[SUG][EDITOR] Adjust background image brightness [RESOLVED-CAN BE CLOSED]

[WillLem]

Just thinking it might been good to have a way to increase & decrease the brightness of the level background to make fine adjustments, depending on what foreground style is being used.

Even if there were, say, 5 brightness levels to choose from, that would be good.

[namida]

Theme files can specify a custom background color, and while not enforced, generally one would use a theme that matches the dominant style in a level. Do you have a situation in mind where a style benefits from having multiple different background shades available? Or are you thinking of this in regard to background images?

[Proxima]

I can think of at least one example -- Flopsy's Marble Garden style has a bright blue background that I don't like at all, so I've had to resort to workarounds (ray_spooky:spooky_inside, which is a dark purple, happens to go rather well with MG). In general (and this is straying towards a separate feature request, but I've been harshly shut up when I've tried to talk about it before) I believe a plain black background should always be one of the options available to the level designer. I don't have a problem with style designers choosing bright colours for their theme background, especially in cases like Flopsy where they intend to use their style in their own packs; but for the level designer to be shackled to the style designer's choice of colour is unduly limiting.

[namida]

I'm personally of the opinion that picking a good background (whether it be a solid color or images) is the style designer's responsibility, and failure to do so should be taken up with the designer of said styles. One issue I have here is that historically, at least from memory, in engines that have allowed custom background color, the use cases for it have almost exclusively been troll levels that use it to make invisible terrain. Of course, this is technically feasible in NL with custom styles (or custom background images that are a solid color), but it seems that having those extra steps required has been enough of a deterrent so far.

One way around this could of course be - as WillLem suggests - to only allow lightening / darkening the background, rather than fully customizing it. Plain black could be a special case here, as the darkest variation. The edge case I'd be concerned about here is orig_crystal - it specifically has a dark blue instead of black background because it contains pure black in the terrain and this has been abused in the past to create invisible terrain even without a customizable background. The obvious approach here is "don't allow pure black on any level that contains pure black terrain", but this is both complex to implement and feels like it should fall under "if the feature's allowed, the responsibility lies with content creators not to abuse it".

[Proxima]

So here's why I have a problem with that. (Please note that I'm not picking on Flopsy specifically -- his style just happened to be the first example that came to mind.) Flopsy has built many more levels with his own style than I ever will; I think it would be rude to ask him to change the background colour, affecting all the levels he's carefully put together, just because I don't get on with it. Everyone has different tastes, after all -- like the dispute you had with GigaLem about the backgrounds in his remakes of your styles. But I also don't want to avoid using the style just because of one problem.

I'd be okay with being able to choose between either the style's set colour or black, but there are a lot of styles where a dark colour would complement the terrain nicely, so I would definitely love to be able to choose my own colour. I think it's ridiculous to say the main reason for rejecting this is that it could be used for trolling -- just look at how quickly the community came down on the trollish elements in WillLem's style/levels.

I disagree with your "historical" assessment as well; background colour was customisable in C++ Lix, and I remember exactly one level that abused the feature to make invisible terrain (and the level was, of course, rejected from the community pack for that reason).

As for orig_crystal, the obvious solution there is to change the black pixels in the terrain to a very dark blue.

[namida]

Hm, I wasn't aware Lix formerly but no longer allowed it. What reasons were given for removing it, if you recall (or if there's a topic about it)?

[Proxima]

I remembered wrongly; Lix still does support free choice of background colour. (Shows how long it's been since I looked at it... ) I guess I had it in my mind as being the sort of thing Simon would have culled, but evidently not in this case.

A quick look through the levels shows that the community pack and Clam's levels use the option occasionally; Rubix's in the majority of levels; Nepster's and the other sets not at all.

[WillLem]

Do you have a situation in mind where a style benefits from having multiple different background shades available? Or are you thinking of this in regard to background images?

Yes, to be clear - I did mean images! I've updated the topic header to reflect this.

Thinking about Proxima's point here; maybe it would actually make more sense to implement a brightness-change option in the player - that way, the level designer can set up whatever background colour/style/image they choose, and the player would be able to adjust its brightness to their liking*.

I wouldn't suggest being able to fade it all the way to black; the designer ought to have their level played as intended. However, the ability to adjust the brightness would be good, even if only to a limited number of settings.

I'd suggest that the settings reduce brightness and contrast together to preserve the general detail of the background image.

I believe a plain black background should always be one of the options available to the level designer.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you've said, but I think this is possible now: choose any theme with a black background (make sure the background image is set to "none"), and then you can use whichever elements you choose from any style to build your level (I feel like this isn't news to you, though, so I have probably misunderstood what you've said)!

The edge case I'd be concerned about here is orig_crystal - it specifically has a dark blue instead of black background because it contains pure black in the terrain and this has been abused in the past to create invisible terrain even without a customizable background

Maybe instead of a purely black background, it could be given #000001...?

Having said that, I like the #000030 background of the crystal theme: it's now my background colour of choice.

*N.B. Just wanting to make it clear that I'm only suggesting that brightness can be changed, not the colour or the image itself

[Proxima]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you've said, but I think this is possible now: choose any theme with a black background (make sure the background image is set to "none"), and then you can use whichever elements you choose from any style to build your level (I feel like this isn't news to you, though, so I have probably misunderstood what you've said)!

While you can do that, it would mean you lose the other benefits of having the correct theme (the intended colours for one-way arrows, for example). More importantly, plain black is the simplest background of all, and if you have to resort to a workaround to get it, something is very wrong.

[WillLem]

While you can do that, it would mean you lose the other benefits of having the correct theme (the intended colours for one-way arrows, for example). More importantly, plain black is the simplest background of all, and if you have to resort to a workaround to get it, something is very wrong.

Ah, I didn't think of that - good point. Hmmm. Well, what about implementing it as an image in "backgrounds" (i.e. just a plain black square fill-coloured to #000000). That way it's always available as a choice without changing the theme...