Amber: Color Tables & Hue Changes

[Taskman]

I am working on my first *major* Myth II project, and I need some help. Look at the following color tables:



The collection I am creating right now contains bitmaps indexed using the first color table. I have to create variants of that monster that use the other two color tables you can see, so I thought Hue Changes could do this.

I used Photoshop to get Hue values for the shades of red (#1), green (#2), orange (#3), yellow (#4) of the first color table.

Reds have a H value of 0.
Greens have a H value of 120.
Oranges have a H value ranging from 21 to 22.
Yellows have a H value ranging from 59 to 60.

However, if I use those values in Amber (Start Hue, Median Hue and End Hue), nothing happens: it looks like the ranges are too short, and thus no changes are applied to the collection.

How is this thing supposed to work?

[Killswitch]

Have you checked the box marked "Use this Hue Change"? Without that on, the bitmaps you see won't change colors.

[Taskman]

Sure, it appears to be selected by default.

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I have done other tests, and it appears to work as long as the Start Hue and the End Hue values are not the same. I find this weird.

A few more questions.

Is there any Amber documentation around?
Do you have any tips regarding alignment in the Sequence views?
Is Amber 2.0ß6 the latest version available to us mere mortals?

[haravikk]

Is there any Amber documentation around?
Do you have any tips regarding alignment in the Sequence views?
Is Amber 2.0ß6 the latest version available to us mere mortals?

1. Not really, so long as you remember the first colour in the index (colour #0) is the background colour, #1 is a special colour used for exporting things called plates, you can use this in your units so long as you don't have any vertical or horizontal lines of it that cover the whole frame, #2 is the transparent colour which you can use in units so long as you remember to turn off the 'transparent' flag when you import the image(s).
Lastly, to create arrows or model textures the image must have dimensions that are powers of two (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256) for both sides. It must also NOT use the background colour, instead use the transparent colour to remove parts (but leave 'transparent' checked when importing), you can now make this image a texture.

2. Not sure how you mean for alignment? If you're referring to moving the images to corresponding with the 'reg point' then I usually aim to have the reg point at the top of the unit's ankles (so the feet extend below it) if it's a human or humanoid unit. In other words let it extend a little below, imagining the reg point is at the centre of your unit's 'base'.
Other than that it's just a slow procedure of lining things up. Do this one frame at a time, ie, place frame 0 where you want, then go to frame 1, and flick back to frame 0 to keep checking till frame 1 is right. Then do frame 2 etc. Once you've done this for the whole animation do the next view. Once that sequence is done, go onto the next, place the first frame, then compare it to the first frame of your first animation (if the animations are similar) so the unit won't jitter when it attacks for example.

3. Yep. Amber is no longer being developed, there are other programs that were started but I've no idea what state any of them are in. So it's still pretty much the best we have really unless I've completely missed something.

[Taskman]

Ok.

Still referring to the example above: do I really need 4 different Hue Changes? As far as I know, the original Bungie collections never have more than 2 or 3.

[haravikk]

You can specify a whole range of colours to change, as hue changes have a start and end hue, as well as a middle hue (you use this for offsetting the colour a bit, can be quite cool. Used this in Ghost's Manistee Paintball Challenge so units would have different colours while still using the team-colours as a base).

You'll notice in Bungie units they have big bold colours for areas to change, they just specify that whole colour range.
Easiest way to do is open up the sequence window and pick a sequence which shows the colours you're changing, then just go into hue-changes in another window (you should have two open by now anyway), then start adjusting, you should see the results live. Pick a replacement colour you can see easily, e.g black and you'll know when you're getting it right.

[Roadwyrm]

There was a trick when it came to aligning the units without physically doing them by hand or useing the invisble marker... When you import the images from your 3D program there is an option to "constrian" the bitmaps, which is cool because it save "emty" space. If I recall properly you can import the sequences without useing the "contrained" option (which keeps the sequences the same as when you exported them, in my case they would already be aligned) and then after setting up your sequences in Amber you can re-import the Alpha map (I think thats how) with the "constrained" option and they will still be aligned.

I think last time I tried that (3 years ago) it didnt work right for me but I may have been doing it wrong. I'd ask Oogabooga if no one else is aware of that trick because I think he still uses it.

As far as the colour hues Iv always done them useing the slider and have never had issues unless two colours where too close to eachother in hue (red blending with purple, ect.) but fortuantly your not restricted to just one group of hues per color.

Also some others have cliamed that certian colours work best with certian materials (such as Yellow working best to be changed to gray/blue for armor). Since I usually always used the Blue for background if I wanted a blue hue in the collection Id use something like purple or orange to convert it to blue withen Amber.

Collection Tutorials:

http://mythgraveyard.mything.org/file/H ... l_only.pdf
http://mything.org/index.php?a=article- ... 0000000746
http://mything.org/index.php?a=article- ... 0000000107
http://mything.org/index.php?a=article- ... 0000000404
http://mything.org/index.php?a=article- ... 0000000396

I hope these help a little, I didnt have time to view them to see if they relate to what your doing but they are Amber Tutorials based on collections and maps...Maybe others would find them interesting aswell.

[vinylrake]

Collection Tutorials:

http://mythgraveyard.mything.org/file/H ... l_only.pdf
http://mything.org/index.php?a=article- ... 0000000746
http://mything.org/index.php?a=article- ... 0000000107
http://mything.org/index.php?a=article- ... 0000000404
http://mything.org/index.php?a=article- ... 0000000396

Heal w/Steel's tutorial (the first one on the list) is a honkin large pdf file, so if you think you might be referring to that more than once or twice please feel free to download it to save us both the bandwidth.

It prints out nicely too if you are into that old-school reading on paper thing.