Skins in CS:GO have been given several new features over the years, the latest being
a Pearlescent value, which shipped with Operation Shattered Web.
Being pearlescent means a weapon’s colour will deviate from how it was originally, moving
across the colour spectrum. How much they do this by depends on the angle they’re
viewed from, and from how big their PEARLESCENCE value is, which is hidden somewhere inside
CS:GO’s files. The number can range between -100 and 100- and what’s nice about it is
that you don’t have to get anywhere near the limits to be able to see the effect. In
fact, go too far and it goes from looking like a pearl, to instead looking like it’s
been drenched in oil. A cool effect, maybe, but definitely one we’ll see overused and
abused (…starting with this video’s thumbnail! You saw it here first.)
If set too high, skins shift across the colour spectrum several times and the end result
will look similar, regardless of what colour they started as. The effect only targets areas
of colour. There are 4 guns already in the game that feature this effect, all in the
newly included cases. Some of these were community-made, though I believe Valve added the effect later.
So this is how the skins would have looked originally, before the effect was added.
…And here is how they’ll appear in-game, with their default Pearlescent values. I’m
going to say again, I’m absolutely sure that skin makers will end up over-using this
effect, but Valve have kept it rather reserved for these 4. And they all start off a kind
of blueish colour. I’m wondering if this was just coincidence, or if Valve did this
deliberately, and then gave them all different pearlescent values so that we could see what
kind of a difference they made. The AWP has the smallest value of 0.5. And
even this is enough to shift it from being all blue, to being half-purple. DON’T over-use
this effect! It’s powerful. Kind of like a ghost pepper- a small bit adds a lot, but
too much will result in a horrible multi-coloured mess with bits of spaghetti and stomach lining
everywhere. I tried flipping the value so it was -0.5,
and instead of shifting across to purple you can see it moves the other way along the colour
spectrum, becoming light blue. If the number was greater, like -1 or -2, you’d see it
becoming green! As luck would have it, the MP9 and P90 have
do have a stronger effect, with values of -1 and -2 respectively. Both being bluish
originally, the Pearlescent effect shifts them both towards lighter blues and greens,
though the red on the mp9 has become more of a crimson. Which might also be red. I’m
terrible with colour names. And most ambitiously, the Aug has the highest
value of 12. Out of 100. And you can already see the effect changing the flowers from all-blue,
to being all colours at the same time. It no longer really matters what colour the flowers
were originally. This effect will either be great for people who are indecisive about
their colour choices… or it will make their job even harder.
But what if we make it even stronger? I set them all to 25. Not surprisingly, this made
the smallest difference to the AUG, which went from rainbow-coloured to MULTI RAINBOW
COLOURED. You can see several streaks of each colour at all times. In fact this happened
to all of them. The MP9 looks like an oil-spill. The P90 looks pretty good in my opinion. Looks
like it’s become one big holographic sticker. I believe this is because the original colours
of its design were muted. The effect becomes a lot stronger on the AWP, with its already-colourful
underlying pattern. The effect crosses the unholy unicorn puke boundary. Only a FOOL
would dare go further! I turned it all the way up to 100 and the
AWP had to cram so many rainbows in such a small space… that we’ve almost gone full
circle with it becoming so refracted that they’ve all merged again, becoming almost
white! The P90 holds up pretty well, being super
holographic on the sides and oil-spilled on the top of the ammo drum. The MP9 is undeniably
oily and the AUG’s colours are so confused I’m amazed an error message hasn’t popped
up. I played about with the effect in the editor
on plain colours and it looks like this. Now I’ll hand it over to you. I’m sure
the community will think up all kinds of imaginative and horrifying ways of using this new effect,
which looks like it can be added to any of the existing weapon finishes. And remember:
with great power comes great responsibility.