A perceptual color space in Minecraft (Oklab)

What is a perceptual uniform color space and how can we use it in Minecraft.
Link to Oklab post
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Moulberry CIELAB link
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[@ShayanQ]

honestly you don't even have to justify, how to use these ideas in Minecraft. the ways you teach these cool ideas are interesting, fun and engaging.

[@gneissname]

Thank you, I don’t know how many people are here for what thing. I assume it’s a mix of Minecraft, geology, color, or just like how I present things. I thought about just doing the video on uniform spaces and applications outside of Minecraft but maybe it would be strange. It’s a good hook to get people interested I think.

[@ShayanQ]

@gneissname fair enough, I'm really enjoying the vids !

[@dj_enby]

​@gneissname your color videos have been illuminating! They would be great for classrooms.

[@kikivoorburg]

@@gneissname for me the interests are all mixed together: I just like learning in general, so minecraft / colour theory / geology is all fun! For your videos I see MC more as the medium you use to present the ideas, and if you want to use a different one that would also engage me! Can’t speak for others though, I might be an outlier

[@irgendwer3610]

@@gneissname me personally (and I obviously don't represent everyone), I am here to hear your interesting knowledge about geology and graphics while having the very engaging unique presentation you do. I don't care much about minecraft though, though I guess minecraft makes it a bit lighter on the eyes and makes it more friendly and less like studying

[@dutssz]

I'm mesmerized by the 3D powerpoint presentation tbh

[@EmissaryofWind]

It's the ultimate form of those videos that are just someone talking over Minecraft gameplay

[@b130610]

I've been exposed to color spaces for years in passing, and this is the first time I've really understood what they are, and why they are useful. What a novel thing to learn in minecraft lol.

[@gneissname]

I have to say that I learned a lot making this episode. It was really interesting seeing these explanations actually in 3D and being able to change between spaces.

[@NotGabe001]

same

[@risa1467]

It dawns on me that an End update with different End Biomes would really help in the Purple, Green, and Blue department...

[@gneissname]

Yes please! The seem so afraid of change.

[@ThisUsernameSystemF-ckingSucks]

They should also banish the phantom mob there too. Have like 2 or 3 spawn at the end towers.

[@BlueFalconHD]

Have you played any of the 1.21 snapshots? We get even more copper blocks, no blue or purple in sight@@gneissname

[@gostlyplays]

ehh i’m of the idea that the end dimension should stay empty and desolate, as is its theme. no glowing crazy trees or anything like that. only end dimension mod i like is nullscape because it gets that down quite well

[@AfonsodelCB]

@@gostlyplays were you of that opinion too when it came to the nether, and do you think the nether should have stayed as it was?

[@edzact_ly]

2:52 thats actually called a moire effect and its mostly seen with grid patterns. It happens with cameras irl, but if I remember correctly, the reason we see it in video games as well is because the game engine is trying to fit all individual pixels in the same area the farther you go from the pattern. It can be mitigated by using mipmapping so it changes the texture into a lower resolution, meaning less pixels for the game engine to render in a small area. I'm not a technical guy, but I got this information from a youtube video explaining how mip mapping works in GTA:SA

[@Joel-qo6gt]

When a grid's misaligned with another behind That's a moire! When the spacing is tight and the difference is slight That's a moire!

[@nick2-rn9uz]

Ayyy

[@meridiem.dolorem]

I was going to say the exact same

[@dranorter]

I'd think of it like, the grid of your screen's pixels is interacting with the grid of fine vertical lines (or more generally, the grid of any texture file). Mipmapping is essentially removing that grid by applying blurring (in a way that's performance-friendly).

[@edzact_ly]

@@dranorter Actually, yeah. I think that is how modern game engines do mip mapping. The example I gave is from the GTA:SA mip mapping video, and in that vid, custom textures need to have mip mapping levels generated with an external software. Pretty neat stuff to learn about even though I don't do programming or modding lol

[@Astroplatypus]

Perceptual color spaces are also especially important for data visualization! So many maps and charts use terrible colors spaces that don't look uniform to our eyes, and the effect gets even worse when seen in grayscale or by a colorblind reader. This can really skew how we perceive data. Next time you see an infographic map on social media, take a moment to consider if its colors are telling an honest story.

[@gneissname]

This is the hidden answer to the 4th question. I use uniform gradients when making figures and displaying data.

[@MrQuickLine]

Preach!

[@kilor78]

I'm a UX Designer in a company that deals a lot with data visualization and OKLab has been a godsent. I don't want to know how much time I've wasted finding the perfect graph colors for clients CIs with sRGB only for stumbling over OKLab and making the process almost trivial 😅

[@jhsevs]

Two unfun facts: The color spectrum that screens are able to render, looks like a triangle with each corner being red, green and blue. Our eyes are able to see slightly more than this, more like an ear-shaped oval, which means that some colors fall outside the spectrum that screens are able to reproduce. Some colors that we don’t see on screens are teal/cyan, and deep purple. This is why some teal painted cars from the 50s look so good irl, because we’re not used to seeing colors like that when we stare at tvs all day long. White LEDs are made by putting yellow phosphor over blue COBs. This means that almost all white leds produce not actual white, but a combination of yellow and blue, which we percieve as "white". All modern cars have LED headlights, and way too many of them have an incredibly low color rendering index. This means that some of them barely show any light output at all in the red and green parts of the color spectrum. I live in Norway where deer jump into the road every day. Deer are redish brown, but in LED lights they almost look pitch black, since the LEDs don’t show enough in the red. Same with people wearing olive green jackets. Those jackets look black under poor LEDs. Also, when it’s raining, they make it hard to see through the rain. Water is blue, it reflects almost only blue light even though raindrops don’t look blue when they fall down. Same with fog and snow. LEDs make raindrops light up the sky in front of you. Sometimes you see photos on the internet of people braggong about their aftermarket LED light bars and driving lights. They usually show a cone of bluish white light in front of the vehicle. This is just rain or fog that is reflected. And this is why yellow halogen fog lights are superior in those conditions, because the yellow light just shines through the fog and lights up the road instead.

[@Dingyfried]

As someone who has spent a lot of time messing around in HSV trying to find good gradients for builds, this one video has resolved a MIND-BLOWING number of questions and shortcomings I've encountered over the years!

[@gneissname]

Hey Dingy! This really filled in some spaces for me too. Like i knew this or that but seeing it in these different ways as i made it was what i needed to actually fully understand what is going on. Like mixing in linear space and seeing it as a line was a ah ha moment.

[@fwiffo]

One minor detail: if you want to blend colors in the way light blends (e.g. to cross-fade between images, simulate light in some rendering, resizing an image, etc.) you want to use a linear space, like linear RGB or XYZ. A perceptually uniform space like Lab is good for selecting colors for a smooth looking gradient, or to identify sparse areas of the Minecraft block pallette that should get blocks in future versions.

[@kikivoorburg]

1:40 woah that’s amazing!! Is that graph made with display entities? It’s unbelievable what can be done in modern minecraft!! Edit: One thing I will say regarding perceptually uniform colour spaces: I used OKLAB (well actually the HSV-equivalent with Chroma, Hue, and Lightness) to make a set of rainbow colours. I found, however, that they somehow felt less aesthetically pleasing than the RGB version. After messing around for a while, I discovered that lightness contrast between colours (even in a rainbow colour scheme) actually makes the colour scheme look better. RGB has a crude version of this built-in, so going from that to perfectly uniform OKLAB was weird. However, by using a perceptually uniform space I could now _make my own function to change contrast from colour to colour._ I ended up using linear lightness and sinusoidal chroma. The lightness peaked at yellow and dimmed at purple, while the chroma had double the frequency - peaking both at yellow and purple. This colour scheme was now more pleasing to my eye than both the perfectly uniform one and the sRGB one! Perfectly uniform spectra are probably best for colour-based texturing or pure smooth gradients. In other cases, contrast is very important! TL;DR: The contrast difference between colours in RGB is actually nice, but inflexible and arbitrary. Using OKLAB lets you choose your own contrast difference which can look much nicer. However, making a nice colour scheme isn’t always as simple as just making a perfectly uniform spectrum.

[@gneissname]

That’s cool. The higher contrast rainbow makes sense since it’s what our eyes are accustom to seeing that in real rainbows. A real life shifted to perceptually uniform would be strange.

[@Pfych]

I’ve been showing this video to a lot of my developer friends/coworkers because it’s an amazing interactive presentation on colour spaces. 10/10

[@gneissname]

Thanks, being able move around and actually see the relationships really helped me understand the spaces myself.

[@keegannaser9503]

Microscope transition was crazy

[@WittedFool]

Dude, you got this perfect lens of science, games, and teaching that’s amazing! Makes me glad to see that it’s possible to bring together their careers and backgrounds into the things they love, even when it’s video games!

[@supahvaporeon]

0:07 Because you ran out of rocks to taste in your immediate vicinity, and had to settle with just looking at them like a SAVAGE archeologist

[@wendyschwartz7455]

Fun fact, archeologists also lick rocks! It’s the easiest way to tell if something is a bone or not because bones will stick to your tongue (even if fossilized)

[@guerrierhache8491]

watchin this as a colorblind person is very funny, because i don't even see what you'e talking about lol but the fact that i understand regardless is a testament to how informative this video is

[@Miss_Trillium]

I'm curious, do you see the light or hue difference? Like whether or not those transition blocks are darker or lighter?

[@guerrierhache8491]

@@Miss_Trillium i see the difference in the amount of light between blocks, and if you show me a red or green block (I have deuteranomaly, I don't have enough green and red receptors but I do have them) I'll be able to tell if it's red or green, and if you show them next to each other I'll be able to sort of tell where each are, but in a continuum or two random shapes that share a line and I won't be able to tell where the line is and near that line I won't be able to tell which color is where

[@Quesbe]

*sad colorblind noises* More seriously, I'm quite curious to see what a colorblind version of the Oklab color space would look like.

[@deepintermission]

Its crazy, despite mainly just having jump cuts as editing, the amount of effort put into displaying information in game makes this feel more professional than most modern MC youtube videos, or just videos in general. Not to mention since its in game people can actually interact with it, which is legitimately sick. I’m in love with this channel, in fact I’m especially in love with this video because I’ve always found color space’s interesting and learning about new ones is cool, but then again I could say I’ve fallen in love with all the videos you’ve made due to similar reasons. 10/10, keep up the good work.

[@live_destin-3408]

The animations you make are INSAINE. I can fully appreciate the amount of time you've put into this because I've tried making just s simple 3d display with particles once and it was crazy hard. I can't imagine then animating that. Hopefully this gets more recognition

[@crocodoom]

Your content is such an absolute gem and it speaks volumes of your sheer level of talent. From real world geology, to computer colour display, all programmed in Minecraft command blocks - I look forward to seeing your channel really take off, because this quality is so lovely to see.

[@a_puntato29]

i didn't expect to learn anything that was transferable to what i do because im pretty familiar with colors in relation to pixel art, but this actually did help me understand some oddities i hadn't thought too hard about when making color ramps, so thank you! also, mojang should absolutely look at this world when they next think about adding any notable amount of building blocks, because the amount of black-white & warm colored blocks compared to cold colors is abysmal

[@wtolman]

Thanks for covering this, I left a comment a while ago on color models so finally seeing you cover it in detail is fantastic. When I and many other artists I'm sure were taught color transitioning for digital painting, it was taught from an sRGB/HSV perspective. Meaning the color picking and blending process was done using those color models. So its funny seeing that I've been doing silly maneuvers with my value as I transition colors, sorta like the thrown away rubberband showed :D Hopefully artist programs begin to adopt Oklab and similar models.

[@AceMartinov]

It’s insane how far Minecraft as a platform has developed. Great work on the video!

[@jurian0101]

13:17 like GoodTimesWithScar once points out, vanilla Minecraft lacks blue blocks gravely. And this visualization of yours just bring his point to light!

[@ZephyrysBaum]

This is amazing! Will definitely look more into Oklab, i wish a Mojang developer/Texture creator looked at this for the next update!

[@witchymary1037]

Incredible video, and opened my eyes how useful minecraft can be as a teaching tool. I was linked here not for minecraft building, but for teaching how colorspaces work. You should be proud!

[@greenberrygk]

Can we just agree that blue and cyan should be considered completely different colors? It has its own corner on the color space. Historically orange was once considered reddish-yellow, and we changed that.

[@GuyllianVanRixtel]

On bedrock edition, if you turn on education edition features, you get a bunch of new items. One of them is called the Material Reducer. It is a block that shows what items are made of, including stone. You can guess where this is going.

[@gunsandchips]

was really surprised too at your different gradients between RGB and Oklab - thanks for sharing the world, i'm excited to play around with it myself!

[@thorongil9]

"These are all great questions, and I'll answer three of them" lol

[@sewoh100]

Color theory really is starting to look like music theory, beautiful

[@lordkelvin1]

Can't imagine how much effort went into making this video. Amazing work!

[@Quickst3p]

This is some next level interesting shit. I, as a photographer and videographer, was always utterly confused by colorspaces. You have a way of explaining it that just knocked it out the park... Mad respect!

[@mohiuddinsyed1684]

I am pleasantly surprised as to how well I was able to understand color spaces from a Minecraft visualization.

[@nomiglorissa8233]

Your understanding of the world is unmatched. Like I bet if you wanted, you could fuse any 2 substances known to humans in your garage in like 3 minutes.

[@Take_that_Taeik]

Minecraft is *EXCELLENT* when describing something in 3 dimentional. That's what I've always been thinking. And I finally found a video that can direct-prove it.

[@neaputbutter]

I always wondered why i didnt like color pickers in most softwares. now I know why!

[@Lobster_With_A_Gun]

This right here is the coolest Minecraft video ive like ever seen. I dunno how the hell you even kinda begin to make such a video. Congratulations!

[@LunchBoxer]

i like learning about things better when someone playing minecraft explains it to me

[@tinyturtle1898]

I love OKLAB, the even differences between hues is perfect for Pixel art and building

[@RaiJolt2]

Every one of your videos are super unique and cool, love the effort you put in!

[@Wyattporter]

Damn, that transition out of the game was slick

[@DrW1ne]

That's a great lesson of color spaces. I love the Minecraft demonstration.

[@firestorm5371]

This seems to a really cool way to visualize it in general

[@2stral]

that phone/microscopr bit was amazing

[@posterboymc]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C Clarke Thank you for sharing this cool tool that I can't understand how it exists in Minecraft.

[@roboltamy]

I do take a genuine interest in color spaces and this is like exactly the kind of color space I've wanted, but it's also really nice to see all these amazing visuals in Minecraft. Phenomenal video and I look forward to whatever you might do next.

[@thomaskaldahl196]

Seriously incredible!!! I've already read up on these topics so this video is review to me, but I feel like my ability to explain these concepts has grown substantially by watching this video. Seriously great work!

[@opalpersonal]

i've been playing minecraft for more than a decade now and i still don't understand how these things are possible inside it. amazing, amazing work.

[@furank_i]

Well deserved like, this should be shown in digital art and color science classes!

[@Nienna_Asyare]

This is like a whole power point presentation created in Minecraft, wow that's amazing! xD Also, this was quite educational! Ty!

[@lukttk]

"the human eye doesnt treat all colors the same" this is actualy deep

[@snxethan]

I love your channel, all of your videos are incredibly interesting and you provide such unique perspective on the game, the amount of effort in your videos don't go unnoticed! keep up the great work

[@andrewzhang6674]

You’re content is actually so fun, if teachers taught like this I’d pay attentuon

[@stanzacosmi]

Honestly, this just proves that we don't need "Oh trial chambers" we need more color variants of existing blocks. Dyed wood and such

[@puffyboi8766]

I started watching the video on my 2 monitors at the same time, fascinating how different it looks

[@kuuh]

You have no idea of how much I needed these technical details explained at such great level. Congrats. Having it done in minecraft is insane

[@tangentfox4677]

Holy shit the editing into the microscope and back was SMOOTH

[@oglothenerd]

Wait, you animated stuff in Minecraft? Instant subscription!

[@JuneTreeDraws]

OMG I was just thinking about how much I’d love to see OKLAB in your videos! Your videos are seriously my favorite. Keep up the amazing work

[@nicreven]

I'm insanely impressed by the production value here; I really hope the algorithm picks this up

[@David-pd4xm]

honestly this format for explaining things is so impressive and engaging. i dont even build in mc but damn was this captivating anyway

[@DrownedLamp]

I don't care what (mine)cart you use as a vehicle, amazing job and very informative.

[@philippw4769]

I just saw one of your videos from 2 years ago and i have to say that your delivery got so much better. Great content, i learn a lot, thank you!

[@dasha_in_vibe]

color spaces are such a niche little silly topic and im glad I've found your channel :)

[@Housechicken06]

I don’t know a lot about digital colors except obviously rgb,but this video gave me a lot more understanding of digital colors and stuff like that.

[@realscapegoat592]

This is an extremely well made video! I agree that this is such a well-made explanation of color space that even if you hadn't provided a justification for it I would still have enjoyed the video. And, the command block work you did for the in-game demonstrations is really really well done. It's rare you see a video this good from a channel with this many subscribers - keep it up!

[@Matojeje]

This was really well edited, nice!

[@gneissname]

Thanks. These are always a challenge for me to record/edit. Lots of precise verbiage that I need to remember/deliver while doing a certain thing in the game. I try and edit around issues as much as I can. Learning a lot about editing and all that.

[@Talon_24]

Wow, color me impressed Didn't really know much about color spaces before, this was a very cool explanation

[@tjmoody5932]

This is soooo fire, when I learned about oklab I could see how useful it would be for art, to see that brought to minecraft where visual plotting of colors is arguably more important is super cool

[@Drache832]

Ive just discovered this channel and Im absolutely mind blown by the way you present your topic, great job!

[@fentlacedxans]

this is the one of the best explanations of how color spaces actually work ive seen online im not gonna lie

[@zralok]

For the great work and for it being shown to more people, I really want to write this comment, and say thanks, that really helped understanding color spaces

[@evaa9810]

I had no idea what to expect when I clicked on this video, but I was so pleasantly surprised, this is such a fascinating video, and its so helpful to see colour in this 3d space, answers so many questions and problems I've had when useing colour spaces! Awesome!

[@DaisyAjay]

Thanks for this, hadn't heard of OK lab. You're a genius.

[@Malboop]

Duude you’re so underrated! All of your videos are so interesting and it’s actually just so sickk!!

[@CrunkNuts]

This guy is a wizard with command blocks.

[@silicalnz]

It's so cool to have a 3D environment to work with colour spaces. I've been interacting them for years to do image morphing. Oklab looks gorgeous. I'm adding that to my options right away.

[@louislemahieu8663]

It's been a long time since I double and triple checked to make sure I had clicked like on a video. Amazing stuff, well done and explained super clearly, awesome showcase!

[@mycroft3322]

As a concert lighting designer, I work in RGB spaces all the time. I absolutely LOVED your explanation of color theory here, and your extremely effective explanations of the basic concepts and the issues with the various models.

[@ScratchOMatic]

I can’t get over at how every episode you always have such an amazing way to teach topics to us! You’re so smart and I love your dedication!!!

[@mellowyellow5427]

We don't deserve explanations this clear and illustrated. We are not worthy.

[@Stupping]

I study filmmaking and this finally put a nail in the coffin for understanding color spaces. Thank you. Also nice datapack work :D

[@gneissname]

Glad to hear it.

[@sillychicken777]

i wish they had a 3d colour picker in procreate that used ok lab or lav whatever it was. i have been lerning how to do digital art for a while and i have always been fascinated but also overwhelmed by colour. its very difficult to get a natural looking transition between colours useing the srgb colour picker because you can only see 1 hue at a time. this is an epic video your very smart and educated on this subject

[@tomergngn]

Computer science student speaking, and I just gotta say this was really informative and fun to learn. I never heard about this concept, but as you were talking about some problems you faced in minecraft, I already came up with a few algorithms / ideas to optimize your transition from Oklab to minecraft. If you're curious or want to learn more about what I have came up with, please do write and I'll try my best to explain! :D

[@andrewmorehead3704]

I feel like one more step for this type of thing would be to have some sort of rating for the uniformity of the blocks. For example, concrete would score very high while and enchanting table would be very low. I could see this being useful as I don’t know if I’d use an enchanting table as part of a palette even if it’s in the correct part of the color space.

[@gneissname]

Stay tuned for the next color episode 😉

[@aeneastorres]

This video and your channel is incredible. The information, transitions, editing, and attention to detail is truly impressive. Not only do I learn so much with your videos but I am also very engaged by the presentation. Well done!

[@BrandonVonOtt]

This was a very new concept to me. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to you explain the idea behind color space, and I’m just trying to think on what I might use it in for my life! Highly informative video

[@dudelookatree]

One of the better talks on color spaces lol

[@bitroix_]

This is insanely well made- thank you!

[@justaweeb14688]

This video is wonderful and very educational. I love all the animations too

[@wonkywonky6307]

this is genuinely amazing. fantastic job on the creation of this, and I love the implementation in minecraft! congrats

[@Boredman567]

6:03 Maybe I'm just accustomed to working with digital color, but the hue looks correct to me. If you mix that hue of ultramarine blue with white, you end up with that sort of light indigo baby blue. Because our eyes give different apparent brightness to different hues, we associate light blue with cyan, and dark blue with indigo. It would look more natural if the lighter blues were less "purple", but then you would have to actually change the hue and make it a more greenish cyan blue color. The "purple" isn't actually a change in hue at all. It's just a perceptual quirk, because cyan seems so bright and indigo seems so dark.

[@illuminate4]

props on the ingame animations! they're insanely well done

[@Lalovoe]

When I was like 12/13 and picking colors for blending when making Minecraft skins I intentionally "curved" the color samples from the color picker because I knew the perceived brightness would stay more consistent that way. I WAS AHEAD OF THE GAME!!!!

[@Alex_Anderson]

That transition from the game to microscope back to game was flawless!!

[@dimasp450]

Why?! Why doesn't this channel still have more than a million subscribers?! he deserves it. thank you so much. your work is priceless

[@thegayestgaythatevergayed5449]

Wow that’s crazy how much better the transitions are in oklab

[@lightning_11]

Wow, these videos just keep getting better!!

[@JalenJaguar]

There is something very interesting about how a game on screen emulates electromagnetic radiation in certain spectrums to create to recognizable hues we see as color

[@Railway_Riches]

I love your formatting of videos so much! I wish school was this engaging and fun! The topic doesn’t matter, but the presentation, application of the lesson, and visuals all made the experience much more enjoyable!