Ability to change note colors

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iSynthestic
Posts: 4

Post by iSynthestic »

I really want to have a new feature when the usual 6 note colors would have 3 more colors.
Magenta,
Grey,
And brown.

Probably in the next update of synthesia.

P.s. I am Colorchanger but with a new account because i forgot my password and the email address registered woth my account got deleted by yahoo.
qwertyo76
Posts: 22

Post by qwertyo76 »

This is something I actually really want too. I've been hovering over whether or not I should make this thread or bump the old one I made, but I dunno I didn't wanna be, like, whinny. Might as well say what's on my my mind if someone else brought it up, though.

It's amazing what you can do with only six colors. Even still, for a visual medium that's supposed to look cool and be creative, six colors is just not enough. The ones we have are nicely spaced out, but we still are missing three major colors: Magenta, Brown, and Grey. Those are really the only things we don't have, but it still sucks when you want to use one of them and you can't because they don't exist. :/

I know from my past thread that Synthesia doesn't support fluid colors for falling keynotes yet, and that it's something on the to-do list. I think that might take awhile to code, especially so it doesn't lag, but I don't imagine just adding in three more pallets would be hard, and such a simple thing would boost the amount of options we have to 150% of what we currently have..

If you add just those three, I imagine it'd look something like THIS, (Brown makes everything look off but what can ya do,) and if we do fluid color I imagine it would look like THIS, where the slider on the left is for darkness/brightness. A second slider for saturation would be nice but unnecessary I think.

Edit: Oh I don't think you guys have links. Here:
http://i.imgur.com/cknQ83W.png
http://i.imgur.com/EoVPbS5.png
iSynthestic
Posts: 4

Post by iSynthestic »

I think that would be really good. Either of them is really good. But the one with the color selection without the color wheel is better. It would greatly improve our selection.
qwertyo76
Posts: 22

Post by qwertyo76 »

Hmm, why do you think that one's better? I'm curious. I mean I guess it's just simpler, but wouldn't a wheel be the most ideal solution if it could easily be put in?
iSynthestic
Posts: 4

Post by iSynthestic »

Hmmm... yep, it is, so more custom coloring.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

I would probably avoid gray. Gray already has a different meaning associated with it: a "missed" or "bad" note.

When the variable-color feature does get added, what you guys will actually be picking is a hue. Out of the three components you have to play with in the HSV color space, two of them are already spoken-for in Synthesia:
  • Saturation (or how "much" color something has from black/white/gray to very rich "saturated" color): Like I already mentioned, dropping the saturation all the way down is used to communicate "bad" notes.
  • Value (the "brightness" of the color from very dark to very light): This is already used (a little) to show the difference between note blocks heading toward a white or black key. Notes for black keys are a little darker (or have a lower "value").
  • Hue (the "shade" of the color on the rainbow): This is what you already get to choose to tell tracks apart. What we'd like to do is offer more choices here.
So instead of your 2nd image, we're talking something that doesn't let you change the saturation or brightness, like the first image here.

Alternatively the gradations between colors could be finer, to give you something more like the first image here. Or any answer between. The first has 12. The second has (effectively) 360. We could do something like 18 or 24 without crowding things in so tightly you can't tell the difference between two tracks.
iSynthestic
Posts: 4

Post by iSynthestic »

We could do 18, actually. Or 12, for all the colors in the color wheel.

I'd really love it if it were in the next version of Synthesia. 9.1? ;)
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Synthesia 10 is already pretty packed (and inadvertently growing larger as I've been realizing some of the planned changes require more changes elsewhere), so I can't promise anything for the next release.

That said, this is still something I definitely want to do someday. And the technology work to make it possible is finished, so there are fewer barriers to entry.
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