Colour and Texture

From: Lewis Jardine <jardine_at_rmcs.cranfield.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 10:22:36 +0100

I liked the stuff on different cultures perception of colour and in the case of Uz texture. In the absence of hard science in the cultures I believe it would be quite possible for these systems to evolve. However, as cultures become more civilized I suspect that they evolve/create extra words to cover other colours even though they would be used less often than important colours such as imperial crimson, carmine, sunrise orange and dusk pink.

        To the Orlanthi "fire coloured" is quite sufficient to cover all the oranges and reds except for "blood coloured" which describes the moon. Other Orlanthi colours are "grass", "pine needle", "wode" and "sky" as well as "cloud", "storm", "dark" to describe white, grey and black.

        The idea of Uz using texture and grey-level appeals too much for me to ignore it. Grey levels are easier to start with and it might be useful to apply god/runic concept to their names:-

Subere - Warm and pleasant
Xentha - Comfortable
Storm - Limit of tolerability
Yelm - Bloody unpleasant

        Texture is of course harder. However, one aspect that might help understanding is the the high correlation researchers have found between Fractal dimension and the human concept of roughness in visual images. I believe that while human are very aware of visual texture and use it to help recognize and identify objects as well as determining range, trolls take this one step further. What is mainly unconcious in humans (rough, rougher, smooth soother etc.) is much more conscious in Uz. Here are some ideas for a texture scale:

Styx
Obsidian
Slate
Sand
Grit
Gravel
Shale
Rock

Anyway some ideas, I'll try to look up some data on fractal dimension of thinks to get some real ideas...

Cheers

        Lewis

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