Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
important, as well as how it is lit and the various tints and tones used to accent it. Remember that it is not only
the color of the walls but also the colors of the loors, ceilings, and furnishings that are important.
The most important thing to remember is that one hue, one color is like a single musical note. You will
have to compose from many colors to create a rich visual composition in your virtual environment. Like a
symphony, there will be repeating themes of secondary and tertiary color as well as major chords composed
of dominant, saturated, and primary color combinations in your overall design.
7.5 COLOR AND DESIGN FOR ALL: WORKING TOWARD AN ACCESSIBLE PALETTE
Design for All is a very important factor in your color choices, overall palette, textual options and the
color/contrast choices of your project. Consider some of the following aspects of perception while you are
designing, so that your project gains greater visual accessibility. Approximately 200 million people in the
world are color-blind to some extent, about 8% of the male and 0.5% of the female populations. The most
common forms of color blindness are protanopia (less sensitive to red wavelengths) and deuteranopia (blind to
green wavelengths). As a responsible designer interested in creating virtual environments that are accessible
to all visitors, you will need to check your color palettes for readability by those who are color blind as well as
people with low vision. If you are doing disaster simulations, you will need to make sure your colors can be
seen by people under the stress of an emergency situation, when the human visual system may only operate
with shades of gray. For the most part, utilizing color combinations of yellow/blue or red/blue will provide
universal color-coded readability. Sometimes, changing the brightness, the saturation, or the background
texture of a color will add to the visibility, useful for those with low vision [12]. Adobe offers an accessibility
overview that explains how to utilize their color-blindness ilters (http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/
products/photoshop/overview.html). In general, they suggest the following things to help you bring your
palette into a format that is visible by all:
1. Change color brightness or hue.
2. Pure red tends to appear dark and muddy; orange-red is easier to recognize.
3. Bluish green is less confusing than yellowish green.
4. Gray may be confused with magenta, pale pink, pale green, or emerald green.
5. Avoid the following combinations whenever possible: red and green; yellow and bright green; light
blue and pink; dark blue and violet.
6. Apply different patterns or shapes.
7. Add large white, black, or dark-color borders on color boundaries.
8. Use different font families or styles.
If you are a GIMP user, there is a color vision deiciency plug-in available (http://registry.gimp.org/node/24885).
By applying these ilters and testing your palettes for accessibility, you can make sure that everything you
create can be enjoyed, understood, and interacted with by all who visit the virtual environment.
7.6
PARTICLES AND THEIR USES IN DESIGN
7.6.1 W
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Particles used in real-time games and virtual worlds are “sprites” or one-sided planes with four vertices
and two faces, displaying a texture element such as a droplet or snowlake. Every particle generated will
“billboard,” or always face the camera, to create the maximum visual density possible. Many particle systems
