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[Xian Zhu Xuande]

Novel Colors / Faction Gradient
A just-for-fun project. Based on the faction colors at Kongming's Archives (if you visit the site you've probably noticed the colors playing a strong role in the Three Kingdoms Encyclopedia), for each chapter I took every character appearance in each chapter (multiple for someone who appeared multiple times), deciphered the color for that character (blue for Wei, green for Shu, red for Wu, etc.; mixed colors for multiple affiliations), and averaged the colors for each chapter to give the chapter itself a color based on the characters inside it (e.g. a Shu-heavy chapter would be shaded green; the Shu-Nanman conflicts come out in a lime green sort of color). With a color for each chapter, I then merged the colors for each chapter into a gradient spanning the composition of the entire novel.

Three Kingdoms Color Gradient
(No images in the forum, I take it?)

I then created multiple version of the gradient, blurring it more in each appearance so you can see how novel themes gradually shift from one area of the book to the next. It is pretty entertaining to see how big different sections are and how dominant different factions were in terms of facetime. That bright lime green bar toward the end is the Nanman campaign (across multiple chapters). Purple at the end is Jin's gradual dominance, mixed with the Wu conflict. Han is strong at the front (light blue) but gradually plays into other factions and Cao Cao. You can see Liu Biao/Jingzhou/Shu in areas (sea-greenish), Wu sections, the Yuan Shao battles, and more.

Too fun to not share.

[Nick]

that's pretty neat.  You should put a key or legend on it so we know what colors are what.

[Xian Zhu Xuande]

that's pretty neat.  You should put a key or legend on it so we know what colors are what.

That's a pretty good suggestion. Actually, I should put that together for KMA given those colors are used so frequently to represent characters and factions. For the time being, though, it is easy enough to recall colors you've seen in Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, as many of the colors used above, and those used on KMA, draw from those examples. I originally wanted to build upon something with which people were already familiar.

[King of Ba Shu]

That obviously took a lot of time to coordinate. It's a really awesome idea and cool to see the progression of the novel in that way.

I just want to say thank you for putting it together.

[GreatPanda]

This is really nice. I've seen the gradient in your posts on some of the other forums I lurk, and it hasn't gotten enough recognition or feedback. Like what King of Ba Shu said, it's cool to see the progression of the novel in that manner. Great job.

[Gongsun Zan]

That must've taken forever to do O.o
It is quite interesting and it seems as though Wei dominates most of it and Wu barely plays a part at all.