Color Palette Extractor

Color Palette Extractor

Module: Art · Category: Lookdev · Tool ID: ColorPaletteExtractor

Pulls dominant colors out of a reference image using K-means clustering. Configurable palette size (2–16 colors), generates color harmonies (complementary, analogous, triadic, split-complementary), shows percentage weight per color, and exports the result as a Material Parameter Collection or copies hex/linear values to the clipboard.

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When to use it

• Lookdev pre-pass — extracting a palette from concept art / mood board reference
• Generating MPC values that match a target visual style
• Building harmony suggestions when refining a palette
• Creating swatch documentation for a team

When not to use it

• Don’t expect this to grade existing project assets — it operates on a single reference texture
• Don’t use for color blindness simulation — that’s outside scope

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Opening the tool

1. Open the EQLabs Hub and search for Palette or Color (or browse to Art → Lookdev)
2. Click the tool card
3. Drop a reference texture into the Source field

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Interface tour

Section	What it does	Default
Source Texture	Reference image to extract from	(empty)
Palette Size	How many dominant colors	6
K-Means Iterations	Convergence iterations	20
Sample Count	How many pixels to sample (subsampled for speed)	10,000
Extract Palette	Runs K-means clustering
Harmony Mode	None / Complementary / Analogous / Triadic / Split-Complementary	None
Generate Harmonies	Builds harmony swatches from the extracted palette
Export Path	Asset path for MPC export	/Game/EQLabs/ExtractedPalette
Export as MPC	Saves the palette as a Material Parameter Collection
Palette Container	Visual swatch row — click to copy hex/linear
Harmony Container	Visual swatch row for generated harmonies

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Workflow

Step 1 — Pick a source

Drop a reference texture. Stylized concept art and photo references both work.

Step 2 — Set palette size

6 is a good default. 4 for tight color schemes, 12+ for detailed palettes.

Step 3 — Extract

Click Extract Palette. K-means clusters the sampled pixels and the swatches populate, sorted by frequency.

Step 4 — Generate harmonies

Pick a harmony mode and click Generate Harmonies. The harmony block populates with computed colors based on the extracted dominants.

Step 5 — Use the colors

• Click a swatch to copy its hex/linear value to the clipboard
• Export as MPC to save the full palette as a Material Parameter Collection asset

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Settings reference

Field	Range	Default
Palette Size	2 – 16	6
K-Means Iterations	5 – 100	20
Sample Count	1,000 – 100,000	10,000
Harmony Mode	enum	None
Export Path	content path	/Game/EQLabs/ExtractedPalette

Settings are persisted to [Project]/Saved/EQLabs/Settings/ColorPaletteExtractor.json.

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Output

• In-panel swatches — extracted palette + harmony swatches with weight percentages
• Clipboard — click a swatch to copy hex / linear values
• Material Parameter Collection — Export as MPC creates a real UMaterialParameterCollection asset at the configured path with one Vector parameter per color, named Color_01, Color_02, etc.

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Tips & gotchas

• K-means is non-deterministic — slight variation between runs is expected. For repeatable results, lock the sample count and iterations.
• Higher sample counts give more stable results but are slower — 10,000 is a good balance; raise to 50,000+ for very detailed source images.
• Weighted percentages reflect pixel count, not perceptual importance — a small accent color may be visually dominant but show as low percentage. Don’t blindly trust the weights.
• Harmonies are computed in HSV — they look right perceptually but may not match strict color theory definitions exactly.

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Related tools

• Color Scheme Manager — for managing palettes manually with persistence to JSON
• HDRI / Cubemap Inspector — for analyzing HDRI tone and color in lookdev

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