Snes controller progress:

Post by **badinsults** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 2:30 am

Yeah, looking at my controller, it should be a darker shade of green.

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 2:30 am

Well, there's no way around it... bsnes will have to get a raytracer.

FirebrandX · Post by **FirebrandX** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 5:30 am

badinsults wrote:Yeah, looking at my controller, it should be a darker shade of green.

Because you're looking at it under different light. What everyone wants is the buttons to look like their controller under their conditions. I can't do that.

I will render a top view for Fitz since he keeps holding onto it like Linus & his blanket.

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:07 am

At least I'm not complaining about the shade of green. Somehow I think occluding and removing parts is a bigger deal.

Post by **grinvader** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 7:00 am

make a back shot of the pad and write "real men play with the pad backwards"

angle and colour issues solved

P.S.: my green is lighter and more saturated. And I'm not talking about the speculars.

FirebrandX · Post by **FirebrandX** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 7:08 am

I've made this sample pic from the scan I did, which shows average surface color patches (excuse the dirt, they just arrived from the dirty English):

I made sure to avoid scratches and highlights when taking the average RGB value. You can see how even with a scanner, we cannot replicate the tones we see with our own eyes.

Post by **grinvader** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 7:14 am

Another possible reason is that our pads have varied ages, and colours are one of those things that change with time, light exposure, contact with pizza and then some.

My pad being older than some people browsing this forum, there might be that to take into account.
My point of view is: you make the pic, your colours.

I'm just counterbalancing other people's influence of "need it darker !" because they have stupid sun-bright monitors.

henke37 · Post by **henke37** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:53 am

Can't we just take a photo and use it directly if it's so important with proper color?
Nah, I am just kidding.
But personally I would rather go for looking good over looking real. Replace the title on the controller and claim it's your own custom brand. No chance for people to say it's not accurate, you designed it!

I like the candy like slightly orange yellow button from the last picture with a wooded desk. The green in that picture is fairly nice too. But the red is too bright and so is the blue.

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 9:07 am

FitzRoy wrote:I don't know if this would work, but:

1. print a square of all 4 colors at known values to a sheet of superwhite paper
2. put that sheet next to the controller and put both that and the controller on a good color scanner
3. use broad adjustments on the resulting image until the sheet values match what you knew you printed to the sheet
4. use relative logic to determine the skew between the sheet values and the controller buttons

That should get you pretty close results.

That's a great idea.
The scanner can be calibrated too.

I agree that this will give the best objective result.

grinvader wrote:Another possible reason is that our pads have varied ages, and colours are one of those things that change with time, light exposure, contact with pizza and then some.

My pad being older than some people browsing this forum, there might be that to take into account.
My point of view is: you make the pic, your colours.

I'm just counterbalancing other people's influence of "need it darker !" because they have stupid sun-bright monitors.

Good point, the color goes through and trough so we can scan the underside of the button instead of the top to get the original color. (no exposure to light/skin acid)

FirebrandX · Post by **FirebrandX** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 9:09 am

I have 2 other sets of colored buttons from my SFC controllers, and the look identical in tone to the PAL version. Speaking of which, I got an OCD fit, broke out a toothbrush and cleaned every crevice of every part of the PAL controller, then I reassembled it and stored it away. The only difference between the Japan and PAL version (other than the logos) is the shoulder buttons. The PAL version has distinctly painted "R"s and "L"s, while the Japanese version just has indented plastic in the shape of the letters.

I am going to scan the face plate of the SCF controller case so I can do up a font/logo replica of that version. Then all that would be left is the gay US version.

DOLLS (J) [!] · Post by **DOLLS (J) [!]** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:08 am

Try using a sub-surface scattering shader for the rigid plastics, it should give everything a more natural appearance. Yafaray & Indigo readily support such materials.

kick · Post by **kick** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:22 pm

FirebrandX wrote:The only difference between the Japan and PAL version (other than the logos) is the shoulder buttons. The PAL version has distinctly painted "R"s and "L"s, while the Japanese version just has indented plastic in the shape of the letters.

Not true. I have a PAL controller with shoulder buttons just like the Japanese pad.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 1:00 pm

FirebrandX wrote:BTW, byuu that review is wrong or outdated. That model display I mentioned is true 8 bit. The displays that are 6-bit are listed as such on newegg, and that model isn't one of them.

Also I wanted true HDMI support (PS3 requires it or it wont output blu rays in full 1080p for anti piracy measures), which almost all the displays supporting it were only in TN format. The only "affordable" 1920x1200 IPS panel was still out of my range at $400+.

Bottom line is the model I chose is as good as I can get for my price range.

Personally I think Samsung makes quality panels and their TN panels are pushing the TN technology to get the maximum from it. Have you looked at the Samsung T240? It's very similar to the BW model. Hell, it might even share the same panel, I forget. It also has HDMI as you want.

Anyway, it gets the sRGB color space pretty damn close. They're selling them at a good price from NCIXUS, though the freight is hefty if you're in the US. Probably still a good deal though.

Testing Information on the panel:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monito ... html#sect0

Potential place to buy:
http://www.ncixus.com/products/?sku=357 ... re=Samsung

As I said, I have one. I've configured my monitor as xbitlabs has suggested and I am very happy with it's color reproduction. I think you'd probably be happy with it two. The only potential negative is there is no height adjustment and the monitor stand could allow some wobble (though most would be) if you have say hardwood floors and kids or annoying neighbors causing big vibration. Very minor though to me, I have carpet now and it's solid.

FirebrandX · Post by **FirebrandX** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 3:11 pm

kick wrote:
FirebrandX wrote:The only difference between the Japan and PAL version (other than the logos) is the shoulder buttons. The PAL version has distinctly painted "R"s and "L"s, while the Japanese version just has indented plastic in the shape of the letters.
Not true. I have a PAL controller with shoulder buttons just like the Japanese pad.

Not false either. The pad I have has the painted letters. But I guess there were different revisions down the line. I'm curious to know which version came out first, and if the SFC controller ever had the painted version.

Verdauga Greeneyes · Post by **Verdauga Greeneyes** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 4:08 pm

I wanted to make a scan of my buttons, so here it is. Note the off-centre lighting.. I guess this is because the cover was sloped down slightly by resting on the buttons on one end. Also note the off-white of the cover - I did calibrate the scanner before using it, so this is probably caused by the distance between the glass and the cover. On my (uncalibrated) monitor the blue looks much darker than what I see in sunlight and the red looks a lot more saturated, the green looks a little desaturated but yellow is spot on.

FirebrandX · Post by **FirebrandX** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 4:46 pm

An update for Fitz on the jpg large image:

Rotated camera view to show more of the top buttons, and also changed the button materials to subsurface scatter plastics. not a whole lot of difference, but subtley better shaded.

I'm going to try a faded cord for the mini-png version next.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 5:16 pm

FWIW, I don't think I want a faded cord version. It'd eat up vertical space and look kind of funky. But we'll see how it looks first I suppose ;)

FirebrandX · Post by **FirebrandX** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 5:37 pm

Ah well screw it then. I updated the png for ya on the latest version:

This will do it for updates for a while. I've been staring at buttons for a week straight and my eyes are burning from strain. I gotta take a break.

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 5:43 pm

That's a bit better (first page), I'd use that one with the oak background. A white background makes the shadows seem too dark, a black one would eliminate it completely, a transparent one has no shadow despite surface objects having them and doesn't resolve the cord cutoff by distinguishing a frame. It also allows the background to be dictated by the user's window theme, which could be as bad a match as the solid light blue on this forum. Ripping the cord out is even worse.

Johan_H · Post by **Johan_H** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 7:24 pm

FirebrandX wrote:I have 2 other sets of colored buttons from my SFC controllers, and the look identical in tone to the PAL version.

Just reinforcing this. I have five PAL controllers with probably very different ages and life stories (I'm not the first owner of any of them), and I can't see any difference between them on the button colours.

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 9:24 pm

Colors almost fully match the controller i have here.

henke37 · Post by **henke37** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 9:33 pm

Right, no more joypads. How about the mouse?

gllt · Post by **gllt** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:31 pm

henke37 wrote:Right, no more joypads. How about the mouse?

Sounds like a good idea, as I don't think it's as complicated as many of the other things there are to do apart from the superscope "eye".
Meaning that he can take his time and relax a little more for now. :V

Not that it wouldn't be hard, but not as hard per se as the superscope itself, which is probably gonna be a pain. (And he should manage considering the robot things he made are designed like that imo.)

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 2:53 am

Battle royale #3: old shoulder angle and buttons still win.

FirebrandX · Post by **FirebrandX** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:14 am

That's your opinion Fitz. Those older buttons are quite off on the colors. I like the newer ones better. Also, there's too much shoulder button showing in the first one because its an orthographic view. I don't like orthographic views because they are flat and unrealistic. You can keep the old one for yourself if you prefer, but the current version stays as it is.

And please learn how to use a filter when resizing an image for comparison. Just look at those jaggies! In PSP, simply set it to "smart resizing" and it will filter the image for you.