PlaneShift

Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Adeli on October 15, 2004, 08:40:05 am

Title: Colours (not ways) of Magic
Post by: Adeli on October 15, 2004, 08:40:05 am
First of all, I apologise profusely if this has already been answered, I ran a search and could not find what I was looking for.
For story reasons, I want a group of mages attired in the colours of their way. Here is my problem.

I have roughly figured out the colours of most of the ways, some being obvious, others obscure.

Crystal = White?
Dark = Black?
Blue = Blue
Red = Red
Brown = Brown

The major problem, what the hell colour is Azure supposed to be? Last I checked Azure was Blue?

So two of the ways are Blue? Personally, I\'d have named them all in the same convention. Why have some as colour names and others like Azure and Crystal? Why not White and instead of Azure, Green?

So, my questions are: What colour is Azure supposed to be in PlaneShift?
Also, if it is Blue, how do the two colours differ?
Any help would be much appreciated.

I apologise once more if this has been answered already, and I also apologise for the length of this post.
I look forward to your replies?

Edit: I realised many people had been spelling this wrong, and it was Azure on the PS site, not Azhure as many fans call it. This makes sense. But still we have two blues? I was originally asking what the hell Azhure was meant to be.
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Post by: Stydracos on October 15, 2004, 10:49:44 am
Its my understanding that Azure is a kind of midway between Blue and Cyan... not sure if this is correct but I always remember it as a sky blue (a light/bright blue).
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Post by: ArcaneFalcon on October 15, 2004, 11:04:11 am
Stydracos is  correct (http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Azure_(color)) .

:emerald:
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Post by: Adeli on October 15, 2004, 01:14:17 pm
If Azure is somewhat similar to cyan, what would the Blue be like? A deep blue?
Thankyou for your answers, my internet search confused me...

Quote
www.ask.com What is Azure?
noun: a light shade of blue
verb: color azure
adj: of a deep somewhat purplish blue color similar to that of a clear October sky

www.dictionary.com
A light purplish blue.
Heraldry. The color blue.
The blue sky.


It seems a contradiction to me... anyone else have anything to add?

I\'m in Australia, I don\'t know what a \"clear October sky\" in America looks like.

I have posted the first two installments of my story on the Roleplaying forum.
http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=10412&boardid=15&styleid=3&sid=ab719684e7d1e6af7db1a7edb5d5a923

Yet another edit, this thread has had so many just from me... I found a reference to the Lapis Lazuli stone being Azure... Here is said stone.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v470/Tyralus/bs19.jpg
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Post by: Stydracos on October 15, 2004, 01:37:39 pm
http://noz.day-break.net/webcolor/azure.html

That may help... I don\'t know to me its just light blue or blue with some green in it and Blue is .... more blue :p with no green in it.
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Post by: Icefalcon on October 15, 2004, 04:20:59 pm
How do we know that every spell cast from a certain Way  will all have the same color? Just a thought, but the Red way is the offensive, destructive Way. It could have a green, toxic gas spell. The brown way could have a green, treeish spell.
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Post by: druke on October 15, 2004, 11:50:58 pm
its been my understanding that its not so much what each color is, as much as what it represents.
Title: Well,
Post by: Zeraph on October 15, 2004, 11:58:50 pm
He needs to know what to color his mages to represent the different ways of magic so it matters in this case, however I agree...
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Post by: Stydracos on October 16, 2004, 12:34:19 am
Quote
Originally posted by Stydracos
http://noz.day-break.net/webcolor/azure.html

That may help... I don\'t know to me its just light blue or blue with some green in it and Blue is .... more blue :p with no green in it.


Just because I have a feeling there was confusion as to what some think I was talking about.  I was talking about the colour azure itself, not once was I talking about ps magic ;).
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Post by: Xalthar on October 16, 2004, 03:30:47 am
Red - Destruction, fire
Azure - Energy, electricity
Blue - Enchantments, water
Brown - Summoning, nature
Dark - \"Evil\", pestilence, death
Crystal - \"Good\", healing, life

That\'s pretty much it.. some representing different aspects of the elements, others taking on more \"human\" or \"organic\" values.
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Post by: Adeli on October 16, 2004, 08:57:32 am
Sorry if I seem rude, but was my thread title not clear?
Zeraph seems to be the only one who understands.
I do not mean a the spell effects, I do not mean the actual ways of arcane power. I am simply referring to the representative colours of each way.

My interest in this is purely for a story, and that\'s it.

Sorry if this seems like a flame of some sort.

Let me phrase it this way.
There are six mages, one in red, one in brown, one in white (crystal I decided), one in black (dark), one in blue, and one in blue-green? (azure)...

white
red
blue
brown
black
blue-green?
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Post by: Stydracos on October 16, 2004, 09:49:37 am
Quote
Originally posted by Adeli
The major problem, what the hell colour is Azure supposed to be? Last I checked Azure was Blue?


Well I attempted to answer this bit, basically you could just use azure in your story and let the reader conjure up their own image. If you need to describe further just remember it is a bright blue colour with a hint of green to it.

I can\'t be anyone plain then that.. I did get the question and was talking about the colour for the mages robes etc not their actual ways.

I agree on the colours you picked for the rest, crystal as white could fit or a spectrum of colours, like when a clear crystal refracts white light.... I\'d just go with white  though ;).

An alternative would be to allow some to have a pair of colours for the clothes... like for the red way could be red and yellow; Dark way could be deep purple and black; Brown could be brown and tan etc.
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Post by: Adeli on October 16, 2004, 11:02:34 am
I\'m sorry Stydracos, looking back I realised that you did in fact understand me, I hope you can accept my apology.
Before your reply came I ended up deciding to use \'azure\' in my story. As I posted the next part of it, and it mentioned a dermorian in an azure robe.
I thought of aquamarine, which I decided azure closely resembles, but it didn\'t flow as well story-wise.
Thankyou for your help.

Edit: That paired colours idea was interesting, perhaps I will use that someday, with your permission?
I think I\'d have trouble descibing a robe that was the color of the entire light spectrum refracted through a crystal...
Could someone direct me to a thread that they know of which has the descriptions of each way? My search turned up nothing useful.
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Post by: Moogie on October 16, 2004, 01:37:45 pm
Adeli: A description of each Way can be found in the Character Creation screens of MB.


Btw- What does it matter that the colours are accurate or not? They probably arn\'t going to have colour themes ingame anyway. Let\'s just say Azure = light blue and be done with it. :P
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Post by: Stydracos on October 16, 2004, 02:01:23 pm
No problem Adeli :D I was more worried that I was writing gibberish.

Of course you can use multi-coloured robes etc :) It was just a thought I thought you might like. There no doubt the idea was rooted in my mind from a television/game/book etc.

Yeah you are right about describing a crystal way robe, unless you say it bore all the colours of a rainbow (admittedly that sounds... well lame).

I didn\'t realise some of the story was done I might go off and have a read later.
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Post by: Xalthar on October 17, 2004, 02:42:22 am
Quote
Originally posted by Adeli
Sorry if I seem rude, but was my thread title not clear?
Zeraph seems to be the only one who understands.
I do not mean a the spell effects, I do not mean the actual ways of arcane power. I am simply referring to the representative colours of each way.

My interest in this is purely for a story, and that\'s it.

Sorry if this seems like a flame of some sort.

Let me phrase it this way.
There are six mages, one in red, one in brown, one in white (crystal I decided), one in black (dark), one in blue, and one in blue-green? (azure)...

white
red
blue
brown
black
blue-green?


Actually I\'ll have to agree with Moogie. It does not make any sense to be discussing the individual colors (or shades) of magic. The developers made it, it\'s their system, it works satisfyingly as you have been the only one to bring up any discussion on this matter (a rather trivial one I might add), therefore it makes no sense to debate it.
There is no one saying that the ways of magic have to be described by a colour.
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Post by: Icefalcon on October 17, 2004, 02:53:10 am
Thats what I was atempting saying earlier.  :O I would rather not have all the spells of one Way have all the same color scheme. Quite boring if you ask me...
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Post by: Adeli on October 17, 2004, 06:31:37 am
Sorry to contradict, but you are misunderstanding me again.
I must say I disagree with you on this one.
All over the world, things are represented by colours, whether you know it or not. eg. Yellow is symbolic for freedom, white for purity. Yliakum is a world, thus they\'d have representations.
Moogie, I know they are on the character creation, but I am currently having problems with the client and have yet to download it again. I shall do so later today.
I do not mean spells, erase this though from your mind completely.
Simply representation.
As for why it matters, it\'s my story and I\'m fussy like that.

Thanks Stydracos.
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Post by: AendarCallenlasse on October 17, 2004, 06:36:43 am
As far as PS is concerned I always thought Azure was more of a green-blue.  Like a sea-green.

The reason for this can be found in the Nolthrir description: \"Nolthrirs appear as slim elves, with skin and hair colored from azure to green, and icy eyes colored from light azure to light green.\"
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Post by: Adeli on October 17, 2004, 06:41:57 am
Thankyou Aendar, I\'d forgotten that, it does sound suitable.
OT: Sorry to hear about you missing out on phase 2.
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Post by: Golbez on October 17, 2004, 06:54:55 am
The quirk us humans have of assigning a certain \"meaning\" to a colour is  called \"synaesthesia\". This capacity means that each hue evokes in our psyche a determinate concept.

Which is why a man in a dark suit of armour invariably represents \"evil\" and one in golden plate mail will always strike the average individual as \"good\". Or another example, the division of the chromatic circle in \"cold\" and \"warm\" colours.

I understand Adeli\'s point, though. A society instinctively tries to delimit the different meanings in conventions according to their ease of recognition (Any form of language being the prime example of this), and it can be a bit odd to see two slightly different hues of blues representing two completely different aspects of magic. Not that it bothers me, particularly, but it is something I had never noticed before.

I am assuming that you are writing a story in which the different ways of magic are involved, and you are trying to recreate a separation of each way through the colours.

I would suggest considering Azure as a green-tainted blue for your story, if you are attempting to make a clearer visual distinction for each way of the arcane arts. And remembering that not only this visual distinction is given by colour alone: Other variables such as differences in garments and their styles, jewelry, amulets, and particular symbols and anything you can think of can help to convey an idea of individuality.

- Golbez
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Post by: Adeli on October 17, 2004, 07:51:04 am
Thankyou for your informed reply Golbez.
That\'s exactly how I meant it.
Currently I am doing a rough cut, as stated in my story thread, I am restricting my descriptiveness, but I hope to make a better version one day, and will take into account things such as design of clothing, and accessories.
So light, blue-green it is then.
Thank you to all who replied.

http://noz.day-break.net/webcolor/azure.html
I have decided that #3399CC will be Azure,
Blue will be something akin to #0033CC.
Thank you for this colour chart.

Golbez, how did you get so knowledgeable?
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Post by: ArcaneFalcon on October 17, 2004, 08:37:14 am
*technically, pure blue is #0000FF, but that doesn\'t mean that is how most people think of it.  I think your choice on both azure and blue are good.  The only other one I would consider for azure is #0099CC, which is very similar.  Also, realize that if your monitor, or the monitor of whoever is looking at the color, has bad color management then the color can be completely different.  Web safe colors won\'t fix that (web safe colors were for back in the day with bad graphics cards, nowadays they are basically obsolete).  For instance, I know my monitor has bad color management (Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 930 SB, great monitor if you can figure out the colors), and that is why #3399CC to me looks hardly green tinted at all.
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Post by: Adeli on October 17, 2004, 11:15:39 am
To be honest, #0099CC was my first thought. I know #0000FF is true blue as red/green values are zero, but I prefer my choice.
My choice for Azure is slightly tinted green, not fully, a mix of say cyan and sea green...?
It reminds me of a derwent pencil called Kingfisher Blue that I liked.
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Post by: Golbez on October 17, 2004, 06:54:01 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Adeli
Thank you to all who replied.


You are welcome! ;)


Quote
Originally posted by Adeli
Golbez, how did you get so knowledgeable?


Pffft. I am not knowledgeable. Graphic Design is what I study, and the basics involve topics such as morphology, theory of colours, language (oral, written and visual), etcetera.

This just happened to fall right in my area of interest.

- Golbez
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Post by: leji on November 07, 2004, 01:50:51 am
Just come to France, have a look at our sky and sea and you will know what azure really means :)
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Post by: Hatchnet on November 07, 2004, 03:41:54 am
A thought for describeing crystal robes; I read that you choose to describe them as white because you could not describe them as being the colour of a rainbow with enough flair to make it interesting. However; some thing similar to what J.R.R. Tolkien used to describe Sauramons multicoloured robes would be verry addequat. Some thing along these lines: His robes shimerd as he walked across the floor, shifting from from colour of the rainbow to the next as he passed before your eye. While not quite to Tolkiens level of litterary skill that should suffice quit well for anyone who would like to use it as a guid for describeing crytal robesas being the colour of a rainbow
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Post by: Adeli on November 07, 2004, 09:51:05 am
I thought this thread was closed a while ago, guess not...
I already got my answers... but thankyou anyway.
As for Tolkien, I don\'t think Lord of the Rings has enough flair to make it interesting. It\'s quite a boring read, and if you look, in the movie he is Saruman the White, in White robes, guess Peter Jackson didn\'t like the mother of pearl look.

Mods, I believe this has now exhausted its usefulness.