling them into 8-15. That would provide some of the player's chosen color in the resulting trail and still give you guys a way to deal with contrast problems.

[dlh]

If the problem is contrast, how about a way to scale trail walls into a certain range? For example taking all player colors and scaling them into 8-15. That would provide some of the player's chosen color in the resulting trail and still give you guys a way to deal with contrast problems.

Or just for the players selected in the "Change Trail Color" Player police menu, perhaps. I like some peoples trail color

[Your_mom]

My client right now makes everyones trail color white (the bike stays the color they choose)

stop trying to censor my trail color nemo

[philippeqc]

nemo: wouldnt changing each players trace when they cause problem be a lot of pain in the lower back? The idea of lucifer to rescale in the visible spectrum (hummm, many hours of watching Star Trek: The Next Generation finaly paying off) would surely provide a similar result with less troubles to those of us with visual disfunction.

A totally blown out of proportion solution could also be the following: Someone understanding the perception of difference of color could code a "color corrector" that would shift and adjust cycle and trace colors based on the colors used in the moviepack/mod textures. For example: A dark red trace in a primary red moviepack might recieve a hint of blue to make it easier to perceive (or something like that)

Anyway, i'm not going to code any of this. So Nemo, as your probably going to code it, its your call in the end. If I may share a bit of wisdom, I highly recommend you to KISS. Fixes are always 10 times harder than what you expect. And you keep yourself motivated by doing many simple release rather than aiming at one big "fix it all" solution.

-ph

[Z-Man]

philippe: You forgot to recalibrate the sensors and divert power from the main deflector.

I tried the totally blow out of proportion solution, it can be seen in se_MakeColorValid() in eFloor.cpp. It only takes a look at the floor color configuration item and does not know anything about the real floor color, therefore it does not work that well.

A minimum trail color brightness ( sum of R,G,B values ) could be introduced as a local configuration variable. The system would try to brighten up the trail color by scaling the RGB values up. If that fails ( R=0,G=15,B=0, but a sum of 30 is requested ), it would wash the color out. Nemo could get all white trails by pushing this minimum to the max.

[iceman]

if (color >= 1) {color=15}

[Tank Program]

if (color >= 1) {color=15}

Save a few cycles iceman, just do color = 15 .

[Your_mom]

you could do the exact oppisite of what nemo did have a wall thats black or fades from black to player color and make a white(bright)floor. posted an example pic

[Jonathan]

Or save even more cycles and take that code out and just draw it white.

Imo it's already ugly, but with a configurable RGB sum colors would never look the same (or similar!) and probably even uglier. Remember that a user's gamma is more likely near 2 than linear.