About this Pack:
This pack was created as a way of educating resource pack artists about color blindness, and the effects that their color choices have on a particular section of the human population. With the publication of this pack, I hope to raise awareness of Color Vision Deficiency in all its forms. I also hope that it will help to promote good design choices, both for resource packs and for design in general, that takes into account CVD and other ease of access measures.
I hope that this pack allows people with normal vision to walk a mile in the shoes of someone living with CVD... even if only for a few minutes in a video game.
IMPORTANT: This pack cannot be updated to work with Minecraft 1.9 and higher because Mojang removed the ability to load custom shaders from Resource Packs. If you would like to see this pack updated, please tweet your favorite Mojangsta and as that this feature be restored. Feel free to link to this pack to let them know why.
Also, no, this is NOT designed to work with Optifine's shaders feature. Feel free to modify it to do so if you like, but it will not function as an Optifine shader out of the box.
It SHOULD work with Optifine installed, however, but this pack itself will still be installed like a Resource Pack (not an Optifine shader pack), and uses the Super Secret Settings menu instead of an Optifine menu.
How to Use This Pack:
Each type of Color Vision Deficiency has been assigned a number roughly equating to how common it is in the human population. Zero, normal vision, is the most common. Consult the images in the spoiler below to see the number associated with a particular spectrum of vision. To return to toggle between normal vision and a colorblind state once one has been selected, use the F4 key.
Types of Color Vision:
Note: If this spoiler doesn't show up, refer to the preview images for this pack.
License:
I, Alvoria, creator of this pack hereby release it into Public Domain. I do so in the hope that it will be used to educate as many people as possible about the restrictions of Color Vision Deficiency, and promote excellence and accessibility in Resource Pack creation and graphical design.
FAQ:
A: I don't think it's possible to force shaders to affect the GUI elements. Or if it is, I don't know how to do it (I'm not the best coder). This was probably done to prevent the game from becoming unplayable and the options inaccessible when using some of the more bizarre vanilla shaders. If this is something you'd like to see corrected, tweet your favorite Mojangsta and ask them to change it in the next version of Minecraft. Link them here to let them know why!
Q: Are all of these shaders completely accurate?
A: I honestly have no way of knowing. All of the values that I used are based on the same computational models used by tools like VisCheck which are considered to be accurate. The two exceptions to this are achromatopsia and achromanomally. See subsequent questions for more information on why they're not accurate.
Q: How does this help people with color vision deficiency?
A: You know the saying "Walk a mile in another man's shoes"? That's what this does. A lot of normal sighted people have trouble understanding how people with color vision deficiency see the world. With one of these shaders active, a normal-slighted person can experience Minecraft in the way that a person with CVD does, facing the same challenges and so forth within the setting of the game.
Q: Is this EVERY type of colorblindness?
A: No. As stated below the entry for achromatopsia (total color blindness), complete color blindness actually has several variations that look different. Unfortunately, due to the rarity of achromatopsia, I can't find any hard numbers on how any of them work, and instead just used the numbers for wavelength sensitivity to create an "average" of them. I would like to add proper shaders for every type of achromatopsia, so if you have any information please let me know.
Q: What does "Extremely Rare" mean for achromatomally mean?
A: It means two things. The first is that I couldn't find any solid numbers for how common it is. The second is the reason for that - it's normally a transitional state between normal trichromatic vision and achromatopsia. Normally people don't just have achromatomally throughout their entire lives but develop it temporarily on their way to losing all color perception (achromatopsia) or, more often, just total and complete blindness. Because of this it's generally not entered as a statistic unto itself, only on the eye conditions that can cause it. I cannot for the life of me find a reliable number on how many people live with it throughout their lives.
Q: Are YOU colorblind?
A: Nope. I have normal vision. As a designer and artist I'm fascinated with how people perceive color, which is why color vision deficiency is fascinating to me.
Q: Why do you refer to colorblindness as "Color Vision Deficiency" in most places?
A: Because not all forms of "colorblindness" actually make the afflicted "blind" to a particular color. All of the '-omaly' types, for example, just cause colors to be perceived incorrectly. This is an important distinction to make when talking about colorblindness, I think. Believe me, it's not because I'm trying to be Politically Correct. (I hate that PC garbage)
As for why I still use the more common term in the title... ease of searching.