Understanding Color Indexes and Color Strings


What is the color string:

The Color String is the full set of colors that we use for one effect.
You can specify the colors that are part of the Color String in the "Testing Parameters Panel"
The Color String can hold a maximum of 16 colors (indicated by the 16 Color in the "Testing Parameters Panel")


What is the Color Index and how does it work:

Every time you create a layer, you have to specify its color index.
The color index is a pointer to a specific cell in the color table shown in the "Testing Parameters Panel".
The cell count starts from 0 (zero), so we have 16 cells from 0 to 15.

We can say that a color index specifies a subset of the color string. But let's make a couple of simple examples to understand how it works:

  • Example 1
    Suppose you have a single layer that shoots 100 Stars Simple with color index 0. The first color of our Color String will be assigned to the stars.

(Head Color)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
  • Example 2 (some star types need more colors)
    Some star types need more colors to work properly. This is the case of the Star With Tail that needs one color for the head and another for the tail.
    You will need to specify two colors for that layer, one per cell.
    In effect, color indexes are relative and not absolute. This means that in this case, if we choose 0 (zero) as color index for the star with tail layer, the engine will take the 1st color of the sub-string for the head and the following for the tail.

(Head Color)

(Tail Color)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that we know how this works with a single layer, let's see how it works with multiple layers.
The Sub Layer always inherits the Main Layer properties, and this works with the Color Indexes too.
THE COLOR INDEX OF THE SUB LAYER, STARTS COUNTING IT'S ZERO FROM THE MAIN LAYER COLOR INDEX

This means that if you have a layer of stars with tails with color index 3 and its SUB LAYER is another layer of stars with tails with color index 4 you will have something like this:

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

 

 

 

MAIN LAYER Index

 

 

 

SUB LAYER Index

 

 



0

1

2

3

4

5

6


This is because as we just said THE COLOR INDEX OF THE SUB LAYER STARTS COUNTING IT'S ZERO FROM THE MAIN LAYER INDEX


This is the same for the Shell Components. Pay attention to the structure of the shell you are using as a component to see it's color indexes

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