Color Manipulation
There is an accepted standard for the coloring of notes based on their rhythmic values in relation to the beat of the chart. This is somewhat arbitrary and its roots come from the Note noteskin in StepMania. However, it's a color scheme that has generally worked for a very long time with significant reason, and fits very well with many situations. These reasons, combined with the fact that it was used for so many years prominently in the StepMania community, resulted in this color scheme being considered the standard.
Here is a list of rhythmic values and their corresponding colors:
- 4th note: Red
- 8th note: Blue
- 12th note: Purple
- 16th note: Yellow
- 24th note: Pink
- 32th note: Orange
- 48th note: Cyan
- 64th note: Green
- 96th/192nd note or other intervals: Green (White in some other games)
There are general trends in the colors chosen that can explain why this scheme is effective. Rhythmic note values that are powers of 2 are considered to be more "rigid" compared to triplet rhythms, which can be thought of as more "flowing". The more rigid rhythm values of powers of 2 are colored with brighter primary colors with high contrast, while the triplet rhythms have "cooler" coloring schemes that are all mixes of red and blue. Some colors are defined appropriately as the transition between two rhythmic values, such as the 32nd note. It is orange, which fits very nicely between the 4th and 16th notes that are red and yellow. Other colors are just meant to pop out, like the green 64th note, making it a desirable choice when crafting instrument solos and complex riffs, since the rhythmic sync adjustment will naturally form many of these rhythmic intervals anyways. The triplet rhythm values also get lighter as the rhythm gets shorter, transitioning from a dark purple to a bright cyan or white. There is also the analogous matching of the accepted scheme and its 24th shift, which will be explained below.
The color of the notes plays an important role in charts that is usually ignored. Solo sections of many charts are usually very notable and exciting to play because the more freeform rhythms result in colorful notes that pop out compared to the rest of the chart, due to rhythmic sync adjustments. Players are normally accustomed to using the note colors as rhythmic guides, so when they break from the rigid structure, it subconsciously creates excitement and intrigue. As such, sometimes color manipulation will be a good choice to further enhance a chart to fit the music.
There are generally two major ways of manipulating the color of the notes. Since the song needs to stay in sync and colors on rhythmic values are fixed, BPM changes or stops might be necessary to shift the chart where needed, so that the notes land on the desired colors. This technique is generally used to highlight particular effects or instrument tracks in the song, as another layering technique. Changing the colors to something that is not expected gives it attention and makes it clear what it's trying to follow. Sometimes, if the BPM is fast enough or the notes are accurate enough, the notes can simply be shifted a very small interval, like a 192nd, 96th, or 64th. It creates a different color without the need to manipulate BPM changes and stops too much.
The second type of color manipulation is indirectly changing the entire scheme by using a different BPM and/or shifting the entire chart by a particular rhythmic interval to match the music. Here are the most common manipulation schemes:
- Shifting by an 8th note: Switches red and blue colors so that blue is the downbeat and red is the upbeat
- Shifting by a 24th note: Makes 4th notes pink, 8th notes purple, and 16th notes cyan. Other intervals will usually end as green/white due to the nature of shifting.
- 4/3rd BPM: Usually used for music in 3/4 time, as it makes one measure 3 beats long, where the downbeats are colored as red, purple, purple.
- 4/3rd BPM and shifting an 8th note: Same as above, but downbeats become blue, pink, pink.
- 3/4th BPM: 16th streams will look like 64th streams in terms of coloring.
Do keep in mind what your target audience is and how your charts are published. For instance, Etterna's default noteskins use a green note for 12ths, which are normally purple. The reasoning for the change was due to the how common 12th notes were and green providing maximum contrast against the other colors and typically black background to make them easier to see. Keep this in mind when designing charts that may heavily utilize the purple color in these notes.
The song is in 3/4 time. If followed normally, with downbeats all on red notes, the coloring scheme would predominantly be red and blue, which are colors with high contrast with each other. Multiplying the BPM by 4/3 to stretch a measure to 4 beats puts the downbeats as red, purple, purple, which creates the more flowing, and also muted, color scheme that fits the mood of the music better.
Throughout the song, the vocal samples have heavy filter effects on them, which creates a more muted sound. There's a certain tranquil, soothing mood as the song begins. All of these factors in combination led to the judgment that shifting the entire chart by a 24th note would result in a more fitting color scheme. Even better, the cooler coloring scheme makes the highlighted section's use of high contrast, brighter notes stand out as the song rises in tension to transition to the chorus.
There are some caveats, however. Color, at its core, is to be treated as flair. It is not a substitute for the fundamentals and will not save a chart that already has problems. In addition, in the context of this rhythm game in particularly, color manipulation is generally most effective when it plays on our expectations. We already associate certain colors to certain rhythmic values, so when this expectation is broken in ways that convey clear and meaningful ideas, it creates connotation that makes the chart more interesting. If color manipulation is abused and used too frequently or aggressively, that baseline expectation is broken, and the colors will not carry much meaning to the player. As with any technique, try not to encode too much information into color theory that will result in players being confused about the intention of each color. It will result in the chart feeling messy and unpolished rather than clever and interesting.