Tutorials/Colour grading

2014-01-06T04:49:06Z

Supertanker: Minor corrections

Colour grading allows you to change the colour and brightness tints of an entire map.

'''Disclaimer:''' This feature is controversial. Some players turn it off to improve the visual clarity of the game.

= Requirements =
[[File:Neutral.png|frame]]

* A screenshot of your map, preferably of the area you want to work with
* The neutral colour grade
** found in main/cgrading/ of your .pk3s
** Optionally right click and save the skinny image on the right of this page.
* An image editing program. This guide uses the GIMP, but you can use anything.

= Guide =
Here is the screenshot used in this tutorial. It's of the alien spawning view on Parpax, and it has a nice variety of colors to work with:
[[File:Colourgrade original.jpeg]]

Load the screenshot in your image editor and adjust the image's colour curves.
* GIMP: Colors menu -> Curves
* Other editors: may be under the name of "levels"

Modify the curves of your colour channels until your screenshot obtains the desired look. Each "channel" affects a colour of the image. In the GIMP "Value" is a channel holding brightness.

In this example the picture has been made slightly brighter, redder, bluer and less green. Viech (the author of [[Maps|Parpax]]) will probably cry to see such a garish colour scheme, so don't tell him this is here.

[[File:Colourgrade 2.png]]

Now save your curves. In the gimp, you click the ''plus'' button next to the presets drop-down menu.

Apply these same modifications to the neutral colour grade image:

[[File:Colourgrade 3.png]]

Save the modified colour grade in your map's folder hierarchy. Eg:

ultimate_frisbee.pk3dir/gfx/test_colour_grading.png

* Make sure it is inside a ''gfx'' subfolder.
* You can save it in any format the engine understands. Jpeg is '''not''' recommended.

== Testing in-game ==

Load your map in Unvanquished and use the ''testcgrade'' [[Console|console command]] to load your colour map. Eg

/testcgrade gfx/test_colour_grading.png

[[File:Colourgrade 4.jpeg]]
[[File:Colourgrade 5.jpeg]]

== Applying to your map ==
Place your colour grade in a subfolder with your map's name. Eg:

ultimate_frisbee.pk3dir/gfx/'''ultimate_frisbee'''/test_colour_grading.png

In NetRadiant: add a key/value pair to the "worldspawn" entity by selecting any non-entity brush and pressing the '''N''' key.
* key: "colorGrade"
** note spelling (color, not colour)
** note capitalisation
* value: "gfx/ultimate_frisbee/test_colour_grading"
** WITHOUT the file extension

For example, on chasm-b1, the key/value pair is: '''colorGrade : gfx/chasm/colorgrading'''

Originally from http://unvanquished.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=704

Tutorials/Colour grading

2014-01-06T00:02:05Z

Supertanker: Added information on how to make the game load the colour grade on map load

'''Disclaimer:''' This feature is controversial. Some players turn it off to improve the visual clarity of the game.

Originally from http://unvanquished.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=704

= Get Started With Colour Grading =

What you need:
* A screenshot of your map, preferably the area you want to work with
* The neutral colour grade, found in main/gfx of your source directory 
* An image editing program. This guide uses the GIMP, but you can use anything.

Here is the screenshot used in this tutorial. It's of the alien spawning view on Parpax, and it has a nice variety of colors to work with:

[[File:Colourgrade original.jpeg]]

Load the screenshot into GIMP. In the Colors menu, select Curves. You will get a window popping up with a histogram and a diagonal line running through it. Feel free to play around with the channel settings, because you can easily reset them. You have a choice of Value, Red, Green, and Blue. The value channel will brighten or darken the image, while the color channels will add or subtract that color, depending on whether you're going above or below the diagonal line.

In the example below, I've made it slightly brighter, and I've added to the red and blue channels while taking away some green. It probably looks a bit garish, and I'm sure that Viech will kill me for butchering Parpax, but this is simply to demonstrate an example.

[[File:Colourgrade 2.png]]

Once you've saved your settings, load up the neutral color grade. By default, it is neutral.webp in your main/gfx directory in the source folder. It doesn't necessarily have to be webp, as you can use any image format recognized by the engine. I use png, for instance. In any case, apply your settings to the color grade, as shown:

[[File:Colourgrade 3.png]]

Now, save your edited color grade with a memorable name. In my case, I am an extremely boring individual and decided to call it test1.png. You can call it whatever you want. Place it in a location where Unvanquished will recognize it. In my case, what I did was create a grading.pk3dir in my data directory, and inside of it, I made a gfx folder that I put my color grades into. It doesn't matter what you name the pk3dir, but make sure that there is a gfx folder inside of it that you place the color grades into. Once it's there, load Unvanquished and type the following command, substituting my example for whatever you named your color grade:

/testcgrade gfx/test1.png

If all went well, you'll be seeing your color grade applied to the entire map. Congratulations! You are now testing a significant renderer feature. Make sure to give us ample feedback in the appropriate forum sections. We will also be adding more features to color grading shortly. For the meantime, here are screenshots of Parpax with the color grade I just used in this tutorial. Feel free to post your own experiments in this thread as well.

[[File:Colourgrade 4.jpeg]]
[[File:Colourgrade 5.jpeg]]

= Using Colour Grading in your map =
Once you are satisfied with your colour grade file, place it in the folder gfx/yourmapname. (You will probably have to create these folders first.) Then, in NetRadiant, add a key/value pair to the "worldspawn" entity by selecting any non-entity brush and pressing the N key. For the key, enter "colorGrade" (note spelling) and for the value, enter "gfx/yourmapname/cgradename", where "cgradename" is the filename of your Colour Grade '''without''' any extension. Press enter to add it to the list of key/value pairs. Recompile and test your map.

For example, on chasm-b1, the key/value pair is: '''colorGrade : gfx/chasm/colorgrading'''

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Tutorials/Colour grading

Tutorials/Colour grading