Need help modeling extended vision and colorblindness with GIMP and/or PAINT.net

[Snargash Moonclaw]

Some interesting points here. A few of them I've covered over on CBG (but I'm crossposting your post into that discussion as well). I'm actually seeking to model, or at least describe well, a few different visual experiences. Elves, like bees, see in ultraviolet, but not red, while orkhs see in infrared but not violet - their crossbreeding produced humans (seeing "normally"). For all of them the number of colors is essentially the same, but none of them will have the same visual experience. I suspect that artists trying to create a realistic scene under bright afternoon light will all reproduce roughly the same pigment mixtures - and it would require a lot of comparison to recognize that they were seeing things differently. That is, regardless of how it appears to the individual - a mixture of pigments which matches their perception of the color of grass will result in agreement by artists of all 3 races that it's a reasonable match - even though one is seeing a much more bluish green and another a much more yellowish green. But, overtones from ultraviolet or infrared may skew them - I'm imagining a difference in luminosity, but not real sure here. I haven't started playing yet with vision extending into both hyperspectral bands - adding new colors at each end of the visual spectrum. (and I've got no idea what "Dark Vision" would actually look like. . .)

Since you mention it, solar color is critical, esp. in cultural development. It's a binary system with one larger red-orange star and a smaller, brighter yellow-white star. The smaller currently is nearly dead center upon the face of the larger, but their orbit around a shared gravitational axis has a slight offset, so over a 40,000 year period the smaller appears to cross the face of the large and then disappears behind it, leaving only the large one visible for about 10,000 (dim, cold) years of the cycle. I'm wondering how much UV the red-orange star would emit - without it the elves are in twilight that whole time - even with it I suspect it's still pretty dim.

----------------
Now playing: Track 1
via FoxyTunes

[Redrobes]

The spectrum from stars follows the black-body curves which wikipedia has an entry. The graph within is here tho:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Blackbody-lg.png

and this shows curves where there is a steep left side and a slow falling tail on the right. The point here is that if your star is a little cooler than our sun then you would a similar amount of infra red but the UV would be significantly reduced. Being coarse about it then the top end UV frequency is determined by the star temperature.

I would think that these new colours would be seen as monochrome or possibly new colours that we cant conceive of. Its like trying to describe red to a colour blind person. How do you do it.

As an aside, I thought elves had infravision as well.

[jfrazierjr]

I would think that these new colours would be seen as monochrome or possibly new colours that we cant conceive of. Its like trying to describe red to a colour blind person. How do you do it.

Yea... thats why, even though this is a cool topic, I have not replied since thinking about such things just makes my brain hurt...