Mecrofeeding: The Way to Chocobo Color Dyeing

[AttacKat]

Many players has been experimenting with their Chocobos and its color dyeing process and dealt with frustration. In many cases, the players sinks into a color loops and their endless attempts of feeding different fruits just brings them back to the same trap. This thread is an attempt to help end all these frustrations. After two weeks of personal research and experiments, growing hundreds of different fruits and countless of feeding experiments and data analysis, I believe I am close at figuring out the chocobo color dyeing logic and its process.

This is not exact because we do not have the exact RGB values the game uses, but it should help ease everyone's path on getting the Chocobo color of their choice, as well as define a road map on how to achieve the color they desire.**

The initial discovery was that the "feather proc" signals the change in color, and this still hold true. However, what we did not have was a way to keep track of the behavior the fruits have thereafter. So some other players started to formulate behind the theory that all fruits behaves in the matter described in the patch note, deepen or lighten a given color, hence the creation of the Chocobo Colour Simulator spreadsheet. This theory is described in the Missing Manual thread.

Following the Missing Manual theory, I started taking my experiment down that direction, and using the simulator I started to noticed many players faces with the color trap. After trying it out this way myself, I was never able to reach the desired color. It was with this I started noticing that when people recommends feed amount it tends to be in huge quantity of fruits and assumes the result is the net mathematical sum, so order/qty of feed doesn't matter.

My whole reason to experiment down this path is that I have observed that in a very general sense, is most people recommends XYZ fruits, and the ones seeking help just feed that amount in one sitting, or one type of fruit until they get a feather proc if they are following the feather proc method. What happens here is most people (myself included) just takes into consideration only the math, and not the true value of RGB or color mixing in reality. I myself made this mistake back when I was doing the apple feed after I confirmed the feather proc method, and didn't pay any attention to this RGB value "wall", and kept on chasing the logic down the wrong path.

Using apples as our simple example, we move from desert yellow down to blood red, but once we reach blood red, we hit the wall and start to wonder why apple won't bring down the red more. The reasoning behind this is very simple, and that is, the RGB value for blood red (143, 63, 39) has already hit the wall, and any more force feeding of apples will not allow the values to go down any further. When using apples, we are doing +R, -G, -B, and B for Blood Red is already at 39. If each fruit has an average value of 5 as others have derived, then how will 10 apples be able to bring B from 39 down to -9? It will not, because -9 B is not a possible value for any color. So in this case, only 8 apples has any true effect on the RGB value, and the other 2 are nullified.

** Due to the fact that we do not have actual RGB values used by the game, and all the numerical values are at best guesstimates, we cannot claim we are 100% on target in term of any of this, and at best, all we can do are only estimates, therefore, not everyone will have the exact same results. In addition, there are two sets of RGB values on the web, the original that defines RGB(216, 175, 80) » RGB(37, 35, 30) for Desert Yellow and Soot Black, and my rounded to by 8 increments, uses RGB(223, 183, 87) » RGB(47, 47, 39). All of the calculations in this post I used are from my RGB values. (read note)

NOTE:
9/12: RGB value updated, ver 4.0, Used in game print screen, then extracted RGB value using GIMP 7x7 sample space avg, verified with another sample location. RGB value now to EXACT reading and removed all rounding. This still may not be the exact in game RGB values.

To take this into actual practice, we want to take blood red to soot black, the new calculator suggests 2 apples, 10 pears, and 12 berries. So we feed the bird all those fruits, in that order ...

We end up with Currant Purple. Why? Because:

Step	Feed	Qty	143	63	39
1	apple	2	153	53	29
2	pear	10	103	103	0
3	berry	12	43	43	60

Current			43	43	60
To Target		4	4	-21
Current Guess	Currant Purple

Path = Blood red -> No change -> Orchard Brown -> Currant Purple

The above feed in reality is actually this:

Step	Feed	Qty	143	63	39
1	apple	2	153	53	29
2	pear	5	128	78	4
3	pear	1	123	83	0
4	pear	4	103	103	0
5	berry	12	43	43	60

Path: Blood Red -> NO change -> Mesa Red -> No change -> Orchard Brown -> Currant Purple

But when we feed the fruits and keep in mind the RGB value limit, mainly, 0-255, and modify the feeding order, we can get away with this:
Starting Colour Blood Red

Step	Feed	Qty	143	63	39
1	berry	12	83	3	99
2	pear	10	33	53	49
3	apple	2	43	43	39

Current			43	43	39
To Target		4	4	0
Current Guess	Soot Black

Path: Blood red -> Gloom Purple -> Deepwood Green -> Soot Black

Two feedings of the exact same fruits, but yet, very different results.

My microfeeding procedure pretty much is just to pay careful attention on the order and amount of fruits are fed to help eliminates a lot of unnecessary mistakes.

In another example, say you wish to reach Rolanberry Red, using the calculator**, it recommends

Desert Yellow » Rolanberry Red

RGB(223, 183, 87) » RGB(95, 31, 47)
Difference: Red: -128, Green: -152, Blue: -40
Feed the following to change to your desired colour:
18 × Pears, 21 × Apples, 29 × Berries

Once again, most of the people will likely just feed their chocobo 18 pears, 21 apples, and 29 berries in that order. However, feeding it this way will force G to 253 by the 14th pear, and B to 2 by the 17th pear, and -3 by the 18th, which is not within the color space. This in effect makes any G adjustment null after then 15th pear, and the 18th pear only adjustments the B by 2, and not 5 indicated by the calculator. Same will hold true for all the 21 apples that follows, since B is already at 0, and same will happen for berries.

Producing a result of

pear	18	133	255	0
apple	21	238	150	0
berry	29	93	5	145

Current		93	5	145
To Target	2	26	-98
Current Guess	Regal Purple

Therefore, we need to modify the feeding so all the values adjustment are within the RGB value limit for each unit of fruit eaten,

pear	6	193	213	57
apple	5	218	188	32
berry	10	168	138	82
pear	6	138	168	52
apple	5	163	143	27
berry	10	113	93	77
pear	6	83	123	47
apple	5	108	98	22
berry	9	63	53	67
apple	6	93	23	37

Current		93	23	37
To Target	2	8	10
Current Guess	Rolanberry Red

Again, here we can see both fed the same amount of fruits, but yet, produced very different results. With this knowledge in hand, we need to be careful on how we feed the fruits, especially at those end value ranges where 1 fruit too much may push the value to null and returns incorrect value.

Soot Black Experiment:
In my own experiment I reset my bird to desert yellow, employed the microfeeding method. Being Soot Black seems to be the most desired color, or at least the hottest color in discussion, I will set Soot Black as my initial, and ultimate trial.

9/5: Desert Yellow -> Soot Black

Start	Desert Yellow	223	183	87		
Step	Feed	Qty					
1	berry	10	173	133	137	proc on 3rd and on, 8 procs
2	pear	5	148	158	112	5 procs
3	apple	5	173	133	87	5 procs
4	berry	10	123	83	137	10 procs
5	pear	10	73	133	87	10 procs
6	apple	5	98	108	62	5 procs
7	berry	5	73	83	87	5 procs
8	pear	3	58	98	72	3 procs
9	apple	5	83	73	47	5 procs
10	berry	4	63	53	67	4 procs
11	pear	4	43	73	47	4 procs
12	apple	3	58	58	32	3 procs
13	berry	2	48	48	42	2 procs

Goal	Soot Black	47	47	39		
Fruits: 18 apples, 31 berries, 22 pears.
Result: Chestnut Brown

2nd Feeding: Chestnut Brown -> Soot Black

Chestnut Brown			63	47	15		
1	plum		2	53	57	25	2 procs
2	berry		2	43	47	35	2 procs
3	valfruit	1	48	42	40	1 proc
Goal	Soot Black		47	47	39
Result: Currant Purple

3rd Feeding: Currant Purple -> Soot Black

Currant Purple		55	47	63		
1	pear	2	45	57	53	2 proc
2	apple	1	50	52	48	1 proc
3	berry	1	45	47	53	1 proc
4	pear	1	40	52	48	1 proc
5	apple	1	45	47	43	1 proc
Goal	Soot Black	47	47	39

Total Fruits Fed:

apple		20
berry		24
pear		25
plum		2
valfruit	1
Total		72

Result: Soot Black

1st Feeding feather proc log:

2nd Feeding feather proc log:

3rd Feeding feather proc log:

And back to ->
Midnight Blue

Step	Feed		Qty	47	47	39
1	valfruit	1	52	42	44
2	plum		1	47	47	49
3	berry		3	32	32	64

Target Colour RGB		31	31	63
Target Colour		Midnight Blue