NEWS

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transformerpalettes 0.4.0 (2026-10-27)

• New tf_credit() writes a figure-caption or acknowledgments sentence naming the characters used and where their colors come from (the Hasbro and Takara Tomy toys, the animated series or the Marvel comics), and follows picks and team palettes back to their source palettes. citation("transformerpalettes") now returns a reference for the package itself.
• Third pass through the wishlist, clearing the queue: Shockwave, Soundwave and the six cassettes, the Insecticons, the eleven 1984 Autobot cars, the six Mini Vehicles, the 1986 movie cast (Hot Rod, Rodimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Kup, Blurr, Springer, Wreck-Gar, Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge, Gnaw), and two more combiner teams, the Pretender Monsters (Monstructor) and Takara's Breastforce (Liokaiser). Each has a toy palette checked against a TFWiki toy photo and, where the character appeared in a cartoon, a cartoon palette linked to an episode still.
• New "standalone" role for characters outside any team, and new subgroups Cassettes, Insecticons, Autobot Cars and Minibots.
• Comic palettes for the Technobots, Terrorcons and Seacons from the Marvel UK stories "Love and Steel!" and "Enemy Action!".
• New "g2" medium: the Generation 2 re-releases of the Constructicons (1992, yellow), Aerialbots (1994) and Combaticons (1994, camouflage), keyed <name>_g2. 296 palettes in total.
• Corrected the wishlist note on Rumble and Frenzy: the Hasbro toy carded as Rumble is red and Frenzy is blue; the cartoon swapped them. The palettes follow the toys for toy and the cartoon for cartoon.

transformerpalettes 0.3.0

• First pass through the wishlist. New subgroups that do not combine, with a "subgroup member" role and NA combiner: the Dinobots (Grimlock, Slag, Sludge, Snarl, Swoop) and the Seekers (Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Dirge, Ramjet, Thrust), each with toy and cartoon palettes checked against TFWiki toy photos and episode stills. tf_teams() now lists subgroups alongside combiner teams and tf_team_palette() works for them.
• Comic palettes for six combiner teams, each sampled from a named Marvel US issue and linked to the panel: Constructicons (#10), Aerialbots (#21), Stunticons (#22), Protectobots (#24), Predacons (#25) and Combaticons (#32). Marvel's coloring often departs from the toys: Menasor is yellow and magenta, Vortex is cyan, Rampage and Headstrong are red. 177 palettes in total.

transformerpalettes 0.2.0

• The package is now called transformerpalettes (it started life as transformeRs). Function names are unchanged; reinstall with pak::pak("bmaitner/transformerpalettes"). The old GitHub URL redirects.
• Palettes now record a medium: every character has a toy palette (the original release), every character has a cartoon palette (the Sunbow animation model, or the Masterforce model for the Seacons), and Optimus Prime and Megatron have a comic palette (Marvel). Cartoon and comic palettes are keyed <name>_cartoon and <name>_comic, and tf_characters gains base and medium columns. 118 palettes in total.
• New medium argument on tf_palette(), tf_palette_names(), tf_team_palette(), tf_show_palettes(), tf_find_palettes() and the ggplot2 scales, defaulting to "toy" so existing code is unchanged; "all" lists every medium. New tf_media().
• Cartoon palettes link to an episode still on the Transformers Wiki as their reference image; the palette browser gains a Medium filter and badge.
• Corrected the toy palettes of Cutthroat, Drag Strip and Vortex against their toy photos.
• New tf_pick() selects the n most distinguishable colors from one or more palettes for a light, dark or grayscale plot, optionally requiring them to stay distinct under simulated color-vision deficiency. Colors that fail a WCAG contrast check against the background are dropped first; the subset is then chosen to maximize the smallest pairwise CIE Lab distance.
• Comic palettes for the combiner teams are queued in WISHLIST.md rather than guessed; Marvel coloring varies by issue, so each will cite the issue it was sampled from.

transformerpalettes 0.1.0

• Initial release with 58 palettes: Optimus Prime, Megatron, and every member and combined form of the nine core Generation 1 combiner teams (Aerialbots, Protectobots, Technobots, Constructicons, Stunticons, Combaticons, Terrorcons, Predacons, Seacons).
• tf_palette(), tf_palette_names(), tf_factions(), tf_teams(), tf_show_palettes(), and tf_team_palette() for one color per member of a combiner team (with distinct = TRUE for teams cast from shared plastics).
• ggplot2 scales: scale_colour_tf(), scale_fill_tf() and their _d / _c variants, plus scale_color_* aliases.
• tf_find_palettes() and tf_palette_stats() to shortlist palettes that work for categorical, colorblind-safe, sequential or diverging use, judged from the colors themselves.
• tf_characters metadata table with faction, team, role, alternate mode, year, descriptions and Transformers Wiki links and toy photos.
• pkgdown site at https://bmaitner.github.io/transformerpalettes/ with a filterable palette browser and prefilled GitHub issue forms for suggesting palette changes and requesting characters. WISHLIST.md tracks what is queued.