Blue text and planet orbits hard to see

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Some of the text and planet orbits are very similar to the background, making 
them hard to see without cranking a monitor's brightness up. Perhaps this 
worked in the original game, but the resolutions were much lower.

Version v0.7.0 + HD mod - SVN r897 on OSX 10.6.8.

See the attached screenshots for some examples.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by dmp...@gmail.com on 9 Jan 2013 at 11:26

Attachments:

• captain.png
• saved-games.png
• bio-data.png

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An example of difficult to see orbits.

Original comment by dmp...@gmail.com on 9 Jan 2013 at 12:14

Attachments:

• orbits.png

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Original comment by dmp...@gmail.com on 9 Jan 2013 at 12:17

Attachments:

• planet-summary.png

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I guess this one's up to the graphics department's discretion. IMO they're fine 
as they are.

Original comment by Jaakko.M...@gmail.com on 13 Jan 2013 at 3:59

• Changed state: Accepted

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dmpl2l, the captures look fine from my perspective.
Perhaps your screen is lacking contrast?  On some older screen it's hard to 
differentiate the darker shades. 
As this is a very old game, There aren't any "gamma correction" option in the 
game setup, but most screen have this setting.

Original comment by Awakened...@gmail.com on 17 Jan 2013 at 8:54

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The screen is a standard Macbook Pro, I haven't adjusted gamma on it, and I 
have normal eyesight.

I will merely point out that dark-on-dark is bad for legibility (google for 
"low-contrast text"), and leaving text dark simply for the sake of it being 
dark in the past is an iffy proposition given all the other improvements that 
have occurred. Improving the contrast has no effects on gameplay, but ensures 
that everyone can read it without trouble.

I mean, you do want people to play the game without trouble right? Pretty 
please? :)

Original comment by dmp...@gmail.com on 20 Jan 2013 at 11:51

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We looked into a possible gamma correction option but unfortunately the 
graphics engine used by the original code won't allow it, so that's out.
This being said - we have changed some colors when needed (for example, some of 
the influence circles on the starmap).
The orbits are meant to be subtle so in that case, perhaps it was intended. But 
I do get your point for other details such as actual statistics and text - 
especially for the save game text and the planet text. The flip side is that it 
may change the look and feel of the game.
Our art lead is copied on this thread, so I leave that into his 
more-than-competent hands to decide if he wants to follow through. Damon, what 
do you think?

Original comment by Awakened...@gmail.com on 21 Jan 2013 at 3:09

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The orbit dots indeed are now less discernible than in original 320x240 for two 
reasons:
a) they're smaller, b) the nebulae obscure them somewhat.
IMO they're pretty nice in their current subtle form, and I don't have problem 
reading the planet stats' texts. I'll prefer a darker look in the interplnetary 
view over an over-bright "cartoony" look. (That can be left for the comm 
screens :) 

But for the final judgment I'll also revert to our art lead, Damon, - what do 
you think? It would be pretty easy to crank up the brightness of the orbit dots 
pretty easily with some number changes in the code.

Original comment by Jaakko.M...@gmail.com on 21 Jan 2013 at 5:34

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Yup, today was indeed a sunny day, and on a day like this it was pretty hard to 
see those orbit dots in 1280x960 mode. So I cranked up their brightness a bit 
in 640x480 and 1280x960. I also brightened the savegameslots.

The other dark blue items seemed pretty ok as they were, so I kept them as-is.

Case closed.

Original comment by Jaakko.M...@gmail.com on 26 Apr 2013 at 4:42

• Changed state: Fixed

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Heh, the sunnier the day, the more apparent this issue becomes. Brightened the:
-orbit dots
-lander info screen's biodata gauge 
-and the savegameslots

Now it should be pretty good.

Original comment by Jaakko.M...@gmail.com on 17 May 2013 at 7:40

• Changed state: Verified