Colors - One thing to keep in mind

[brotulix]

Hi,

Just a friendly reminder and a hopeful request: Keep in mind that 10% of the (male) population is (red/green) colour blind!

This means that one really ought to implement a few basic functions to customize colors!

I, for one, really need a way of changing the default colour for Iron Ore Mine (#74581C) to a bit further away from the default "land" colour (#40700C), like for example to a bit darker brown (#543800)...

What in reality is my problem (and I can imagine a few others are troubled by this as well) is to locate Iron Ore Mines on the Industry map...
Naturally, I have to look elsewhere for my income, or take about five-ten times the time needed to i.e. locate a Coal Mine or a Forest...

Anyway, just my fourtytwo cents...
Hope it isn't too difficult to implement, and that the 10% is enough to make the change a "necessity"...

[Cadde]

Well maybe thats a good idéa but consider using your graphics drivers to sharpen your image? Im not one of those 10 % so i dont know if it helps...

But i think that this feature might be too "minor" to be implemented since all other 90 % know factory colours by their exact appearance and have no need for changes.

I understand your problem as you describe it...

Using a graphics card with nvidia drivers?

There is a rgb channel feature where you can enhance certain elements to actually make stuff stand out diffrently.
And you can save prefabs so you easily can switch back to normal mode when not playing...

Cheers //Cadde

[Moriarty]

I'm not colour blind (at least to my knowledge) but i must agree that it is rather difficult to find the ore-mines some times. Not only because they arn't very distinct from the ground, but also because they don't stand out well from towns either.

[DeletedUser21]

Ouch, color blindness is nasty when it comes to playing well colourd games!!

Maybe that this is an idea for the new graphics and stuff?

[Bot_40]

Yeah I'm partially red/green colourblind and it's pretty much impossible to see iron ore mines on the map. No way am I going to go messing around with my desktop colour settings to make it stand out more, I don't particularly want all my other progs colours messed up

[dvstr]

If you have a Nvidia card in the settings you can alter the R,G,B Sliders to alter the colours should you need to...

[Cadde]

Yeah I'm partially red/green colourblind and it's pretty much impossible to see iron ore mines on the map. No way am I going to go messing around with my desktop colour settings to make it stand out more, I don't particularly want all my other progs colours messed up

did i mention that you can have profiles for TTD with the nvidia detonator driver?
So if you are coing to play ttd then use your TTD graphics profile and if you exit the game switch back to your default profile...

Should you mess up your default profile you still have a "factory default" button that will restore it to the way it is when you install windows and drivers

//CADDE

EDIT:

Is any of theese pictures any better???






The first one increases Red and green by 25 %
The last one decrease Red and green by 25%


//CADDE

[brotulix]

Is any of theese pictures any better???

Neither are to me...
Took me ages to find 5 ores in the first shot, the second was equally difficult, plus darker =]

Anyway, I don't expect making one array with colors for the map, and a quick option to define colors in "Configure patches" is that difficult...
But still, I can understand if it's not exactly top priority =)

[wonkotsane]

Adding some sort of texture to the green land would surely help red/green colour-blind people and would make the map look more appealing.

[Cadde]

Is any of theese pictures any better???

Neither are to me...
Took me ages to find 5 ores in the first shot, the second was equally difficult, plus darker =]

Anyway, I don't expect making one array with colors for the map, and a quick option to define colors in "Configure patches" is that difficult...
But still, I can understand if it's not exactly top priority =)

Okay, atleast i tried... If i knew more about color blindness maybe i could have helped but im out of ideas...

It's up to the developers...
Or if any colorblind out there are a C programmer he could just look into the code and alter the values to fit his needs and share it with others...

I would if i had the spare time!!!

//Cadde

[Bot_40]

Yeah, still can barely make them out in those 2 screens.
I also have an ati card, I can change desktop colours but like I said, I don't want to have to mess around changing them every time I load/exit ttd!

[Cephalaspis]

Customisable colors for industries? Something like drop-down list of colors next to industry name in new map settings window?

[Alltaken]

logically one should increase or decrease the brightness of the industry that is hard to see due to the colourblindness.

this will change the contrast between the two colours and make it instantly visable. i would say leave everything else as is. (not changing the colour balance)

BTW i do not have colour blindness, i am just an industrial designer.

however darkening the colour was suggested in the first post by the person who actually is colour blind so i did that

so look at the attached image and tell me if thats ok, (normally sighted people too) i think its way easier to see personally, even in normal situations.

Alltaken

[Singaporekid]

Why not make a feature where you can click "Iron ore mine" and the mines will show up in flashing colours or something?
Something likein RCT(2)

[Sionide]

That sounds like a good idea...

Or perhaps, the selected industry is highlighted with a yellow line around it? something like that maybe??

I'd probably use that feature, I find it annoying enough to spend ages looking for potential routes!

[Alltaken]

Why not make a feature where you can click "Iron ore mine" and the mines will show up in flashing colours or something?
Something likein RCT(2)

good idea.

flashing would be great.


Alltaken

[ThorRune]

Or a buton to make all industries black, and then like a filter to only show one type pf industry. Tha'd be handy for the non-colour-blind too.

[brotulix]

First off, Alltaken, the darkened indutries look sweet, crisp.

Cephalaspis: Yes, that was my general suggestion... Shouldn't be too difficult either...

I think any programmer would back me up on the simpleness of adding one array variable with the industries' colors, and a simple color chooser in the Patch Configuration (or Options, or whatnot)...

Anyway - the ideas and the thoughts you all pop are really great.
Personally, I like the idea of a yellow outline around selected industry/-ies. I could even add to that, and say that you can show different lines of industry using different outlines, like Selected Industry is yellow, industries that depend upon/accepts wares from the selected industri is, say, gray, industries that supply wares that the selected industry accepts is bright green, while all other industries turn black? Just a suggestion..

--

I'm glad to see the response on the color blindness issue! Thanks, guys!

[Bot_40]

I was gonna suggest something like that, but displaying lines on the map, so say you select a steel mill, you get yellow lines going to all the factories and green lines going to all the iron ore mines.

[Zuu]

Note: I am not familar of the internals of neiter OTTD nor TTD, but I know some about game programing.

OTTD as well as TTD use a 8bit palette. If this is stored in a external file, I think it would be fairly easy to make a costom palette for colour blind people. If it is hard coded in C it is still posible to move it to a external file that is prased when the game is started. Dependent on how hardcoded it is it can more or less difficult, but doable.


I don't think 10% of the users are to few to make a such thing. Hey, BBC text almost all their programs, and other countries moves aginst 100% texted TV. The main users of the text is deaf and hearing impared people, which is ~10% of the population.

Another example is porting of programs to unusual platforms.