Using Color

Color is a big part of making things pop in Untold Dawn, but it can be tricky for people to get used to.

Basic Color Code Syntax

Untold Dawn uses an RGB color system, letting you specify basically any kind of color you want!

The general syntax is:

|{RRR,GGG,BBB}words to color here|n

Where R, G, and B are numbers between 0 and 255, representing how much red, green, and blue is in the color respectively. 0, 0, 0 is true black; 255, 255, 255 is true white.

If you want a fast and easy method to color some text, there are 14 "base" color codes hard-wired into the system as single letter codes - for example, |w. These fourteen colors represent bright and dark variants of 7 shades. See https://imgchest.com/p/agyvrwm3978 for a visual representation, or the chart below for their codes:

Color	Bright	Dark	Bright RGB	Dark RGB
White	W	w	{255,255,255}	{192,192,192}
Red	R	r	{255,0,0}	{128,0,0}
Yellow	Y	y	{255,255,255}	{128,128,0}
Green	G	g	{0,255,0}	{0,128,0}
Cyan	C	c	{0,255,255}	{0,128,128}
Blue	B	b	{0,0,255}	{0,0,128}
Magenta	M	m	{255,0,255}	{128,0,128}

You're not limited to these colors, of course - you can use any color in the whole RGB spectrum your heart might desire!

Making Fancy Colors - Gradients

Single colors are fun, but you can do some really creative things once you start getting into gradients. While you can do them manually, \here are a few tools you can use to make them easier, suggested or created by our awesome players:

Caors' Gradient Maker - This awesome utility allows you to create a gradient between up to 5 shades across any text you put in, with a convenient click-drag interface. You can also use it to preview how colors might look in the game by pasting color codes into the Output window. (Thanks, Caors!) Here's an example gradient I put together with the tool:https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/4jdcvexr3z4.png

https://redketchup.io/color-picker - Allows you to upload any image (in most any format too) and use a dropper to to select any color in that image. It'll then show you the color in a swatch and give you the RGB values of the color as well as the HEX values. This is a great way to represent specific shades in your gradients. (Link provided courtesy of Allie!)

And, of course, ChatGPT can be used to generate gradients as well. Here's a prompt I used that worked well to teach chatGPT Untold Dawn's formatting. Feel free to copy it and try it yourself, then play around with what kind of colors it can put together for you!

I would like you to generate color gradients using RGB color codes applied over text that I give you. Each color code should begin with a |, then contain the RGB code in three sections separated by commas and surrounded by { and }. After the last }, the letters or words to be colored will follow, and then |n will end the color. For example, if I wanted to write the word HELLO in bright red followed by the word WORLD in bright green, I would write |{255,0,0}HELLO|n |{0,255,0}WORLD|n. To show me that you understand, can you generate the word HELLO in bright cyan and the word WORLD in bright orange?

Advice on Gradients

There's no single right or wrong way to do color gradients - it's all about what feels good to you and suits your style! The best way to figure out what you like is to play around. But if you're finding it intimidating to get started, here are some guidelines that might help you:

• Gradients are smoother in order. That is, if they go according to the spectrum: red-orange-yellow-green-blue-purple-red. If you want a gradient that includes green, orange, and yellow, it will probably come out prettier if you order them green-yellow-orange or orange-yellow-green. This is definitely a rule you can break if you want to, but a handy guideline for beginners!
• Use longer text for complex gradients. Short words will make gradients look choppier, so don't try to do a big rainbow-spanning gradient across just a couple of words!
• Light to dark/dark to light always looks nice. It's simple, but a two-color gradient from light to dark or dark to light versions of the same shade is rarely a bad idea if you're stuck.
• Consider saturation and contrast. You can also change the saturation when you go from light to dark, which will create a little more visual interest. Low-saturation colors are on the left side of the color eyedropper - they're paler/greyer shades. I often like to go from a low-saturation dark color to a higher saturation light color to give a gradient a sense of warmth and glow. You can also play around with the contrast (how big the difference between your first and last color is) to see how it changes the visual impact.
• Symmetrical gradients look great to simulate shiny things. A gradient that's dark on either end and light in the middle (or vice versa) creates a shiny metal effect, especially if you use high contrast. Caors' gradient maker can do this for you automatically with the 'Ping pong' selection, which mirrors your choice of colors. Note, you're going to want a longer text to make a symmetrical gradient work. On short texts, it's very busy.

Tips and Tricks

Beyond artistic advice, there are a few things you can do to generally make it easier for yourself in working with colors in the future.

• Save your color strings! Whenever you enter color strings into the game, save them in a text file somewhere just in case you need them again. This has saved my butt so, so many times.
• Save your favorite gradients (in hex form). Caors' Gradient Maker will let you pick colors by eyedropper or by directly entering a hex code (a # followed by 6 digits) into the box. When I find a gradient I really like, I save the hex codes I used for it in a text file to reuse them later.
• Always test your colors before you commit. If you're retooling something with color in it, you can only retool once, so take the time to test your colors before you enter them. You can do this in a few ways - drop color codes in an emote, paste them into Caors' Gradient Maker, or drop them in a PDA node. The PDA node method is especially good if you want a customer to approve of your design before selling an item.
• Don't color every word in a short description. When retooling items, words in the short description that have color in them can't be used as keywords. So if you're making a sofa, for example, you want to leave the word 'sofa' uncolored in the short description - because otherwise 'sit on sofa' won't work!

Now get out there and have some fun creating color!