I tried my new color palette on several of my favorites from the 100×100 set. These two images benefited the most, in my opinion.
Image 1: 100×100 Level 90
Here’s the image from the the gallery 100×100 Part 2 next to it:
The first version does a decent job at outlining the really cool big pattern – but the 2nd does at least as well without drowning out individual lines.
The biggest difference though comes from the interior sectors. The left side is OK on the left, but better on the right.
The highlight though comes from the two magenta lines in the top/right/center area in the new version. The longer of the two sort of follows the big pattern, then does some crazy randomness in the center which I love. The shorter of the two lines is a natural counterpoint to the longer line.
New Version without Line Edits
The left is the version my program generated with randomly selected colors (to be fair, I generated about 50 versions and picked this one to work with). The main feature is mostly unchanged, but the left side and top/right/center interiors were drastically changed.
Of the 183 total lines, I changed the color of 24 lines – the longest of these (and 4th longest of the level at 533 cells) is the yellow line that serves to outline the left side – it was a darker yellow before. I chose darker shades for 20 of the other 23 lines to increase contrast. The other 3 lines (344, 202, and 34 cells) are the magenta lines that stand out in the bottom left as well as the first two listed above. The standout line is 344 cells – over 100 cells more than the largest board in my games. The edited lines cover 2351 of the 10000 cells in the grid.
The final result is eye-popping all around – a rarity especially with such a complex pattern with unusually shaped interior sectors.
The 2nd image is a bit more subtle:
100×100 Level 93
While the main pattern in the first one feels like an outline for the rest of the board with the other sectors inside of it, in this one it is almost smack dab in the center, with 3 major sectors along the outside.
Next to the 100×100 Part 2 gallery version:
The differences are a bit more subtle than the last level: the left sector I think is clearly (but maybe only slightly) better on the right, and the center is a bit better defined too. The red line in the bottom right sector of the new version is the most obvious improvement – but even though I think it is equally as impressive as the magenta line in the last level, it doesn’t pop out nearly as much partly due to the placement.
You could argue that the top right sort of triangular sector is better in the original, and I wouldn’t disagree.
Line Edit Comparison
I changed the color of half as many lines as the previous level (12 vs. 24), even though it has more lines (205 vs. 183). The lines total 1673 cells – with 2 of the lines accounting for over 86% of those (1443 cells).
The two long lines are often next to each other, and are both olive in the first version. These were moved only slightly, but in different directions to create contrast between the two, with one changing the tone to dark green and the other moving towards yellow,going from the 3rd to 2nd brightest shade of the 4 yellow shades in my current color palette.
The first version I posted only had these two line edits. See if you can spot the difference:
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I would be impressed if you can spot even 2 of the 10 line color changes: they are subtle.
Two of the changes are near the bottom of the board – the lines were made darker so that the part of the red line that briefly extends almost all across the board stands out more.
A full 7 line edits were made on lines totaling just 29 cells. These lines are in the top right sector and were initially blue, I changed them to a dark shade of another tone. This was the final result of my long attempt at improving the top right sector. The long blue line is the most interesting by far in this sector, and these lines all bordered it making it difficult to follow.
I made various other versions that had much more significant changes to this area. While these attempts were successful at making that sector of the board more interesting – I ultimately felt like they detracted from the overall image.
Another note: while the bright green and magenta lines in the top right triangle are the type of lines that I normally would hide with darker colors, I kind of like how they provide lone bright spots to the area in a somewhat random way.
Finally – the last line change was to make it so that the long light blue line that outlines both the center and top right areas doesn’t share a border with a line of exactly the same shade. A line with the same shade towards the bottom/center of the board was demoted to the 2nd lightest shade of blue.