[SUG][CONTENT] change default arrow colors of original sets

[mobius]

So I tried making this point before with only words and it didn't work so this time I'm going to do it with pictures.

IMO; some of the default colors for the one way arrows are fine; blue for marble works great. It's clear and contrasts well with the terrain colors. But some are awful; take a look at my example pics and you tell me which one looks better. (or more importantly; which one is easier to see)

First is the default for fire:


this is another (red arrows from a L2 set, Egyptian I think)



Here is the default for rock:


now here's a a brown colored set (from one of Gronkling's sets)


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I know it's now possible to add any arrows you want thanks to the new formats and I appreciate that but it's still an issue because sometimes the only thing I can find to work really well, to stand out is an odd graphic set that not everyone may have or it might be a graphic set that doesn't get updated because the person might not be around anymore. And I don't really like the idea of having a level that's only a rock level for example except for this one part of the level, the arrows being from some other random tileset and having someone unable to play the level because they didn't download that style for that tiny purpose. The other method I had of solving this problem was changing the theme of the level to another set but this has the downside of changing other things like the color of builder bricks which does not necessarily look good. Not to mention that it's just FAR EASIER if the damn default color looked good in the first place.

The color ideas I have come from Lemmini; I don't know who or why they changed the colors when making Lemmini but they made excellent choices as all of the arrows stand out really well and look really good imo. The key is to pick colors that contrast really well and can't blend in easily with the terrain; so essentially try to pick a color that doesn't exist anywhere else within the set already, or not very much. Look at the crystal set for example; the red arrows stand out (and people have commented on how good they look in the past) exactly for this reason.

Look at this example for the bubble set:
https://youtu.be/ylzQwaNRkgk?t=491
IMO the red looks FAR better than the pale default color from original Lemmings.

So here are my proposals:

marble: no change needed
pillar: change to blue the pale doesn't stand out so well especially on the lighter yellow blocks
fire: change to red?*
dirt: no change needed
crystal: no change needed
brick: change to yellow the pale color doesn't stand out at all on the pale/grey blocks and chains.
bubble: change to red the pale doesn't stand out so well on some of the lighter pieces
snow: no change needed
rock: change to brown or yellow


some of the L2 sets maybe could use a change as well but I haven't really looked into that too well yet. Many of them like Egyptian are okay imo.

*this one may be rather tricky actually because the fire set contains both a lot of blue and red but thinking about it I'm not sure what other colors would look alright in it. But imo; it's a pretty clear winner for red in that image above.

Now if everyone still thinks no change is needed or doesn't approve of any of these choices; can we get some kind of better way to choose our own color; without changing other things in the level??

[Proxima]

I totally agree.

Firstly, I've mentioned this before (I'll see if I can find the old topic in a bit) -- the editor should let us choose any one-way walls with any style. For instance, suppose mobius and I disagree over which colour Rock OWWs should be as default, only one of us will get our way, but we could both make our levels with the OWW colour we want by choosing it from another style.

Regarding specific colours: the current beige for Rock is awful. Brown is a clear improvement, but still not very clear. I would prefer a strong red -- bright yellow as mobius suggests could also work.

I prefer blue for Fire over red, but I can see that red would be advantageous if you had OWW over a large section of the blue bricks.

[namida]

Changing on a per level basis is unlikely. That would be a significant new feature.

However, changing the fixed colors for certain styles can definitely be done, very easily, if the community mostly agrees on a new color. One could even implement a user-side mod if they don't agree with the standard, with a single modification to theme.nxmi.

There is already precedent for deviating from the L1 colors: Snow does so.

[mobius]

I don't really have a strong preference for the exact color in any case. I'm mostly concerned with the arrows being more visible and overall looking better. So if there are better suggestions than the ones I proposed, that's fine with me.

Another thing to consider is if shading or an outline is done on the arrows this will also greatly improve visibility, no matter the color.
The snow set's arrow is excellent since it really stands out, but then the snow set is mostly essentially two or so colors so-to-speak (white and green). So red really stands out. I think Proxima's suggestion of yellow would probably be better than the brown (at least than the one I have here). I actually used yellow before in my own levels but couldn't find where I got them atm.
The fire set, as I said, is a bit of a tricky case. And I forgot to point this out but in my pic; you'll notice that those red arrows have a white highlight on them, which is partly what aids in them standing out. If the blue arrows had this it might also help.
I also kind of liked the black arrows from Genesis (but every set had this, I think? they had no color in the whole game)

[namida]

I can definitely look into adding an outline.

[mobius]

So I just firgued out (which I should've bothered to figure out long ago) that you can easily edit the colors yourself.

Go to style\ style of your choosing\ open the "theme.nxtm"
this specifies all of the custom color choices. Simply change the one marked "ONE_WAYS".

Here's a site that gives example colors, and can kind of give you an idea how the code works:
https://www.color-hex.com/

note that this does not change their appearance in the editor
that's not true it does; but you must restart the editor

[namida]

Okay so - no one objects to this, I take it?

Does anyone specifically have an issue with the idea of adding an outline? (This and recoloring are not mutually exclusive.)

[Strato Incendus]

So you mean simply having the outer contour of the arrows strengthened, or even being able to modify the colour of the outline independently of the colour of the arrows themselves?

[namida]

So you mean simply having the outer contour of the arrows strengthened, or even being able to modify the colour of the outline independently of the colour of the arrows themselves?

Having them independently adjustable is feasible, although my thought was more just the "have it a darker (or fixed) color".

[Dullstar]

On the topic of the outline, I'd be interested in seeing a mockup of the proposed change.

If we're still considering changing the colors of the arrows, too, I'd say the proposed image for rock is still difficult to see. Outlines might help.

[namida]

If we're still considering changing the colors of the arrows, too, I'd say the proposed image for rock is still difficult to see. Outlines might help.

All cosmetic changes can still be considered (no physics changes will be made to them).

[namida]

Here's two possible candidates for how they might look with outlining. (Yes, they're the wrong color for the brick style. I did this quite quickly, so didn't actually have the level's theme set to Brick.)

I'm leaning towards the bottom option, but I'm quite open to either.

Style creators still will only need to specify one color. The outline color just ends up being a darker shade of the main color.

[Dullstar]

The top one looks rather thin compared to the original (even though if I had to guess it's probably the same size and the outline just creates the illusion that it's smaller).

I have no objections to the bottom, however, and think it looks good. I'd suggest starting with this and then seeing if further color changes are still needed.

[namida]

The top one looks rather thin compared to the original (even though if I had to guess it's probably the same size and the outline just creates the illusion that it's smaller).

Your guess is 100% correct.

I have no objections to the bottom, however, and think it looks good. I'd suggest starting with this and then seeing if further color changes are still needed.

Sorry, let me be clear - that screenshot was not in any way meant to illustrate colors for any style. It was purely to illustrate the outline.

[Dullstar]

It was probably my post that is a bit unclear. I met that I liked the outline as shown in that picture, so my suggestion was to implement that outline method with the existing colors used in the sets as a starting point to see if further changes need to be made to the default colors, or if the outline is sufficient.