MecchaPalette

How to match a surface

The in-game eyedropper in Meccha Chameleon is imprecise, so matching a wall or floor by eye is slow — you nudge sliders, hop out to check, and still stick out. MecchaPalette gives you the exact numbers instead. Three ways to start:

1. Dropper — drag the saturation/brightness square and hue slider, or type an exact hex, RGB, or HSV value. Arrow keys nudge one unit at a time for fine dialing.
2. Sample a screenshot — drop in (or paste) a screenshot of the surface and click the pixel you want. The loupe magnifies so you hit the exact one. Nothing is uploaded; it all runs in your browser.
3. Presets — jump straight to a known map surface or material family.

Then open any palette card. The grid shows every shade within a perceptual ΔE distance of that palette. Slide Closeness to widen from near-exact matches to "even remotely close," and tap any square to copy it in hex, RGB, or HSV. Tapping a square also drops it into the Visual preview next to your target, with the exact ΔE gap — so you can see whether it actually passes before you paint it.

What ΔE actually means

ΔE (delta-E) is how color scientists measure the perceived difference between two colors — we use the modern CIEDE2000 formula. Two colors can be close in RGB numbers yet look obviously different (and vice versa), because human eyes are far more sensitive to some shifts than others. ΔE corrects for that. A rough reading guide:

• ΔE < 1 — identical to the eye. Seekers have no chance.
• ΔE 1–2 — essentially indistinguishable; visible only side-by-side under scrutiny.
• ΔE 2–5 — blends at a glance; fine for a moving match, risky if someone stares.
• ΔE 5–10 — noticeable next to the surface. Use only with noise/pattern cover.
• ΔE > 10 — clearly a different color. You will be found.

Per-map tips

• Mansion — the beige plaster walls are the most forgiving surface; hardwood needs a darker, warmer match than it looks from a distance.
• Sewer — everything is desaturated. If you're getting spotted, your saturation is too high; pull it down before touching the hue.
• Backrooms — it's all one yellow family. Hue barely matters here; match the brightness (the V in HSV) to the wall vs. carpet difference.
• Penguin Hotel — the icy whites are brighter than they read on most monitors; sample a screenshot instead of trusting your eyes.
• Sugarland — the hardest map to blend on. Chocolate brown is the safest family; the candy pastels punish any saturation error.
• Osaka — mixed warm wood and cool pavement; keep both stashed in your pinned swatches and swap as you move.

FAQ

Is my screenshot uploaded anywhere? No. It's read by your own browser with the canvas API and never leaves your device. There's no server to send it to.

Why show HSV and not just hex? The in-game paint menu works in HSV-style sliders, so HSV numbers are what you actually type in. Hex and RGB are there for everything else.

Why not just use RGB distance for closeness? Because RGB distance lies. A ΔE-based grid ranks shades by how close they look, which is what hiding depends on.

Where do the preset colors come from? They're seed families researched from each map's documented tones, being progressively replaced with values sampled from real game screenshots.