How To: Colors in Description

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Diegovog
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How To: Colors in Description

Post by Diegovog » Tue Dec 22, 2020 9:40 pm

Before I get into details on how to; I'd like to offer a few pieces of advices. I suggest against coloring all of your character's description, the rainbow mess is hard on the eyes to read. Instead, focus colors on pins or remarkable features that should draw a player's attention, much as the trait itself would if someone was looking at them.
Edit: Use colors with moderation and be mindful of bright colors, avoid them unless you're going for very specific pins.

Here's an example of what can be done:
Image

How To:

If you try to set the description with color doing normal -description "bla bla bla" command, the color won't carry over to the description. Instead, you have to use the PIN to text method.

Hoes does pin work?
Open your map (press "M")

Click on the top left icon to add a pin to the map as image shows:
Image

Once you place the pin anywhere on the map a pin box will pop up so you can type whatever description you want in:
Image

In order to have color applied to the text you will need to add the code in the pin box and in order to find out what color you want, a very good website you can use is:
https://colortoken.nwn1.net/
Simply click anywhere on the color map, copy the "NWN token" as image shows:
Image

Paste the code in the pin text box, for example "<c ½> Blue blue blue blue" , which will result in:
Image

Finish all of the description, click "OK"

Now write down the command:
-description +pin

Everything you wrote down in the pin text box will be transferred to your character description, formating will be kept!

Further tips:
Save that description using the command:
-savedesc "NAME"

Now whenever you use the command -loadoutfit "NAME" it will load both the outfit (you need to have an outfit saved under that same name) and the description that matches the name. This is particularly useful for those of you with multiple disguises and a description for each of them. (don't forget your cover description you lazy people ;) )

Hope this is clear, if you have any questions, ask away.
Last edited by Diegovog on Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Dreams
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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Dreams » Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:00 pm

This is a great explanation and very clear. Unfortunately, many of the colours are not clear when seen on NWN. The last few days have been a myriad of messy rainbow descriptions. Might be a good idea to add a note that they should be used with moderation!

Less is more. Some people don't even need colour to make their descriptions stand out!

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Diegovog
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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Diegovog » Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:53 pm

Dreams wrote:
Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:00 pm
This is a great explanation and very clear. Unfortunately, many of the colours are not clear when seen on NWN. The last few days have been a myriad of messy rainbow descriptions. Might be a good idea to add a note that they should be used with moderation!

Less is more. Some people don't even need colour to make their descriptions stand out!
Thanks! It should definitely be used with moderation, I'll add a note that bright colors should be avoided too.

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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Thu Dec 24, 2020 1:38 am

Hi. This was an interesting thread for us to see and has prompted some discussion. Arbitrary text coloring is a somewhat divisive subject internally (which makes sense because it's 70% an aesthetic consideration), though naturally we'd err on the side of permissiveness (again, in light of that fact). But no one on the team really wants to see random words and sections throughout descriptions colored all the colors someone deemed fit to inflict on the world. Hence all the 'less is more' calls for moderation.

Arelith's UI design for character descriptions is already defined, for both consistent style and accessibility. By way of example for 'accessibility,' a common (and easy to make) mistake is choosing a color that appears deep and rich on a TN monitor might be so dark as to be nearly invisible on another player's IPS monitor. Some of the older language text colors still need to be updated to correct this, for instance!

This thread puts knowledge out there and that never goes back into the bag, so I'd like to humbly suggest a few simple guidelines that we'd appreciate your respect for, both for other players' enjoyment and to be more seamless with Arelith's existing text feedback.
  1. Only add colored sections at the end of the description to keep them grouped with mechanical ones.
  2. Colorize the entire paragraph, not just a few words or sentences.
  3. Avoid too-dark or too-bright colors.
  4. Use moderation (for the nth time, I know!).
Freely color-codable text is a double-edged sword from a serious design perspective. If people adhere to the above- that is, keeping colorized sections of descriptions to brief faction tags appended to the ends of their main descriptions? That'd be lovely; if it becomes a reliable cultural thing I'd even be game to shuffle around how descriptions are displayed to group them together with other tags, like Harper/Zhent/Outcast/Radiant etc. to help make them look even better.

If people are wacky (not meaning one-offs, but people 'consistently' doing a lot of eye-blasting), quite frankly, I'll be keen to just remove the ability to do so, in all honesty. If that were the case, I'd also want to script up a 'faction pin' item that would let people set up custom colored tags within certain parameters since I hate just removing things without also giving options. But the vastly easier and all around better option is where folks are cool just sticking to the above, so super thank you if you could!

EDIT/ADDENDUM:
Do NOT use colored text in the names of shops or houses (any ownable properties) as this Will break things. If you have done this, please revert it at first opportunity. This will be addressed by devs or by DMs as necessary.
Last edited by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia on Thu Dec 24, 2020 4:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Done.


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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Ebonstar » Thu Dec 24, 2020 2:58 am

and dont forget some people are totally or partially colorblind, so dont try shade variants that will only be seen if you see color
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Nitro
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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Nitro » Thu Dec 24, 2020 12:46 pm

I'm already seeing a lot of obnoxious descriptions with words in eye-searing rainbow colours to add emphasis to every little ring, bauble, tattoo or sigil, not to mention entire paragraphs in colours that are hard to read on a black background.

Call me a grumpy old timer but I don't like it and actually wish it wasn't possible.

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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Dreams » Thu Dec 24, 2020 1:26 pm

I’ve realised I’m just not reading anything if I see colours now. I open it to see the description about a character, see the colours, and then think ‘Nah, I’ll just work it out during the RP’.

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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Thu Dec 24, 2020 2:05 pm

Nitro wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 12:46 pm
I'm already seeing a lot of obnoxious descriptions with words in eye-searing rainbow colours to add emphasis to every little ring, bauble, tattoo or sigil, not to mention entire paragraphs in colours that are hard to read on a black background.

Call me a grumpy old timer but I don't like it and actually wish it wasn't possible.
I'd super encourage the people who like being able to colorize their descriptions not to do this, and stick to the basic guidelines above.

Done.


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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Definately Not A Mimic » Thu Dec 24, 2020 4:06 pm

I tend to look at all descriptions to at least get an idea, reading more in depth as time allows. The last time I played I saw a description with not just the, I hate to say normal but its become normal.., normal tag line of what faction badge they have but with at least six different colors in it. I didn't read a single word.

On a side note I've also been avoiding buying anything from a shop that has colored words in the description. I love custom descripts but it doesn't take colors to make something custom.

If you make something able to be done, people will do it. I'm sure my opinion will be in the minority but I don't think you need colors to make something special. The more special someone tries to make things by gimmicks the less special it comes across, to me. Just my own personal opinions and hopefully it doesn't offend anyone.

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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Marsi » Thu Dec 24, 2020 9:05 pm

Nitro wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 12:46 pm
I'm already seeing a lot of obnoxious descriptions with words in eye-searing rainbow colours to add emphasis to every little ring, bauble, tattoo or sigil, not to mention entire paragraphs in colours that are hard to read on a black background.

Call me a grumpy old timer but I don't like it and actually wish it wasn't possible.
Yeah, totally agree.

I can't quite explain it. I'm usually pretty live and let live when it comes to things like this that don't really affect me/others. But something about coloured text really puts me off.

When I was new, I swear there was a campaign from the administration to get people to stop using colour tokens. Something to do with it effectively being an exploit- an interrupt to the text interpreter. It has been so long that I can't remember the details, but thereafter the excessive usage of it has struck me as a little self-absorbed and obsessive-compulsive. Perhaps an irrational pet peeve, but one I'll never shake.

I value the democracy of NWNs simple user interfaces and text inputs. Trying to be above that with tricky formatting and colouring and bullet pointing has always felt unimportant to me when the message or dialogue should be capable of standing on its own merits. For me, it's all the textual equivalent of casting protection from elements on your sign.

Not to mention how colour tokens are these days frequently used to mimic the Radiant Heart pin -- as if ones affiliation must be reinforced by mechanics, even just the veneer of it, in order to be subconsciously legitimate -- which I just find a hilarious regression of our new NPC-faction world.

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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by The GrumpyCat » Thu Dec 24, 2020 9:27 pm

Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 1:38 am
Hi. This was an interesting thread for us to see and has prompted some discussion. Arbitrary text coloring is a somewhat divisive subject internally (which makes sense because it's 70% an aesthetic consideration), though naturally we'd err on the side of permissiveness (again, in light of that fact). But no one on the team really wants to see random words and sections throughout descriptions colored all the colors someone deemed fit to inflict on the world. Hence all the 'less is more' calls for moderation.

Arelith's UI design for character descriptions is already defined, for both consistent style and accessibility. By way of example for 'accessibility,' a common (and easy to make) mistake is choosing a color that appears deep and rich on a TN monitor might be so dark as to be nearly invisible on another player's IPS monitor. Some of the older language text colors still need to be updated to correct this, for instance!

This thread puts knowledge out there and that never goes back into the bag, so I'd like to humbly suggest a few simple guidelines that we'd appreciate your respect for, both for other players' enjoyment and to be more seamless with Arelith's existing text feedback.
  1. Only add colored sections at the end of the description to keep them grouped with mechanical ones.
  2. Colorize the entire paragraph, not just a few words or sentences.
  3. Avoid too-dark or too-bright colors.
  4. Use moderation (for the nth time, I know!).
Freely color-codable text is a double-edged sword from a serious design perspective. If people adhere to the above- that is, keeping colorized sections of descriptions to brief faction tags appended to the ends of their main descriptions? That'd be lovely; if it becomes a reliable cultural thing I'd even be game to shuffle around how descriptions are displayed to group them together with other tags, like Harper/Zhent/Outcast/Radiant etc. to help make them look even better.

If people are wacky (not meaning one-offs, but people 'consistently' doing a lot of eye-blasting), quite frankly, I'll be keen to just remove the ability to do so, in all honesty. If that were the case, I'd also want to script up a 'faction pin' item that would let people set up custom colored tags within certain parameters since I hate just removing things without also giving options. But the vastly easier and all around better option is where folks are cool just sticking to the above, so super thank you if you could!

EDIT/ADDENDUM:
Do NOT use colored text in the names of shops or houses (any ownable properties) as this Will break things. If you have done this, please revert it at first opportunity. This will be addressed by devs or by DMs as necessary.
Everyone please read and follow these guidelines! Don't make us have to enforce or mechanise anything. Thanks.
This too shall pass.

(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)

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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Glowing Mushroom » Fri Dec 25, 2020 12:14 am

It was inevitable that this information would finally get shared, though posting it on the forums is a little too obvious. Colored text is something you rarely see used because not a lot of people know how it all works, and I would go out of my way not to share it. The reason being similar to the statements above: The last thing I want is to see colored text everywhere, and then it gets taken away.

I hope this doesn't blow up.
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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Drogo Gyslain » Fri Dec 25, 2020 2:24 am

So... I'll start off on knowing that this day has been coming, for a long time.

I'm one of the first people I know who broke the code on using colored text (before pin to text was a thing) and it was a tedious, cumbersome but ultimately awesome thing that added a lot of flair, and beauty into created items when used properly and responsibly. With the introduction of pin to text, it made this insanely easy and I have known eventually this would be leaked.

I am a crafter and passionate creator at heart. I love the persistence and on many, MANY threads, I'm sure if you've read my opinions and my views on things, I'm very into the nature and flair of Arelith's and the proliferation of persistent items that you can leave personal touches on. It is something that is fairly unique to Arelith and to NWN, but Arelith in particular.

With that said... as
This thread puts knowledge out there and that never goes back into the bag,
Unfortunately, that bag is opened now. I did not make this information public, because I did not want threats like these made:
I'll be keen to just remove the ability to do so, in all honesty
Don't make us have to enforce or mechanise anything. Thanks.
But... now that the secret is out there, Let me share what I know and what I've come up with so far, and how to refine the use of these codes to something tasteful, because there is ALOT that Arelith just can't handle, and some of it looks god awful. I would like to keep this feature, intact, as it is. But it takes those of you who know of it, who use it, to respect this tool. And I'll be the first one to say from the players who have used this up until now, please don't ruin this for the rest of us who have been using this and have kept the secrets until this thread was made public. There was a reason it was kept secret, don't prove us right, please.

Coding

The code is simple. It is a <c000> code, where the three 000s are RGB hex codes. These can easily be found on any RGB color picker and they are represented by the numbers 0 to 255. Arelith represents these as Unicode symbols. Anyone who has done basic art studies and digital art will know, this scale is a sliding scale of dark -> Bright, with 0 being the darkest possible color, and 255 being the brightest.

The NWN engine does not recognize all symbols as typed, and there ARE tools out there that can assist with creating color tags but they need to be used with care. some of them are a bit clunky, others are just broken or outdated.

Personally, as a tool to help with the coding of the cells, I have created an Excel spreadsheet that can produce a code that I use for my own uses. I'll make that available here on the website if it would help or can give an easy to use template that can streamline the process. In fact, I'm more than happy to do it, just to make it so everyone who want to do it can do so without a major headache and we can avoid Developer intervention with turning off parts of the code to disable it.

I have it customized with preconfigured colors (about 30) that look good, and give a good spectrum of colors to choose from that are legible. I also have it built so you can write your text in excel, and have a literal copy+paste solution to paste directly into the pins, to cut down on the amount of back and forth "what symbol was going where-ing".

The End Code, is a standard coding </c>, which ends parsing of a code. This MUST be at the end if you do not want your entire message being that color. In the past, people have seen that tag as the way to do it, when in reality, all text is already colored. That end code was just ending the system text color, and reverting to the text default of NWN which is that blue color you will see.

Etiquette of Use

Personally, I have several rules on what colors I use, and how.

1) Situational themes. When I'm trying to keep with a theme, or say, write a note in another language (If anyone saw Dregan's Riddle Board, this is how I made the languages appear in their correct color as if spoken).

2) Less is more. Trying to read through someone's bio and it's got 7 different colors, it's really difficult when entire paragraphs flip back and forth. You have to understand, NWN parses color based on the tag that is shown, if you scroll up or down, the color tag will turn off. So I prefer to only do small sections of a bio or page, or Headers when separating out sections, titles of documents, or stamps. So as you scroll through a bio or read a page, that color is going to be flipping all over the place. Try not to write with too large a paragraph either, or the following happens.
Image
Image

3) Avoid individual words. As much has already been said, and I can say that in my early days learning how to put in the code before pin to text was made available, I was guilty of doing this myself. However, now that it is simpler, it is no excuse to just highlight a singular word. It looks tacky, and while there may be situational reasons why something may be of some use of it, in most cases, it's just annoying.

Image

4) Avoid just using it just because. Give it a purpose. Don't just flagrantly use a color token because you can. It takes a lot of the special meaning behind it away. Use it for a special mark, Use it for a book heading on a custom book you wrote in game. Use it on a custom item or fixture to highlight something. Use it sparingly, so it adds to your magic, not taking away from it. Does your character have a house seal? a Coat of arms? House Colors?

Image

Solutions for Abuse

I wholeheartedly, and sadly admit that I know this, like many things is going to be abused. It hurts to think that, and I believe that losing this on the bad actions of a few would just stifle creativity of the many just to punish the few. I would always advise against a wholly mechanical system to reject the use of color tags or see it pigeonholed to a few base colors.

The system already does not allow for text to be spoken in color, so it will never be an issue there as far as abusing it while speaking. It only works when the words are written either into a description, onto an object, or onto a paper.

However, considering that may eventually be the case, I would propose 1 of 2 solutions. First it being a DM-authorized action if abuse and misuse became too rampant. For those crafters that do use color tags tastefully, allow them to apply for some form of token authorizing them as such, and agreeing to essentially a code of conduct by applying for and accepting the token. If found abusing it, it can be handled on a case by case basis, but ultimately losing whatever privilege is entailed.

Second, and the harsher of the two, would be to mechanically restrict it. This would be hard to do, because each color would essentially have to be hard programmed in, and it would ultimately probably not work as intended... or at all. Also, trying to strip out the color token may have unintended consequences on the overall chat structure as well.

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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Fri Dec 25, 2020 2:36 am

Drogo Gyslain wrote:
Fri Dec 25, 2020 2:24 am
snip
This is an A+ post. Go back and read it again for good measure!

Done.


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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by Diegovog » Fri Dec 25, 2020 10:38 pm

I believe when we start criticizing things from our own esthetic point of view to the point of wanting it removed we are going in the wrong direction.

There are people from all over the world from a multitude of cultures and different opinions of what is esthetically pleasing or not. Things like outfit colors (yes, even 63 black), outfit looks, fixtures you dislike, a fish in someone's hand and now colors in descriptions. If any of these things bother you to the point of wanting them removed over someone else's fun, then I strongly believe it's time you take a step back and remember: It's just a video game and people have vastly different opinions of what is fun or beautiful.

You know, live and let live. It won't disrupt your game experience.

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Re: How To: Colors in Description

Post by DM Praxis » Fri Dec 25, 2020 10:53 pm

Refer to the above staff posts.

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