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Subject: 
LEGO Color Reference
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general, lugnet.cad.ray, lugnet.announce
Followup-To: 
lugnet.general
Date: 
Thu, 3 Oct 2002 04:52:43 GMT
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I've been playing around a bit with LDraw, L3P, and POV-RAY over the past
few weeks.  In August I tried to do some rendering of individual LEGO
elements and found it to be a lot more challenging than I had expected.
After much hair-pulling and experimenting, I arrived at something I liked:

   http://www.lugnet.com/temp/povray-experiments/6x6plategreen.jpg

Then I tweaked the other colors that I needed, and then for fun did a bunch
more, which led to this small color chart:

   http://www.lugnet.com/temp/povray-experiments/colors-1x1.jpg
   http://www.lugnet.com/temp/povray-experiments/colors-1x2.jpg

I have a friend who collects 1x1's in all the colors, so the 1x1 image is
sort of an homage.  :-)

Suzanne suggested I take it and make a chart organized by hue, tints, and
shades, that we could possibly do as a printed poster, and the chart
eventually grew into this:

   http://guide.lugnet.com/color/

which is an attempt at a comprehensive interactive LEGO color guide.  The
official view shows 82 colors, but I think it might be missing a couple.
If you know of any that aren't shown, please let me know and I'll update
the chart as best I can.

If you click on a color, it takes you to separate page for that color, for
example:

   http://guide.lugnet.com/color/?q=B00

and on that page you can explore other nearby colors.  Altogether, there are
actually 3275 different colors that you can view this way -- with the official
LEGO colors simply being special cases chosen from among these.  Here are a
couple colors that we're not likely to see from LEGO anytime soon:

   http://guide.lugnet.com/color/?q=YG05
   http://guide.lugnet.com/color/?q=YG13
   http://guide.lugnet.com/color/?q=YG14

As you can probably guess from the equilateral triangle on the right hand
side, the two numbers after the hue tell the amount of white and black mixed
with the hue.  Numbers like 10 and 40 denote tints (white added), numbers
like 02 and 05 denote shades (black added), numbers like 22 and 13 (both
white and black added) denote tones, and 00 denotes the pure color (no white
or black added).

I'd be interested in hearing how this looks on various monitors out there.
I rendered the images in two popular monitor gamma settings (PC and Mac) and
so theoretically it should look accurate for you automatically as the script
that displays the web page automatically detects whether you're running on
a Mac or a PC.

Additional notes:

This color reference is a work in progress and should be considered "beta"
quality.  It's not really ready yet, but I wanted to get something up before
NWBrickCon in case I fall from the top of the Space Needle or something.

So for the next month or so, anything may change without notice, including:

* Some colors, particularly the lighter shades of blue, may still need
tweaking.  I've tried to find out everything I can about Maersk blue, but
I haven't seen it in person since BrickFest.  Hopefully I'll get to see it
again at NWBrickCon this weekend.

* The color ID notation may change slightly.  (A 10-point system might be
needed instead of the current 6-point system.  This would change the URLs
of the individual color pages.)

* The color names will definitely change, most notably OldDuploRose,
OldFabCowMonkey, and several others which are placeholders.  Names like
LightLightYellow and LightLightBlue obviously also need better alternatives,
and some of the more obscure colors could probably use better names too.

* The years of introduction for each color will definitely change to better
reflect the accurate numbers.

* Additional color selection views may be added.  Right now there's just "all"
and "DUPLO" and "PRIMO".  It might be helpful to have a "Belville" or "Scala"
view, for example.

--Todd



Message has 9 Replies:
  Re: LEGO Color Reference
 
(...) The ForestGreen was seen at least from the 60's on 50x50 baseplates and 10x20 brickplates. /Tore (22 years ago, 3-Oct-02, to lugnet.general)
  Re: LEGO Color Reference
 
(...) If you want I would be willing to send you a part in Maersk blue for your reference. Just let me know :) But I did notice some of the colors looked to be off - mostly the lighter colors, but overall it looks good. (...) Where did you get the (...) (22 years ago, 3-Oct-02, to lugnet.general)
  Re: LEGO Color Reference
 
"Todd Lehman" <todd@lugnet.com> wrote in message news:H3E2vv.Cq8@lugnet.com... (...) <snip> (...) <snip> This is Great!IMHO a coupleof the lighter colors are a bit off ; the 'orange' and 'dark orange' don't have enough orange in them(too light).[1] (...) (22 years ago, 3-Oct-02, to lugnet.general)
  A suggestion
 
Hi, Disclaimer: this is one of those suggestions that might lead you to "not like" me =8D) Why don't you render the bricks using radiosity settings in Povray 3.5? The realism will blow anyone away, althought it takes forever to renders. Take a look (...) (22 years ago, 3-Oct-02, to lugnet.general)
  Re: LEGO Color Reference
 
(...) I'm curious what names people associate in their minds with LEGO colors -- especially some of the newer ones. Here's a short color poll (4 colors) where you can rate each of several names according to how well it describes the color for you: (...) (22 years ago, 3-Oct-02, to lugnet.general)
  Re: LEGO Color Reference
 
Very nice project, Todd. I appreciate it. My Feedback: I noticed that 'Clear' and 'OldClear' didn't show on the Card Type "Chonological". This made me count all colors on both Card Types, and I believe that Card Type "Chromatic" holds 82 colors, (...) (22 years ago, 3-Oct-02, to lugnet.general)
  Re: LEGO Color Reference
 
Todd, I've tried to render some "non-standard" colors (like the new dark red) using POV, L3p, etc. and can't seem to get it (not that I've devoted hours and hours...). Would it be possible for your color ref to include the appropriate color # and (...) (22 years ago, 3-Oct-02, to lugnet.general)
  RE: LEGO Color Reference
 
(...) You're crazy, Todd. Anyway, have you tried using the _clear definitions for the LGEO parts when rendering transparent colors? They use merge instead of union, which should make the cylinders on the corners look more like rounded edges than (...) (22 years ago, 3-Oct-02, to lugnet.general)
  Re: LEGO Color Reference
 
(...) Not sure where you want corrections sent but... I am pretty sure that the color dark grey (referred to as "dark warm grey", I believe, on the color chart) predates 1989. I think its very first use was for sleepers in the grey/dark grey 12V (...) (22 years ago, 16-Nov-02, to lugnet.general)

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