Question about achieving a result from combining/overlaying two colors?

[ShiftSike]

Hello! I've been trying all day to achieve a specific result from combining two things, but I have failed at finding the solution. I figured someone here might have an idea?

 

A small bit of background information to explain, I'm trying to recreate how the PS1 multiplies textures over vertex colors. I have the final result needed for reference, however attempting to recreate it with the two items that make up that result it proving to not happen the way I need it to. The multiply blending mode is close, but it's a bit dark and less... saturated? Or perhaps the word I'm looking for is rich. I've tested all the other blending modes too, with both layers swapped on each to make sure, to no avail.

 

I've attached an image of what I need vs the best I can get. Ignore the alpha data or lack of on the results, I can do that once the correct colors are obtained.

 

 

 

 

[Pixey]

Hello @ShiftSike and welcome to the forum

 

Perhaps this may be of interest to you: 

 

[ShiftSike]

@PixeyThank you for the quick response and the welcome! I tried out the plugin and it's actually insanely good, I can see myself using this for a lot of texturing in the future! Tons of vibrant results I would have killed for in the past!

 

...Unfortunately though, doesn't seem to be able to blend in a way I need, even when messing with saturation and brightness with the most promising results 😪

 

Not that it's ENTIRELY relevant, but I realized this is the first time I need this kind of blending for anything. Even from the same exact source as this, multiply always just works. This is 100% the two things I need to blend to get that result though, so I'm not really sure why this one is being finicky and specific...

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Try this setup. Reference image is on the left. My output on the right, created from one gray dot layer and three orange square layers:

 

How you're going to transfer this into something useful is beyond me! 😁

 

I didn't play with the horsie.

 

I suspect gray in the top two images might be a blending indicator. I'm seeing White is not blended at all while Black is fully used. Grays are somewhere in between. My conclusion is that maybe the inverse Luminosity of the gray-based images affects how much they are blended.

 

 

[ShiftSike]

@Ego Eram ReputoHey, that's super helpful! It's not perfect, but it's close enough to where it can probably be manually tweaked to match close enough to what it's probably supposed to look like (For examples where I don't have a correct result layed out for me, of course)

 

I was willing to accept this as the best I would probably get, but I did come across one more thing while playing around with those blend setting. In fact, its so simple I'm surprised I didn't notice it before.

 

When a pure white color is using the overlay blend mode above the correct result texture I'm trying to replicate, it returns the correct result back to the yellow box that made it up (well, like 99% the same, a few negligible ticks off barely noticeable by the eye). I was very excited to learn this, as I figured I could just do the opposite to at the very least make the yellow box the right color and go from there, but... the problem is, I couldn't exactly figure out HOW to do the opposite of that. I played with blacks and grays and multiply and the such, but I can't quite get to get this result backwards.

 

I think managing to reverse the process to re-obtain one of the original assets that made it is a good start, as I already can theory craft how to apply the differences in the grey box if just the yellow box was the right color. But of course I could be missing something and this could mean nothing at all... which would definitely be a bummer. If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them! Of course though, I thank you two for the help you've given already a ton, it's already helped get this way closer than I had it before.

 

(Also since I failed to remember to mention it in this post, overlaying white over the correct brown texture reverts it back to the brown box as well, it seems to be a global constant across these and the few I didn't post)

Edited May 10, 2021 by ShiftSike

[Ego Eram Reputo]

15 hours ago, ShiftSike said:

the problem is, I couldn't exactly figure out HOW to do the opposite of that. I played with blacks and grays and multiply and the such, but I can't quite get to get this result backwards.

 

My CSV filetype plugin might help here. I wrote it for something very similar to what you are trying to do. The plugin allows you to output the pixel data as numerical values. Do that for each of the reference images (source, overlay and output) and you'll have some numbers to compare.