Feature request: left to right gradient

[mikrosk]

Not sure whether this is something you'd be interested in but for vertical gradients I'm using this: https://gecdesigns.com/color-gradient-generator ... and while it works, it can't be compared with the features offered by your tool! :)

[grahambates]

I could add an option to the PNG output format to save in different orientations and potentially offer different preview modes in the editor. Is this what you had in mind?

[mikrosk]

Yes, that would be sufficient. I realize that storing it as asm output would be a bit more difficult (because you are not writing palette values anymore but real pixels) so I'm totally fine with a bitmap output only for such cases.

[grahambates]

I've added a horizontal option to the PNG output mode:

Changing the editor display too would be bit more complex as I'd need to redo the dragging behaviour. Is this something that's important to you?

[mikrosk]

Wow, that was fast. I doesn't need it to be rotated, not at all.

However I have noticed one thing which was perhaps not that important for the horizontal version: differentiating between resolution and the number of steps.

The horizontal version is basically built around the idea that you can change the colour on every scanline (or every second scanline etc) from an unlimited number of colours (limited only by the palette).

However the vertical version doesn't have this luxury: if I want to create a vertical gradient, I must write pixels there. So now, if I want to create a gradient with 16 steps, I get... a 16-column image. It would be cool if one could specify the amount of pixels to write these steps into (maybe even for the horizontal version?) so one can say "hey, I want 16 colours/shades distributed over 320 pixels".

Is it asking too much? ;-)

EDIT: it's totally ok to do this only for the PNG export.

[grahambates]

Ok so we're talking about limiting the gradient to a distinct number of palette entries, regardless of steps. This would be really useful but I'll need to think about the best way to implement it. It needs to go in further up the chain when it's calculating the hex values, taking into account dithering, colour models etc. rather than just being part of the output module.

I would really like to implement this though so leave it with me!

[mikrosk]

Frankly, I could even work around it in my code: all it takes is to have an integral multiplier of the final value. So for instance I generate 16 vertical steps (i.e. using 16 colours), save it as 16xN PNG and every 320/16 = 20th step I just fill the same colour for 16 the next pixels.

But you are right, if you want to do this nicely (especially with the dithering in play), this has to be calculated on a higher level, too.

[grahambates]

Another thing to consider is that currently this tool only does one dimensional dithering, given that the expected output format was a single array of colour values. When we look at bitmap output formats this opens up the scope to 2D dither patterns such as bayer or Floyd Steinberg that repeat over multiple lines. This changes the scope of this tool a bit, but I'll think about whether there's a good way to incorporate this.

[mikrosk]

You could also think about stuff like two dimensional gradients :) But if we stay with the initial requirements (one line / one column gradient), I think you don't have to worry about 2D dithering at all.

[grahambates]

Yeah the simple option would be to just add a 'scale' option to the PNG output that just repeats pixels as you described. I'd like to have a go at implementing the more 'correct' solution though :-)

[mikrosk]

Hey, any updates on this?

[grahambates]

Sorry, I started this and completely forgot about it! I'll pick it up again this week.

[grahambates]

I've got a working implementation of the limited palette option we discussed. It's available in a dev build on https://gradient-blaster-4kf2vtxta-grahambates.vercel.app

There are a couple of bugs to iron out, but it would be good to check if this meets you use case. To use it, enable the 'palette size' option and set the desired number of colours:

[mikrosk]

Maybe I'm not using it correctly but it produces odd results for me.

For instance, why is palette size = 16 and steps = 16 producing just one color?

Also, why palette size = 16 and steps = 320 (i.e. an integer result of 320/16 division) produces an irregular gradient? (even without dithering). For instance this one: https://gradient-blaster-4kf2vtxta-grahambates.vercel.app/?points=ffff00@0,0000ff@319&steps=320&blendMode=oklab&ditherMode=off&target=atariFalcon24 (set palette size to 16 afterwards) ... shouldn't it look more symmetric?

[grahambates]

Yeah so one of the bugs I'm looking at is that it doesn't work correctly on small ranges.

For your second example, the irregular nature is due to the way that the blending and colour proximity algorithms are based on perceptual distance, rather than linear RGB values. Basically the initial blending to create the gradient usually happens in a non-RGB colour space (e.g. OKLAB by default) to give a visually correct transition rather than even RGB steps. Then the palette reducing algorithm finds the best X colours (e.g. 16) to represent that gradient. This also takes into account the way the eye perceives colour rather than just the difference in RGB values.

Hope this explains the reasoning. I'm going to keep working on resolving the remaining bugs and tweaking parameters to get better results.