Question Changing colors of a material creates blinding light

Hi all, total newbie here, just getting most of the way through the Junior Programmer track and loving it so far. I know PowerShell pretty well thanks to work, so this has been a really entertaining track!

My problem is that I've created a script that to change the color of the box to a random color when I hit Q. The random colors are fine, but they are so incredibly bright that the middle of the box turns white and the only color is visible as a corona around the burning white middle!

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong or have misunderstood? I've read that colors multiply, so I tried zeroing out the colors, but that didn't work. I've tried SetColor and material.color, but neither work. I've tried _BaseColor, _BaseMap, and plain _Color, but they either still create the blinding light or they do nothing. The goal is just to have a nice little box that spins around two axis (which it does fine!) and to change to some nice, calm random colors when I hit Q. Not sure what I messed up...

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using System.Drawing;
4. using UnityEditor.Rendering;
5. using UnityEngine;
6. using UnityEngine.iOS;
7. //Explicitly state which Color I'm using
8. using Color = UnityEngine.Color;
9.  
10. public class BoxController : MonoBehaviour
11. {
12.     public float rotationSpeed = 10.0f;
13.     public float horizontalInput;
14.     public float verticalInput;
15.     public int red;
16.     public int green;
17.     public int blue;
18.     public int alpha;
19.     public Renderer objectRenderer;
20.     public Material objectMaterial;
21.     public int currentBlue;
22.  
23.     // Start is called before the first frame update
24.     void Start()
25.     {
26.         //Initialize the color intergers and then the objects I'm changing
27.         RandomColors();
28.         objectRenderer = GetComponent<Renderer>();
29.         objectMaterial = objectRenderer.material;
30.     }
31.  
32.     // Update is called once per frame
33.     void Update()
34.     {
35.         //Speed up rotations when I hold LeftShift
36.         if(Input.GetKey(KeyCode.LeftShift))
37.         {
38.             rotationSpeed = 50.0f;
39.         } else
40.         {
41.             rotationSpeed = 10.0f;
42.         }
43.        
44.         //Move the cube around a bit
45.         horizontalInput = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");
46.         transform.Rotate(Vector3.up, rotationSpeed * Time.deltaTime * horizontalInput);
47.         verticalInput = Input.GetAxis("Vertical");
48.         transform.Rotate(Vector3.right, rotationSpeed * Time.deltaTime * verticalInput); ;
49.  
50.         //Reset the cube's position when space is pressed
51.         if (Input.GetKey(KeyCode.Space))
52.         {
53.             // When Space is pressed, create a reset position as a Vector3
54.             // Then convert that Vector3 to a Quaternion and apply it to the transform's rotation.
55.             Vector3 resetPosition = new Vector3(0, 0, 0);
56.             transform.rotation = Quaternion.Euler(resetPosition);
57.         }
58.  
59.         if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Q))
60.         {
61.             //Populate the R, G, B, and alpha intergers
62.             RandomColors();
63.                  
64.             //Create a new color with those values
65.             Color adjustedColor = new Color(red, green, blue, alpha);
66.            
67.             //Set the base color to all 0's
68.             objectRenderer.material.SetColor("_BaseColor", new Color(0, 0, 0, 0));
69.            
70.             //Three methods for setting the base color to the adjustedColor... none of them work correctly.
71.             objectRenderer.material.SetColor("_BaseColor", adjustedColor);
72.             //objectRenderer.material.SetColor("_Color", adjustedColor);
73.             //gameObject.GetComponent<Renderer>().material.color = adjustedColor;
74.  
75.         }
76.  
77.  
78.  
79.     }
80.     void RandomColors()
81.     {
82.         //Random.Range is max exclusive for the high end,
83.         //so this should top out at 255 whole numbers
84.         red = Random.Range(0, 256);
85.         green = Random.Range(0, 256);
86.         blue = Random.Range(0, 256);
87.         alpha = Random.Range(0, 255);
88.        
89.     }  
90.  
91. }
92.  

 

UnityEngine.Color

uses float values from 0 - 1.

Color32

uses byte values, so 0 - 255.

I think you can work out where that's going wrong in your script.

 

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! IT WORKS!!!!!!! Thank you! Now when I hit Q, I get random colors. This was the best thing to come home to after work. The kicker is that I actually read about Color32... but I was trying to access a method named Color32 ( so: objectRenderer.material.color32), I didn't realize Color32 was a data type. Yesterday was a marathon day, so maybe my brain was faded.

I learned to cast data types, and I learned to pay better attention to the difference between Constructors and Classes.

Here's my fixed code, in case some fellow nerd reads this thread in four years. I'm betting there's a way to randomize a byte directly, but that's Thursday night's or Sunday afternoon's project! Thank you again.

Code (CSharp):

1.         if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Q))
2.         {
3.             //Populate the R, G, B, and alpha intergers
4.             RandomColors();
5.                  
6.             //Create a new color with those values and cast each int to a byte
7.             Color32 adjustedColor = new Color32((byte)red, (byte)green, (byte)blue, (byte)alpha);
8.            
9.             // Methods for setting the base color to the adjustedColor
10.             objectRenderer.material.SetColor("_BaseColor", adjustedColor);
11.            
12.  
13.         }