#Fire Engine Red
20 messages in this thread
Howdy Yosters!
I've got a question related to the color "Red".
I know that this is the noisiest color and degrades and fuzzes out as one goes
from generation to generation in the ol' editing suite, I also know that I
should try to keep the saturation down below 70%.
What I don't know is why I'm having so much difficulty getting a "Deep
Fire-Engine" Red. You know the color almost a Burgendy.
I've got to match a clients logo and no matter what settings I use I end up on
the Pink or Orange side of Red.
I've tried Both Phong and Metal setting in the Materials Editor.
I gone through All the Books, 3D Studio Applied, Inside 3D Studio, 3D studio
Special Effects, & Micheles stuff and can find no example of how to
appropriatly obtain this color.
I know it's hard to get an idea of the color just by description but if you've
ever been in a firehouse and looked at the Deep Dark Shiny Red on the Big
Engine, that's what were going for. In fact I don't think I've ever seen a 3D
Studio Animation with that particular Deep Dark Shiny Red in it ever. I can't
beleive that it's a limitation, I'm certain it is just a lack of knowledge on
my part as to how to acomplish this particular color.
Any Pointers and/or especially Settings or suggested shinyness maps settings
would be greatly appreciated.
Again,
Thank you in advance.
Murph'
The most important key to any accurate color representation is using the right
gamma correction value for the output device. I'd recommend that you play with
values between 1.8-2.2, along with the color values of the material and
lighting. That said, deep reds are extremely hard to represent in NTSC video,
but not impossible.
– G
Gary,
>>> I'd recommend that you play with values between 1.8-2.2, along with the
color values of the material and lighting.<<<
I usually leave the Gamma at 1.8 but because I was having trouble with this
particular shade of red I've gone to the "Pyros" 2.1 gamma Standard…So far
this hasn't helped much. I'll keep the variation's thing in mind though for
the Gamma.
>>> That said, deep reds are extremely hard to represent in NTSC video, but
not impossible. <<<
Well the whole trouble started when the client sent me a sample. I gave him
the exact same shade I saw on the paper….it was also scanned in and I
converted the PCX file to a Gif file in Photostyler at default settings in
Photostyler.
Of course when the client saw that he said…."Too Orange"….I made it
darker…."Too Pink"….then they tell me to go for "Fire Engine Red because it
matches the Rug in the Presidents Office…excuse me while I get my carpet
sheers. <g>
Basicly I think if I could get a little more Shine plus a deep dark red they'd
be happy….Red _IS_ the most difficult color to do because I swear that 2 out
of 3 people see it differently. <g>
Thanks Gary!
Murph'
If they think it's too orange, add blue. Also, if you're rendering nothing but
the logo, try tinting the whole thing by altering the ambient color. To
automate the process, you could animate a change in color of the ambient, and
output a series of sample frames to send to them. Ask them which one they like,
and then use that value.
– Jack
Thanks Jack,
This'll help.
I appreciate the come-back.
Murph'
Murph,
Sometimes if I'm looking for a particular color for a logo or whatever I'll
scan in the color. Then I'll use one of two different methods…Either
bring the scanned color into a paint package and find it's RGB values and
use those as a starting point in your ambient, diffuse, and specular
swatches (add luminance to specular and subtract luminance from ambient).
See how close that gets you. I've also used the scanned color as a texture
map and droped it's slider below 100% so I could further play with the
swatches.
One of these methods usually gets pretty close.
Also if you are using a reflection map try using one with mostly black and
white in it.
(Chromic2.tif from Inside 3D Studio CD-ROM works great as a ref map)
Hope that helps a little,
Ralph
Ralph,
Thanks Ralph!
Murph'
Murph:
Try this:
Shading: METAL Ambient = R:10 G:0 B:0 H:0 L:05 S:255 Diffuse = R:39 G:1 B:1 H:0
L:20 S:242
Shininess = 70 Shin. Strength = 77 Reflect. Blur = 30 Reflect. Map =
CLOUD7.TGA, Amount:50
This looks pretty good on my Targa+64. For a lighter/brighter version, try:
Ambient = R:010 G:0 B:0 H:0 L:05 S:255 Diffuse = R:100 G:2 B:2 H:0 L:51 S:245
Now I know those saturation levels are up there kinda high, but I turned on
ColorCorrect/Flag, and didn't see anything (your lighting has a lot to do with
it, of course). When developing the colors, I was using ColorCorrect/Correct
instead of Flag, but either way I don't see a difference. I'm using it on the
57Chevy (I started with the matte-white VP original, not AlanI's version. My
lights are a spot at H:0 L:113 S:0, HS:1.0, FO:45.0, Mult.:1.0 and an omni at
H:0 L:73 S:0, Mult.:1.0. Then ambient is at 77.
Dave
I've just fired this up and it looks good.
I need to work on the Contrast a bit though.
Any suggestions.
Murph'
>>I just fired this up…
Was that a PUN??? <g>
What exactly do you mean by "contrast", Murph'?
Dave
David,
>> What exactly do you mean by "contrast", <<
Well, the background _is_ black but the letters are to muddy, I'd like to keep
that dark color, but brighten the letters.
I'm going to try an animated texture map.
Murph'
>> I'd like to keep that dark color, but brighten the letters.
That's kind of a contradiction. To get a good rich red, it will need to be
fairly dark. Perhaps a brighter backgound will do the trick for you.
– Dave Marks (PMJI – too many Dave's around here)
Thanks Dave,
I'll keep at it.
Murph'
James,
Depending on your logo treatment, you might be able to use a self-illuminated
object.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
That's next on the list of trying to get that perfect red treatment.
The Video House I was working with was supposed to send me an S-VHS tape of his
color bars to help me "tune" my system to what he's laying down but that was a
week ago so perhaps I've lost this client.
I'm too busy to worry about it though.
This was a very low paying job and I've been doing them more as a favor and a
good will type of thing. Trouble is, I'm not being compensated for all the
re-do's and the last 3 jobs have been like this. The only way for this to work
is if I can meet with the client at the machine with his approval upon
imeadiate feedback, right now I'm doing the job over 2 to 3 times for 1/4
scale. So I'm about ready to drop the who aggreement.
Murph'
If I may add my two cents, this is a great example of where the art theory that
they teach you in school just doesn't hold up. The color theories generally
posit that any given color is a mixture of the primaries, as though orange were
a combination of red and yellow. That makes as much sense as saying the the
note A# is a combination of G and Bb. We have to remember that the color we
see is a symphony of differing wave lengths. There is no one red, rather a
spectrum of them, a spectrum of oranges and of yellows. The poor computer would
be hard pressed to deal with that so we compromise. I came to that realization
after spending a long hard day trying to match a particular shade of orange,
every color that I could come up with was lacking in one or more respects. The
final color I chose was lacked both red and blue, but both were set at the
maximum. I realized that the problem was that I could not get the correct
frequency of red or the correct frequency of blue or green to match the sample
that I was given. The color selection bars on the materials editor are in the
right direction, only if you could get a color that was combinations of the
purple, red and yellow-green.Like notes on a scale, harmonics of color,
saturation like the signal to noise ratio and intensity like the volume. It
seems wierd till you struggle with 16 million colors and you still can't find
the right one. Please forgive my musical allegory of A# and Bb, its late, and
I realize that they are one and the same. How about A as a combination of G
and B?, or is orange a harmonic of red and yellow?
Interesting, Gorden……
Suddenly I feel like working with water colors.
Hmmmmmmm….that's a bit eclectic.
With Oils you paint in the dark colors first then the lighter and more
transparent one's, but with water colors you paint in your most transparent and
light colors first then add in the dark ones. <g>
Murph'
The color theory they teach you in most schools (until recently) relates to
pigment color. The usual problem in achieving a color match in a computer is
attempting to match a pigment color, which is a _reflective_ color, to a
computer color, which is an _illuminated_ color. In addition, the apparent hue
of a computer color changes depending on many elements, including the intensity
of your monitor, the light in the room, and the colors on the screen that
surround the hue. There's a program on an Mac that's designed specifically for
the purpose of calibrating computer colors with pigment colors. Unfortunately,
I can't remember the name of it — and it's on the Mac.
– Jack
PMJI
The theory of trichromacy states that there are three kinds of color
recieving cells (cones) in our retinas. The peak responsiveness
of these cells hovers around the frequencies we would call red green and blue.
The responsiveness of each kind of cell drops off
as the frequency diverges from RG+B. Therefore the whole spectrum of
frequencies you refer to are not only too much for our computers,
but also too much for our eyes which essentially "sample" RGB frequencies at
much higher rates than other frequencies. The efficiency
of having only three color receptors that enable us to see more than 16.7
million colors is amazing. I agree that any color theory based
on a pigment system is flawed. On top of that R Y B arnt even the right
pigments as any printer knows.
Sorry to butt in but I teach (and continue to learn ) color theory and I
couldnt resist.
Ed
That was an interesting tidbit of info. Thanks for sharing it!
— James — MAP —