Black Clothing, something I'd like to discuss

[jhunter]

That may work for loose black abas, but it doesn't explain black leather pants.

No shit, I shudder to think of the ball-sweat BBQ I'd have going on wearing black leather pants in a place like Zalanthas.

:pulls off his black leather pants, steam escaping into the air about him and a relieved sigh drifting from his lips.

:pours his waterskin over his crotch with a groan.

say Feck yeah....alot better...

[sjanimal]

Although I have gone dancing for hours in real life wearing leather pants without any major problems at crowded, smoke-filled places.

I'd like to apologize to any users of this GDB who didn't want to picture me in leather pants.

[Ix Machina]

ShaLeah has most of it correct.

The original colors to Salarr before they were changed were black, (steel) grey and orange, though the only orange that appeared was a splash on the crest. The old cloaks also were grey, not orange.

Also, the majority of the salarr items were distinctly tailored to men, possibly from old builders or whoever created them.

If you want to know how/why they were changed, find out ICly as this was an IC change that was taken care of within the game.

OOCly, however, the insignia and cloaks had orange dropped and were updated to better reflect a more androgynous look to the house and the people who worked for it.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

Hmm. Never thought about it. Silly me.
I generally try to have my characters wear what they would wear, which means they put on whatever they think gives them an advantage, or otherwise just dress in their favorite color. I knew that dark colors were hotter than light colors, but I never thought it would make that big a difference to a Zalanthan, with their crazy body chemistry and whatnot.
Anyways, I think this is a change that could be brought about ICly, instead of getting all up in the code with it. For example...
Nobles could make white robes the new 'in' thing... show off how rich you are by wearing something briliantly, dazzingly white and still managing to keep it clean.
If you play a military leader-type character, you could start reprimanding your troops for wearing black leather because it decreases performance in the field (according to you).
If you play a merchant type character, you could stop offering black clothing and armor because all those angry VNPCs wanted a refund when your full S&M gear costume deluxe made them pass out.
Or, at the very least, you could mention it in the clothing and fashion docs.
I'd also like to point out that if a person wore a white aba or cloak, they could also probably wear something dark and leathery underneath with minimal discomfort. Never tried it myself, but if light absorption is what makes dark clothing so hot, and you wear light clothing over it, then that should eliminate the problem, right?
It might make for some interesting EMOTEs, too...

Code Select Expand

PEMOTE A strong gust of wind blows up ~aba, revealing me ~thong.
Blinking several times before speaking, the white-haired aid says, in sirihish:
"I... I had no idea my Chosen Lord was into that kind of thing."

[marko]

As noted - black in a loose piece of clothing actually assists in keeping the person wearing it cool.

Black as a tight piece of clothing makes you boil.

Clothing with layers and and an outer layer of black is the most effective at keeping the individual cool - so long as the layers are very porous and allow air to move through them.

[ShaLeah]

OOCly, however, the insignia and cloaks had orange dropped and were updated to better reflect a more androgynous look to the house and the people who worked for it.

I asked Xygax long before the changes were actually started, before you joined the house as an Immortal, I believe. I can only speak for what -I- know, which is that the docs didn't mention why the orange was in and the request to remove the orange was aesthetic from my point of view. It was ugly

I don't know what reasons the House gave for the change IC'ly, however.

[X-D]

Being forever lazy and far too busy with my upcoming vacation, I'm not going to read the rest of the thread or hunt down the many links you can easily find on desert clothing etc.

But, if you do the research, you will find that loose (IE Zalanthan sandcloth garments/robes/cloaks ETC) dark/black clothing is actually prefered by most desert dwelling peoples...those that wear clothes at least. Usually an outer layer of black and an inner layer of light colors.
Now, why you might ask, well, I'll tell you, Yes, black does not reflect light energy, therefor it heats up, but in the heating, the air around it also heats, Now, this cools a person in two main ways. The first is that when air heats, it expands, becomes less dense then the air around it, so, it has to float, or travel upward. This actually causes a breeze of sorts and does so -inside- the clothing. The second thing is that hotter air can hold more moisture...and well, what is the main method of cooling for a human...you guessed it, sweat, in order for sweat to work as cooling it has to evaporate, when it does the molecules carry a bit of the heat away.

Also, light or white clothing lets a LARGE amount of sunlight directly through it, IE does not protect you from the ultra violet or the heat as effectivly as dark colors, so, instead of the cloth heating up and then actually helping you cool, instead your skin gets heated directly, oh, what fun.

[X-D]

double post

[John]

Black clothing is easier to hide in.

In the city, yes. Outside, no (unless you only want to hide in caves and at night). I'd say red and tan (for down south) and brown, red, green (for up north) would be much better in a range of circumstances.

guess people just like their characters to look 'cool'.

'Dude, check me out, I'm all decked out in black, I'm definitely badass.'

If you're wearing sandcloth chances are you go out in the desert and therefore you are already basass (or a fool). You don't need to wear black to show your a badass. Just by leaving the city you're showing it.

If people predominantly wearing black sandcloth is a problem then:

If you check the shop of the desert outfit in Red Storm, you will notice three major colors:  Red, brown and black.  These colors physically, are the colors that absorb the rays with the highest energy in the visible spectrum (though it depends on te tone of the color when Brown is the question).  There is no white.

this should be addressed before any coded changes are made

[Fantasy Kank]

There's so many places where reality and fantasy diverge in Arm. This one doesn't bother me at all. Fuck realism. Black is kewl. But most importantly, wear what y'ad wear IC.

[Pantoufle]

Ultimately, do you as players see an issue? Is this worth pursuing in the name of realism?

No.

There are plenty of black garments worn by real world desert inhabitants.  Without doing any research, I might even venture a guess that black is more popular amongst desert travellers than white.

[Tamarin]

I read somewhere that most of earth's desert travellers wear black intentionally because when worn properly, it is significantly cooler (and I don't mean style-wise) than lighter colors like white or sand.  From what I'm told, black is actually able to reflect a lot of the sun's rays, whereas lighter colors let them pass through, endangering the flesh.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, all I know is that when I used to work outside all the time during the summer wearing black was the kiss of death.  I always wore white.  I also don't see a large amount of black clothing at all when you see reports from the middle east.  Most every regular dude is wearing beige or white, loose clothing.

'cept the babes who got to wear that big old tent thing.

[Bestatte]

You can even check out biological differences between people living near desert areas and hot climates, and people living away from them. The further toward the north and south poles you get, the lighter the skin.

This, according to some research, isn't merely a genetic mutated reaction to the sun (a genetic suntan, if you will), but in addition to cool the skin in hotter climes, and let sun through to heat it in cooler climes.

Once you pass a certain point and get VERY close to the poles, you'll see more of the ruddy or reddish hues, which supposedly protects from blinding snows (which can be equally as blinding as blinding sands).

The snow reflects sun off, and it is -very- easy to get sunburned in the middle of winter in the northern mountain ranges. So you'll see people with darker skin there as well.

But right between the two, that's where you see the paler skins, whereas near the equator and at the furthest reaches of the poles, you see the darker skins.

This seems to imply that dark = protection from light, and pale = protection from cold.

[SwanSwanHummingbird]

You might know this already, Bestatte, but I'm throwing it out there anyway.

Skin pigment differences between people living in nordic climes and people in hot desert climes didn't arise directly due to the heat/cold per se.   It is actually due to differences in the level of UV light.

UV light is necessary for humans to produce vitamin D, but it also causes cancer, sunburn, and is generally bad.  In areas that get a lot of UV light (Africa and other hot places), people need to have dark skin to block it out.  They don't have a problem getting enough vitamin D even with the dark skin, because there's just so much UV light they're exposed to all the time.  Things change in places like England, Norway, etc.  In these cold places, not only is it cold, but there also isn't much UV light at all.  So, there isn't much danger to being light skinned, and in fact there's a benefit--you're not blocking out the UV light you need to make vitamin D.

[Twilight]

Dwarves may have a natural body tempature of 150 degrees, rather than 98.  Wearing heavy armor might just be comfortable to them.  How knows.

If we make the assumption that all the races have the same body temperature, are comfortable in the same temperate range, are warm blooded (mantis, gith anyone?), have the same ability to cool down in hot weather, etc. I guess an argument can be made.  I just don't want to make those assumptions.

Added to this, we have a RED sun.  Not a yellow sun.  The radiations emitted are going to be different.  We also have a sandy, hazy atmosphere, green breezes and all other sorts of weird things.  With all those differences, black might be best.

[Mar]

Very interesting article about this question (I didn't notice if it was already mentioned):

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01173.htm

[SRB]

Ultimately, do you as players see an issue? Is this worth pursuing in the name of realism?

In all honesty I don't think this is a very important issue.

There are far more important things, IMO, to worry about making realistic in this game. I say let them be.

[skeetdaddle]

I've always felt this one to be an issue myself, so I did a little research, and here's a quote from a website I found. I was even surprised by what it says. Hope this helps:

"....What this means is relatively straightforward: black clothing absorbs sunlight and the heat radiating from your body, but if it is loose-fitting, and there is wind, the wind convects the heat away faster than it is absorbed. White clothing reflects sunlight, but also reflects internal heat back towards your body, so the net effect under identical conditions is less cooling than if you wore black. While it's true you don't often find fluffy black animals in deserts, you don't find many white animals, either--typically you find animals that blend into the background. So it appears that if heat gain and camouflage are in conflict, the need to avoid predation outweighs other considerations. On the other hand, desert-dwelling nomadic people such as the Tuaregs wear loose-fitting black clothing, and have been doing so for a very, very long time. If there were an advantage to wearing white clothes, you'd certainly expect they'd have figured that out by now."

-http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mblackcool.html

[Angela Christine]

I wonder how the climate affects all this?

According to the docs, an extreemly hot day in a city like Allanak can reach 140F.  That is much higher than human body temperature, I wouldn't have thought people could even survive at that temperature, except that apparently there are inhabited places on earth that occasionally reach that temperature.  :shock:  Most days won't be that extreme, but in much of the Known World the temperature will often be higher than human body temperature.  I think that is significant.  Even in the tropics on Earth the air temperature is usually lower than body temperature.  We are built to keep our innards warmer than the air around us, not cooler.  I don't know about you, but I find 80F uncomfortably warm.

I think there is a chance that in an extremely hot enviornment, like an extremely cold environment, insulation in clothing could become important again.  You might want a wall between the ambient temperature and your natural body temperature.  I don't know, just pondering.


AC

[Spoon]

Perhaps it's a macho thing. Kind of like a mirror of our world, where people from up north wear t-shirts in the middle of winter and insist they're not cold.

On Zalanthas, hard nuts deck themselves out in black leather and insist it's not hot, but rather mild, and that they're thinking about putting on another layer or two...

[Nidhogg]

This is moot if black is not in fact hotter. However if it is, I think there are three differences between city heat and desert heat. First the light is deflected and often obscured by the buildings. Light doesn't reflect back off the hard packed earth the way it will off sand. Finally, walking on sand requires more energy than walking on streets.

[Spoon]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=4068337&dopt=Abstract

Here, check out some mad scientist's crazy experiment.

[Lazloth]

This is moot if black is not in fact hotter.

I think the evidence indicates that .. it's relative.  With loose-fitting garments (sandcloth, et.al.) in this hot, windy environment, darker colors can be argued as keeping a person cooler; I doubt anyone can make a case for tight leathers though.

[fearwig]

If the outside is say, 120 degrees on average, and the inside of your cloak is only 98.6, well, hell, I'd wear layers too. Makes you wonder if that'd be a practical approach. Probably not, considering that the winds of Zalanthas probably do a hell of a lot toward making it habitable where temperature is concerned, while torturing everyone at the same time.