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I'm looking for some artist folks to take a crack at a new color scheme for the map analyzer (original post).
Update: Another release, 1.4.6 (unofficial) with new colors and new modes!
Skip to the 4th page for instructions.
Update: another unofficial release with more color bands for the influence heat map.
1.4.5 (Unofficial) See posts below for details of 1.4.5 changes over 1.4.4.
What's the problem? A few new things are coming in the next release that require some nice color schemes.
1. Openness levels
The openness levels are probably one of the most helpful outputs of the map analyzer besides the distance measurements. It shows, graphically, how "open" a point of the map is. In the next official release of the map analyzer I'm going to add another level of gradient to this output so a human can more easily detect the differences in openness.
This image shows the current official release 1.4.3 on the left, and what the next release will show on the right. The color scheme on the right NEEDS SOME LOVE!
2. Influence Heat Map
This is a new feature for the next release. What it shows you, for any given point on the map, is which starting location exerts more influence over that point. Right now I'm doing it as a bunch of gradients to a middle color, then the same gradients reversed to the other base. There is a visual balance to that so users can tell where the influence differences are. For instance, in Scrap Station you can see that the influence over the watchtower is even, but the green band of influence of the 12 o'clock base extends past the cliff between its natural and its third base. I think this tells you 12 can (slightly) better protect its third base, but balance discussions aside, the influence heat map needs a nice color scheme!
So how can you help?
Download this unofficial release of the map analyzer. It has already been set up to analyze Blistering Sands and Scrap Station (included in the download) so just unzip it, double-click the sc2mapanalyzer.exe file and it will produce images in the output folder.
Cool, now how do you play around with the colors? Open the text file "colors.txt" and see I've written instructions on defining colors, and given some descriptions of the colors.
For this community experiment I've moved the relevant colors to the top of the file.
- Colors opennessLow, Mid1, Mid2, High are the endpoints of gradients for the openness levels. Low is the color of a cell next to a boundary, and High is the color of a cell in a wide open space.
- Influence colors have two parts. "influence1" and "influence2" are the color of text related to Start Location 1 and Start Location 2 that are being compared by the analyzer (right now they are set to blue and yellow). Then there are "influenceMid1, 2, ... 7" which are the endpoints of the gradients in the influence heat map. You'll notice color 1 equals color 7, 2=6, and 3=5 because the gradients are reflected, color 4 is the color that shows areas of equal influence on the map. In the initial color scheme for Scrap Station shown, the color4 for equal influence is red.
- Colors terrainEvel0, 1, ... are the colors of the cliff levels. The terrain is rendered in the background of all other output images. I chose black for chasms and greys for playable elevations, so colored information will show up nicely. I think a talented graphic artist will know how to adjust these to better blend with the colored information of different output images.
Once you've fiddled with the colors, double-click sc2mapanalyzer.exe again and it will generate the images with new colors.
That's it! If you have questions or cool color schemes to show, please post back. I suppose we can do a community vote about which scheme to use for the official release, but nothing is stopping us from including a bunch of color schemes to choose from.
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I'm not sure if I like the new openness colors in your image. They look... washed out. I guess that's why you're asking for help. Though, I like the heat map colors. The 'cooler' colors are the less contested areas and the 'warmer' colors are in the more contested areas. It makes sense.
I'm not a graphic artist but I'll probably download it later tonight and mess with the colors and see what I can do.
Keep up the good work.
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I've had a little fiddled with the colors, and I think maybe a red vs blue scheme might work for the Influence map (see spoiler).
+ Show Spoiler +
One thing I ran into was that the height levels kinda ruin the colors you choose. Like in your example image. The colors get a washed out look from the greys between the tiles. I was thinking maybe you could visualise height by making the tiles darker in an other way. Maybe like this:
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/jZniT.jpg)
(Zoomed in) + Show Spoiler +
Now I have no idea if this is at all possibly, or if you even like the idea. But it might be something to think about 
PS, looove the Map Analyzer!
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On October 21 2010 03:48 BoomStevo wrote:
I'm not sure if I like the new openness colors in your image. They look... washed out. I guess that's why you're asking for help.
Yep, the new openness colors are gross. I added a new pink-ish value beyond blue, and I compressed the whole openness scale so it is more clear to a human where the differences are. The new code is what I want but the colors need some love.
On October 21 2010 05:23 burningDog wrote:One thing I ran into was that the height levels kinda ruin the colors you choose. Like in your example image. The colors get a washed out look from the greys between the tiles. I was thinking maybe you could visualise height by making the tiles darker in an other way. Maybe like this:
I agree, and the washed-out colors were actually me attempting to "tighten" the grey values as close as possible, but still be able to distinguish cliff levels, and have the various gradients for openness render nicely. My first try failed, and so why not ask the talented TL community for help?
Currently I have no internal support in the map analyzer for loading in an image to blit into the output image, so I will hand code a version of your proposal with dithered shades to see how it comes out.
EDIT: oh yeah, burning dog, about the influence heat map--my first attempt had it like you showed, with one color at one base gradually becoming another color at the other base. The problem with this is that if I look at two parts of the map that should correspond, like one base's natural versus the other natural, its hard to compare them. Is this blue as blue as that red is red? So I switched it where the colors are the same at the extreme ends, and there is a central color where influence is even. This shows us something cool in the Scrap Station image--you can see very clearly a difference between the bases by looking at that cliff between the natural and the third base, the green band of influence is the same value but it appears in a different place because the map is asymmetric.
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Yummy! Post your color definitions, too!
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On October 21 2010 08:06 dimfish wrote:
Yummy! Post your color definitions, too!
Sorry, here you go:
opennessLow = 0x0000FF
opennessMid1 = 0x00FF00
opennessMid2 = 0xFFFF00
opennessHigh = 0xFF0000
influence1 = 0x00FFFF
influence2 = 0xFF00FF
influenceMid1 = 0x0000FF
influenceMid2 = 0x00FF00
influenceMid3 = 0xFFFF00
influenceMid4 = 0xFF0000
influenceMid5 = 0xFFFF00
influenceMid6 = 0x00FF00
influenceMid7 = 0x0000FF
They're pretty easy colors.
I followed your example on the influence colors, but I went with something a little different for the openness.
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Interesting, nice and simple. I know you are an analyzer veteran--can you throw a map with lots of cliff changes and all the elevations to see how the colors come out? Steppes of War I think is good for that, just drop a copy in the unofficial release and it grabs all maps in there
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hmmm im thinking stevo's summary is quite good
personally i'd invert the heatmaps such that red was the base and dark blue was the even territory [or even purple; more colours in the gradient would make the colours a little easier to distinguish]
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although burningDogs colors look quite good I think BoomStevos simple colors are perfect for the task. while I feel it is probably too colorfull and one could try to go with less color and more light and dark contrasts it does a really good job to show differences in height.
i think BoomStevos picture looks good, too, because it is so similar to heat-scan visualization - an apearance one is used to.
i want to point out that it could help to have different task of the analyzer displayed in different colors. blue-green-yellow for openness and orange-red-violet for influence. do i ave to try this out to make it valid or could somebody pick that idea up and try around? it could help to have more distinctive pictures.
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Excellent stuff so far. I've updated the OP with a link to a new unofficial release, 1.4.5, with some changes.
1. There are 11 colors to use for the influence heat map, up from 7.
2. The influence heat map has a non-uniform scaling for the color gradients. The colors at one end (near a start location) only spread over a small radius, while the colors representing equal influence were spread all over the center of the map, so my strategy is to widen the influence range of colors near the start location and tighten colors in the center. If this sounds like jibberish, ignore it! 
3. I am very much liking BoomStevo's openness colors (and notice he changed destructible rocks to a nice grey because his openness=0 is blue, all good stuff). I did a preliminary adaptation of his influence map that looks a bit disgusting, but I think we should all try something more like this, where colors next to each other are very different. If you put influence1=red and influence2=orange then they are so close in the output image that you don't get very much information! Look at the asymmetries that are revealed when you pick colors that are very different, so you can really see lots of bands of colors:
+ Show Spoiler [Influence, more colors, harsh transiti…] +Look at the yellow outside the natural, 12 o'clock is (slightly) more influential over the bottom of its ramp. Look at the teal band, 12 o'clock CLEARLY has an edge over its third base. Look at the equal influence, it shows equal near the watchtower but the gold base is a hair more to 12 o'clock's side. Look at teal/nasty grey: 2 'oclock has a little more influence down the big ramp.
Can we find a prettier set of harsher transitions for influence colors??
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How about using less colors for the infuence map, but repeating them? In the pictures in the spoiler tag I used Cyan, Magenta and Yellow as the only 3 colors and I think it shows regions pretty well. But maybe you lose some other type of info in doing it this way...
+ Show Spoiler +
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On October 22 2010 03:48 burningDog wrote:How about using less colors for the infuence map, but repeating them? In the pictures in the spoiler tag I used Cyan, Magenta and Yellow as the only 3 colors and I think it shows regions pretty well. But maybe you lose some other type of info in doing it this way... + Show Spoiler +
Boom, baby! This looks great!!!!
Anyone wanna back me up that BoomStevo's openness scheme is awesome and burningDog's repeated and delicious influence scheme should be on a hot fudge sundae?
I'm still open to more ideas, but for now I'm going to change the official release colors to these. Beautiful, and great work everybody.
Oh yeah, everyone including BoomStevo and burningDog--post the color definitions for me and anyone else who wants to play with what you come up with!
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I was messing with trying to use light/dark colors next to each other instead of contrasting colors. I was trying to keep with the cold to warm areas theme and still have it look nice.
+ Show Spoiler [Images] +
+ Show Spoiler [Color Definitions] +influenceMid1 = 0x00FFFF
influenceMid2 = 0x000040
influenceMid3 = 0x00FF00
influenceMid4 = 0x400040
influenceMid5 = 0xFF0000
influenceMid6 = 0xFFFF00
influenceMid7 = 0xFF0000
influenceMid8 = 0x400040
influenceMid9 = 0x00FF00
influenceMid10 = 0x000040
influenceMid11 = 0x00FFFF
burningDog's scheme make the bands/contrast easier to see though.
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Oh right. Here are the numbers (I put BoomStevo's openness scheme colors in there aswell):
+ Show Spoiler +opennessLow = 0x0000FF
opennessMid1 = 0x00FF00
opennessMid2 = 0xFFFF00
opennessHigh = 0xFF0000
influence1 = 0xffffff
influence2 = 0xffde00
influenceMid1 = 0xfff200
influenceMid2 = 0x00aeef
influenceMid3 = 0xec008c
influenceMid4 = 0xfff200
influenceMid5 = 0x00aeef
influenceMid6 = 0xec008c
influenceMid7 = 0x00aeef
influenceMid8 = 0xfff200
influenceMid9 = 0xec008c
influenceMid10 = 0x00aeef
influenceMid11 = 0xfff200
defaultTxtFg = 1.0, 1.0, 1.0
defaultTxtBg = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0
footerTxtFg = defaultTxtFg
footerTxtBg = defaultTxtBg
terrainElev0 = 0x000000
terrainElev1 = 0x000000
terrainElev2 = 0x212121
terrainElev3 = 0x424242
pathingBlocked = 0.7, 0.0, 0.0
pathingClear = 0.0, 0.7, 0.0
regMinerals = 0x53d5f2
HYMinerals = 0xf0c20b
regGeyser = 0x5ec117
destruct = 0x424242
LoSB = 0x424242
mainChoke = 0xffffff
watchTower = 0xffffff
watchTowerRadius = 0xffffff
startLocation = 0xffffff
baseClass-semiIsland = 0xffffff
baseClass-island = 0xffffff
baseClass-natural = 0xffffff
baseClass-third = 0xffffff
spaceInMain = 0xffffff
shortestPathGround = 0xfff200
shortestPathCWalk = 0x00aeef
shortestPathAir = 0xec008c
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Wow, nevermind, I'll let you guys keep playing with it a while, there is a lot of stuff on my todo list for the next official release!
I think a good test of whether the color bands show the best info is if you see the matching bands clearly (like a strip of yellow for one base and a strip on the other end, easy to compare them) for Blistering Sands and Scrap Station, then we're good. Blistering is a map where the players are at opposite ends and the rest of the map forms a wide line between them, like tennis players with a net in the middle. This is one common pattern influence should give good info for. Scrap Station is a reflection symmetry map where the players have a path to get to each other, and there is a "far side" of the map from the shortest route. This is another common pattern (think of what the map looks like when players spawn close to each other on Metalopolis) that the influence should look good on, too.
And if we just use 2 spawn maps then you don't get all the spawn pairs of a four player, since we're just in test mode anyway.
So yeah, keep posting as you tweak the schemes, but already they're MUCH nicer!! And I'll keep taking requests for alternate code updates (even MORE color bands?).
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playing around with it a bit ending with yellow-green-blue-blue.
not as much contrast as BoomStevos.
+ Show Spoiler +
+ Show Spoiler +
opennessLow = 0xFFCC00
opennessMid1 = 0x33CC00
opennessMid2 = 0x3399FF
opennessHigh = 0x0000CC
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Steppes openness map with the same colors as the influence map:
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/ZmW6e.gif) opennessLow = 0x00aeef opennessMid1 = 0xec008c opennessMid2 = 0xfff200 opennessHigh = 0xFFFFFF
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EPT![[image loading]](http://static.sc2mapster.com/content/images/25/874/newopenness.png)
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