Chapter 1: Palette Engineering & Contrast for Class Reads

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Palette Engineering & Contrast for Class Reads

Color is a routing system for the eye. In character design, palettes carry faction identity, separate classes, and direct attention to what matters in gameplay and story. Thoughtful palette engineering pairs hue, value, chroma, and material contrast with trim levels and livery rules so a squad reads as a coherent family while every role remains instantly legible. This article gives character concept artists a practical, production‑ready approach to building palettes that survive lighting, motion, LODs, and wear.

First Principles: Value First, Then Hue

The fastest read in motion is value contrast, not hue. Lock a grayscale hierarchy before you pick colors: silhouette base (deep/mid), accent fields (mid/high), and critical UI (high). Reserve the highest value contrast for class signifiers and interaction zones (medic cross, engineer cog, commander sash). With value locked, choose hues that support faction identity and environmental camouflage where appropriate. Chroma becomes the third lever—turn it up for hero marks, down for stealth.

Faction → Role → Individual: The Three‑Tier Palette Stack

Design palettes in stacks:

  • Faction Base: 2–3 neutrals that define the shared identity (e.g., cool slate + bone + oxide). These coat the largest areas and unify the group across armor weights.
  • Role Accents (Class Colors): 1–2 high‑signal hues per class—medic/cyan, engineer/amber, recon/lime, heavy/red, command/royal—applied to limited, standardized zones.
  • Individual Trim: micro‑accents or materials (enamel, braid, patina color) that personalize without breaking family reads. Limit to one micro‑accent per character. This stack keeps squads coherent while preserving clear class reads.

Palette Geometry: Where Color Lives on the Body

Color has shape. Place faction base on stable masses (torso plates, greaves), class accents on read planes (pauldron faces, chest placards, helmet brows), and individual trim on edges and trims (binding tapes, stitching, tassels). Keep accents off high‑mobility seams where motion blur will smear them; let bellows and hinges stay neutral so mobility language remains primary.

Contrast Types You Can Engineer

  • Value Contrast: dark armor + bright medical cross; or light shell + dark hazard band. Test in grayscale thumbnails.
  • Hue Contrast: complementary pairs for high legibility (cyan vs orange); adjacent hues for subtlety (olive/teal) when stealth matters.
  • Chroma Contrast: mute the body, saturate the signifier. Useful in dusty or foggy scenes where hue shifts.
  • Material Contrast: matte textile vs enamel plate, brushed metal vs peached microfiber. This carries at distance even when color compresses under grade. Use at most two contrast modes at once per zone to avoid noise.

Trim Levels: Communicating Quality & Rank

Trim levels let you scale the same cut across NPC tiers without redressing the palette. Define Base, Service, Elite trims:

  • Base: painted or dyed color only; minimal gloss range; single accent line.
  • Service: bound edges, enamel pins, two‑tone plates, subtle metallic flake; an extra accent stripe at authorized panels.
  • Elite: polished inlays, higher specular metals, engraved bevel wells with enamel fill, braided cords. Value range widens but class color zones remain identical. Trim levels should change material finish before piling on new colors. Maintain role accents exactly to protect class reads.

Environment Packs (Palette Shifts by Biome)

Palettes travel. Provide biome variants that keep class contrast intact:

  • Desert: shift neutrals toward warm sand; reduce accent chroma by ~15% to avoid clipping under sun; add dark edge binding for separation.
  • Jungle: cool, low‑value bases; push accent value up (lighter) so bands pop in canopy shade.
  • Urban Night: desaturate bases; rely on emissive bands and reflective trims; adjust accent hue to survive sodium/LED mixes (cyan→blue‑green, amber→safety orange).
  • Polar: high‑value bases; accents go darker and more saturated; increase material contrast (matte textiles vs glossy ice‑shedding shells). Document exact shifts as LUT notes or hex/sRGB swatches with luminance values.

Pattern & Livery Grammar

Keep patterning subordinate to silhouette and class marks. Establish stripe grammar (widths, offsets, allowed angles), panel painting rules (which plates carry color blocks), and motif zones (tabards, capes, surcoats). Avoid all‑over prints on armor; instead, place motifs where construction supports them—engraving wells, seam allowances, bound edges. For fabrics, align stripes to grain and avoid splitting across darts; for shells, align to chamfer frames to prevent UV distortion.

Accessibility & Color‑Blind Safety

Back every class color with a shape: medic plus, engineer hex, recon triangle, heavy chevrons, command star/crown. Use dash counts or band numbers for rank. Provide a grayscale pass of your palette sheet and verify that classes still separate by value/material contrast. Offer “shape‑only” decal variants and avoid red/green exclusivity without value separation.

Readability Under Motion & VFX

Motion blur and atmospherics crush hue and chroma; value and material survive. Push role accents onto planar, forward‑facing surfaces with clean edges. Use continuous bands instead of dotted lines. Keep bright accents small but bold; too much saturation turns into visual noise. Define emissive companions for critical marks in night scenes—thin belt loop, helmet brow ring—while maintaining a stealth‑off state.

Wear & Aging: Protect the Read

Plan how wear affects color. Accents should fail last if role visibility is critical (medics), or fail early for stealth roles (covert units). Document edge brightening for polished metals, matting for microfibers, chipping for enamel. Under dust, rely on value and edge specular to preserve the class read; under mud, place accents high on the body to remain visible.

Building the Palette Kit: Deliverables

Create a palette kit per faction that includes:

  • Swatch sheet with base neutrals, class accents, and trim materials (with sRGB/ACES values and luminance).
  • Placement maps per armor weight (light/medium/heavy) showing color zones, stripe grammar, and safe areas.
  • Biome variants with documented offsets (ΔL, ΔC, ΔH) and before/after thumbnails.
  • Accessibility set with shape‑only decals and grayscale validations.
  • Wear states (new/serviceable/worn) showing how class legibility persists.
  • LOD plan: which color blocks survive at distance; collapse micro‑stripes to single bands; maintain at least one accent on torso or shoulders.

Fantasy vs Sci‑Fi Translations

  • Fantasy: replace synthetics with dyestuffs and metalwork. Palette engineering becomes enamel color, lacquer, fabric dye, and gilding. Value/material contrast comes from polished vs blackened steel, matte wool vs satin brocade. Keep class accents as surcoat bands, pauldron enamels, or plume colors.
  • Sci‑Fi: leverage emissives and coated shells. Accent color may become light; ensure off‑state maintains shape contrast. Use panel paint with crisp chamfers; let decals ride inside inset frames to avoid edge wear erasing identity.

Case Studies

Recon (Light): Cool gray base, lime accent on helmet brow and left pauldron strip, matte microfiber everywhere else. In grayscale, lime zones sit two steps lighter than base; shape backup uses triangle icons. Jungle variant lifts accent value for canopy shade. Engineer (Medium): Slate + bone base, amber chevron on chest placard and right forearm tool port. Service trim adds enamel edge lines and cog placard. Urban night variant swaps amber band to safety orange and adds emissive pin at belt. Heavy (Heavy Armor): Oxide base with deep charcoal panels; red diagonal sash across breastplate and large knee bands. Elite trim adds engraved bevel wells with red enamel fill. Polar variant lightens base; red shifts toward deeper carmine to survive snow glare.

Workflow: From Brief to Package

  1. Lock grayscale hierarchy and silhouette blocks. 2) Choose faction neutrals. 3) Assign class accent hues with shape backups. 4) Map placement per armor weight. 5) Author trim levels via material finish, not extra color. 6) Build biome variants and accessibility set. 7) Paint three wear states and validate legibility in grayscale and under VFX comps. 8) Package swatches, placement maps, and LOD rules for downstream teams.

Closing Thought

Good palette work is invisible until it needs to speak. When value, hue, chroma, and material contrast are engineered around class reads and faction identity—and when those rules survive wear and weather—the audience never asks who does what. They already know.