"Pure" black is not actually hex #000000; instead it's slightly tinted

[bigyihsuan]

See title. In the picture below, the left one is "black" with the color set to red, and the right is is "black" with the color set to blue.

[Vl3d]

Hmm.. I had a feeling something like this was happening.. black is not black.. unacceptable.

[The Aziz]

Well, the pointer isn't exactly on #000000 either so no surprise it's not black.

[Haustvindr]

Maybe it is related to my findings in the color picker for new campaigns? The active pixel of the mouse is at the top-right corner of the circle sprite, and not in the center. If it is the same in the VAB color picker, you should be able to click and drag to the black corner (even draggin out of bounds, it doesn't matter if the circle gets thrown out), and get pure black.

[K33N]

User error.

Use the black on the bottom left and not the black that has the chroma maxed out.

[Superluminaut]

1 hour ago, K33N said:

User error.

Use the black on the bottom left and not the black that has the chroma maxed out.

He's right

white - black

top left - bottom left

[J.Random]

He's not. He's just providing the way to mask the UI error. But until devs expose RGB/HSV values for the selected color, there's no way to actually prove it.

Edit: actually, no, I'm lying. The very fact that there IS a difference is proof enough. In HSV color space, if V is 0, then H and S shouldn't matter. If saturation changes the color, then value isn't 0.

Edited March 8, 2023 by J.Random

[Superluminaut]

1 hour ago, J.Random said:

He's not. He's just providing the way to mask the UI error. But until devs expose RGB/HSV values for the selected color, there's no way to actually prove it.

You can look in the craft file.

Edit: Just saw your edit lol

When I select black it says

"r": 1.99998E-05,
"g": 1.99996E-05,
"b": 1.99996E-05,
"a": 1.0

multiply by 255 and you get

Quote

r - 0.005099949

g - 0.005099898

b - 0.005099898

Which rounds to #000000

For comparison, this is white.

"r": 0.99998,
"g": 0.999969959,
"b": 0.999969959,
"a": 1.0

Quote

r - 254.9949

g - 254.992339545

b - 254.992339545

 

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Superluminaut

[K33N]

15 hours ago, J.Random said:

He's not. He's just providing the way to mask the UI error. But until devs expose RGB/HSV values for the selected color, there's no way to actually prove it.

Edit: actually, no, I'm lying. The very fact that there IS a difference is proof enough. In HSV color space, if V is 0, then H and S shouldn't matter. If saturation changes the color, then value isn't 0.

I don't know about masking, but if you want results do it my way.

[Monkey8EA5T]

It's because they are using a Hue, Value & Chroma color space for selecting the colours (as it gives a nice way to blend between different shades), but the colours being applied to the craft are RGB. Because of this conversion, Black will never be true black, unless you hit fully desaturated section on the left.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Monkey8EA5T
Mis-clicked Post, before finished editing!

[kicka55]

If the "black" on the lower left is black it's fine. Why should there be multiple blacks? It would be redundant.

[Haustvindr]

9 hours ago, kicka55 said:

If the "black" on the lower left is black it's fine. Why should there be multiple blacks? It would be redundant.

That's easy, it is related to how the color picker UI works.

This particular kind of color picker is common because it presents to the user a logical and predictive way to pick a color, making it really easy to use.

At the top you've got a color wheel, that one is easy to understand: navigate through primary/secondary colors, and everything in between. So if you want a green, you're seeing it in the wheel, and you pick it. Easy peasy. That's the hue.

Then, in the square area, you've got a representation of the brightness and saturation for the picked hue. Since they are 2 values, it is well fitted to be presented as a 2d chart, which makes the square area does. In the horizontal axis you've got saturation, from the least saturated on the left (gray), to the most saturated in the right (pure color). In the vertical axis you've got the brightness, from highest to lowest. Full brightness is white and lowest is black, that much we can infer instinctively... but the top right corner is not white!

Brightness can, broadly speaking, be understood a little better if we compare it to how strong is the light the color emits. Therefore, a green lightbulb in a dimmer at 50% makes green light, and if we set the dimmer to 100%, it makes... <drumroll> green light! But stronger! So how to get white? By using a lightbulb with no color, i.e. with zero saturation.

This is picked by people really really easily after a minute fiddling with the color picker.

So, to go back to the question, why is the bottom all black? Because as stated before, it is the result of those 2 axis (brightnes and saturation) plotted in a 2d graph, which brings a square. At zero brightness, it is not feasible to get any other color than black (zero light = no light = black). Even if the picker right now may have a problem, in reality it should not matter where in that border you pick your black, it should still be pure black. So yes, it is kind of redundant... but it is not. That's because once you begin to raise the brightness, even the smallest amount of brightness will throw you off the pure black, and if you are out of the pure black realm you'll need to represent the variation of the color through the saturation levels (the horizontal axis). That's why the bottom border being all black is not perceived as a big deal.

Theorically speaking, you could represent the pure black in a corner, just like pure white is, but you'd need to fiddle with what each axis represents, making it more complicated to understand. There are also other kind of color pickers that have an one-point black (there are indeed many types of color pickers) but the one used here has grown as one of the, if not the most, easier to use for all kind of users.

Edited March 11, 2023 by Haustvindr
Oops, the color wheel is on top, not on the right. The right is just the transparency value.