Purity Color Scheme

[Barathor]

One of the many things I love about Beyond Earth are the strongly themed and contrasting affinities -- they're nearly perfect, somewhat like the Starcraft trinity. But, to me, there's something just a little off about Purity, color-wise.

Purity rides around in solid, bulky, blocky vehicles with some ornamentation here and there which contrasts the sleek, sexy, organically-curved Harmony and the airy, delicate, pieced-together look and aggressive, sharp angles of Supremacy -- Okay, great.

The "direction" of the color schemes are great too. Supremacy with its dark, cold steel look, and Harmony/Purity in opposing schemes to represent their contradicting beliefs; cool colors for Harmony and warm for Purity.

But, Purity doesn't quite hit the mark. They should look very regal and classical, with their flowing crimson banners and capes and their bronze/gold armor/plating. Yet, they look slightly dumpy with that greenish, yellow that's being used. Also, not all their units share the same base color, unlike the Supremacy and Harmony units. The most obvious one is the Lev Tank which looks very off compared to the others.

Also, if you look at some of the earlier concept art for Purity, they look much nicer and use a warmer, desaturated bronze/gold color -- it's not as greenish yellow.

Here are some of them, with different scheme examples (the last one, the AEGIS, is a little too red in my opinion)(I think the centurion in the second image is perfect):

Spoiler :

Here are some reskins of the Lev Tank; which would you prefer most? Even if you don't like any of them, which one is closest to what you would like?

A: original
B: warmer, less green
C: much warmer, less green
D: warmer and desaturated, I call it "titanium bronze"
E: slightly warmer and desaturated "titanium bronze"

B, C, and D were just photoshopped from the original. E is from a mod I created to test another color out.

 

[Ryika]

I like B the most.

The original has this green-ish tone that to me now looks really... strange compared to B. C is too saturated for my taste. D looks cool on its own but doesn't really fit purity imho. The same for E.

 

[janboruta]

I like D, B, and E. Nice washed-out combinations.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Big fan of E, especially for Spaceships as the leader portraits had something very regal yet technologically advanced to them.

I quite like B as well, though it looks a bit less "sleek" which fits Civ:BE's vision a bit more, I think (my personal impression is that Purity in its beginning is a bit less "sleek" and a bit more technology-rejecting than its end state).

In any case, seeing your variations makes me really wonder about the greenish tint the in-game models have, especially compared to the concept art.

 

[Victus75]

I never noticed a greenish tint at all on them, until the models are compared side-by-side as you just posted. Nice.

 

[LORD ORION]

I can't offer an opinion without seeing the colors on the 3 biomes.
Can you possibly add Fungal and Desert biome backgrounds to the color images?

I know it's a tall order, But I have a feeling E may not look so good on Fungal and C may not look so good on Desert.

 

[Gorbles]

D or B. B is probably better as it'll stand out from the terrain better.

Do you have any zoomed-out screenshots for comparison?

 

[Barathor]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I was going to let this brew for a little while as I worked on another mod, but I'll reskin the four Purity units real quick with something similar to "D" or "E" and I'll show a group comparison between them and the default ones at a standard zoom level.

 

[Barathor]

Okay, here's a first attempt at just the four unique Purity units. They definitely look more serious. Also, it's weird, but they look more metallic too. I may want to lighten these up a bit more, not sure yet.

Here's some flavorful Purity music as you look them over, haha...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoDhFtQC0V4

Spoiler :

 

[Barathor]

Here's another one, sticking more to their glorious golden color, only I made it a bit brighter, paler, and warmer.

Spoiler :

 

[Halbbruder]

I don't seem to like D and E. I prefer C, as the warmer yellow and less grey (not just green) is a nice contrast with the red purity colour. My subsequent preferences would be A and then B.

 

[Barathor]

I don't seem to like D and E. I prefer C, as the warmer yellow and less grey (not just green) is a nice contrast with the red purity colour. My subsequent preferences would be A and then B.

Cool, some "C" love; thanks for the feedback!

I've been working on a ton of different schemes here and there. I decided to focus on three of them, and from there, tweak their brightness and saturation. The three are the original yellow tone, a browner tone from the centurion concept art (2nd image), and a greener tone from the dreadnought concept art (1st image).

 

[Barathor]

Here's some more:

(click to enlarge)




A1: original color
A2: (didn't create yet)
A3: original color, +20% brightness, -20% saturation
A4: original color, +20% brightness, -40% saturation

B1: browner color
B2: browner color, +20% brightness
B3: browner color, +20% brightness, -20% saturation
B4: browner color, +20% brightness, -40% saturation

C1: greener color
C2: greener color, +20% brightness
C3: greener color, +20% brightness, -20% saturation
C4: greener color, +20% brightness, -40% saturation

I like the 3rd row for each, but for all three, I think I'm next going to try something in the middle:

"color, +10% brightness, - 10% saturation"

If I'm satisfied with them, I'll create templates for all the other units and then apply each color to them and throw the three schemes up on the workshop.

Hopefully Firaxis sees what Purity could look like and digs one of them. Even in Starships, they've toned down that rusty yellow color:

Spoiler :