Considering Color Grading for Anime.

Hello everyone!

These days, I find myself quite busy and all over the place. It's been quite a hectic time lately! (Though I hardly go out anyway.)

In the midst of all this, I'm brainstorming and prototyping ideas for graphic enhancements in the next Shoost update! Specifically, I'm thinking about incorporating color grading techniques.

↑ Example of color grading.

Color grading is a technique used to adjust the color tones of videos or images to create specific atmospheres or impressions. It might be easier to understand if you think of movies. If we can implement this in Shoost, I believe we can really power up the visual expressions.

However, simply adding parameters would require specialized knowledge to operate, potentially making it difficult to use. To avoid this, I'm considering preparing several preset screen effects in advance, allowing users to easily change the appearance by just selecting one. It's kind of like switching between color filters in a camera app, if that helps you imagine it.

↑ Image of filter selection.

But here's where we run into a problem.

While color filter functions like those in camera apps are effective for realistic expressions like live-action, they often don't work well with 2D expressions like anime. In my personal experience, they tend to make things too white or crush the colors.

Since Shoost mainly focuses on effects suitable for anime expressions, I want to create color grading that's appropriate for anime.

We're also planning to add other effects like chromatic aberration and lens distortion. I hope that by combining these, we can achieve even richer expressions.

As we're developing through trial and error, I'm not sure how well we'll be able to pull it off, but I'm determined to create something great!

Look forward to the next update!