I've been wanting to revise the palette for my maps for quite a long time now. Aside from changes to the colours of hills and badlands, I haven't really made any major tweaks to the palette since I started mapping back in January.

Why would I want to? Well, actually there are a number of reasons.

• First and foremost is that the current palette is not good for printing, because it contains numerous out of gamut colours, i.e. colours which cannot be printed as they are shown on the screen.
  
• I had problems when I added shading for heavy forests, forested hills and jungles, because the base green I chose (actually back in 1998) is too bright. I've never been satisfied with the resulting forest shading, and I've been tempted again and again to change the clear/forest/jungle greens to a paler shade.
  
• Some maps have a very different feel from the original maps when recreated in my current palette. This is somewhat disappointing, because it means that we are losing what I see as part of the character of the original maps.
  
• At times I look and my palette and think it is rather gaudy, and would be much better in more pastel shades.
  

The catch is that it means revising and updating all current maps. AGAIN. But this isn't actually as daunting as it may sound, because it doesn't take that long to update each map, thanks to the latest behind-the-scenes tweaking to my mapping system. And there are quite a lot of adjustments and updates waiting to be done right now anyway (especially from the PC3 map).

Anyhow, I thought I'd give you all a little preview of my latest revised palette, so that you can see what I want to do, and voice any comments or concerns you might have before I go ahead and do all the work.











These adjustments should deal with all the problems I listed above.

Comments? Suggestions?

Overall I much prefer the new more subduded palette. However, Personally I think, that the top right hexes (ie the ones with the monolith and mountains) in example 2 are a little bit too subdued.

Regards,
Gary

I think the subdued palette is much better as well!

While the old maps might be a bit too strong in some of the colours, I definetly prefer them to these new pale maps!!

Sorry, Thorf. IMHO the pale maps look... well, just plain wrong.

But thanks for all your great work and effort and trying to please all of us!

:-) Jesper

And I thought they look closer to the original paper maps.

Could just be my bad memory.

Gary

I second Gary: if it's a case of bad memory, then it must be contagious.
The pale ones look more similar to the original ones for me too..
Thanks for the great work btw, Thorf!

I would have to vote for the new color scheme as well. The brighter colors are a bit hard on my eyes, whereas the muted colors look more natural to me.

I'm not quite sure what the purplish stuff in the second set of examples is supposed to represent, though.

My $.02,

Gordon

I'll second (all of) that.

I think the revised palette works better, and, as others have said, it's closer to the printed versions IIRC (don't have my maps handy). At any rate, I think the main consideration is readability, and ease of printing. If the revised palette performs those two functions, let's go with that.

Geoff

I whole-heartedly agree with my fellow Ontarian! Another vote for the revised palette.

I like the paler versions better. THe colorful ones were nice to look at, but I think the pastelle looks better. And if it helps with printing them as I plan to do eventually, then please go with whats best for that.

I always muted any maps I print out to save on ink anyway. The bright colors may look nice on the screen, but not in the pocket-book.

I'll echo the votes for the subdued colors. Oddly enough, as I've revised the palettes of my own (sadly outdated) map hexes over the years, I've tended to make the colors less bright as well. So I think there is definitely something about the more subdued colors that is easier on the eyes and brain.

My vote is for the muted colors. I think it helps make each discrete section of terrain more defined, actually — since the colors are not popping out at you, your eyes can concentrate on forms.

Thanks for all the quick replies, guys!

Right now it seems we have 2 people for version 1, and 10 people for version 2. It looks like most of you prefer the new palette. If anyone else wants to leave their vote, it's not too late.

Incidentally, I should point out that it's always possible for me to make maps in any palette you require - all you need to do is ask. So if you really prefer the old palette, I can still make old palette versions if you request them. But I have to decide on one palette for the versions I post here and on my site, because my space (and time) is limited.

Oh, and the pink hexes in the second example are Hardened Clay. It's a type of desert terrain thus far only seen in Hollow World Nithia.

I totally agree that I prefer the newer palette, but Gary is right here - until I read his post and went back to check I missed the mountain hexes in question (also the ones SW of Vestland) This may be because we are seeing map fragments, but you may want to re-visit the mountain colour.

The newer palette looks much closer to the originals to me, so it gets my vote.

Now that's odd; several people think the new palette looks like the original. I think it's just the opposite. I remember the brighter palette as the one on the original maps.

All that aside, the newer palette is much easier on the eyes.