• Welcome to the Speedsolving.com, home of the web's largest puzzle community!
    You are currently viewing our forum as a guest which gives you limited access to join discussions and access our other features.

    Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community of 40,000+ people from around the world today!

    If you are already a member, simply login to hide this message and begin participating in the community!

[Help Thread] Colour Neutral Discussion and Help

jskyler91

Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
676
Location
Berkeley CA
YouTube
Visit Channel
I love being CN at Petrus, and always wondered why anyone wasn't color neutral, but then I started working on other methods and I realized the difficulties. In Roux, for example, I found that I really need to think about what the colors of the second 2x2x3 are going to be because sometimes I end up making the wrong one due to mislocated centers. I obviously always use the same EOline in ZZ, but I'm wondering if that will affect my Petrus CN. Any thoughts?

I feel like Petrus is the easiest method to be CN with because of the necessity for an optimal 2x2x2 block, and because it's easy to use lookahead to find specific colors, not necessarily specific pieces. For example, while I'm solving the 2x2x2 block, I'm thinking about the colors I'll need to expand, and while I'm finishing the 2x2x3, I'm already Idenifying bad edges since I only need to look for two colors.

Those are my thoughts anyway...

I agree that there are definately method with which being CN is harder or easier. IMO I think the breakdown is something like this from easiest to hardest-

1. Petrus
2. Fridich/LBL methods
3. Roux
4. ZZ

My reasons for this are as follows:

Petrus- is the easiest because it was meant to be an optimal solve style method in which you find the shortest number of moves you can think of to get the cube solved. This means that being color fixed would really limit your choices and make you distinctly NOT optimal. Also, seeing blocks is a lot easier if you are CN.

Fridich/LBL Methods- is the second easiest simply because of its extreme structure and ridgedness of solving (compared to the other methods). All you really need to learn to be CN on Fridich is how to switch between colors and how to identify those colors in your cross and f2l; oll and pll are virtually the same.

Roux- is the third hardest method to become CN with because it relies on knowing the colors of each of your blocks in order to build them and thus requires much more thought and memo of piece relations that say Fridich or Petrus.

ZZ- is the hardest method to be CN in because it relies heavily on certain orientations to determine bad and good pieces during inspections. Switching these orientations completely changes how you identify these good and bad pieces, IMO, and it is thus quite hard to do ZZ CN. Then, after EO, you have to do blockbuilding as well.

I'll answer this as someone who is CN, as I appear to recognise differently to you. I just see the case generally from whatever angle. The only ones that give me small issues are G Perms, but I recognise from dependant on where I finish the OLL from.

For a T Perm if I'm looking from:

FL: I see an oppositely coloured edge in headlights. This edge, green in the case of picture, is the same as the corner. If it were an R Perm then colour in headlights would be different.

FR: 2 corners which need swapping at the front and at the right. Since the ones on the left and right are the same. The edge is the opposite colour to the FUR piece.

BR: The same as FR just mirrored.

BL: The same as FL just mirrored.

I can usually always recognise what PLL it is from looking at 2 faces but generally, I'll take a peek at a 3rd side to confirm my PLL. I very very rarely do a PLL wrong when I only look from 2 sides.
Wow, that is a very advanced method, I really need to take the time to learn the 2 side Plls by color, I can only do them with about 2/3rds of the PLL's and only about half are relatively instant, the rest require a second or so of thought
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Mollerz

Swag Overlord
Joined
May 17, 2011
Messages
1,204
Location
Surrey, England
WCA
2011MOLL01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Wow, that is a very advanced method, I really need to take the time to learn the 2 side Plls by color, I can only do them with about 2/3rds of the PLL's and only about half are relatively instant, the rest require a second or so of thought

I didn't really learn it either, I just sort of started noticing things and picked up on them rather quickly. I don't regard them at all, same as colour neutrality, I just do them, but using this method to a degree.

I seemed to have picked up on a lot of things like Colour Neutrality, 2-side PLL recognition, etc whilst being quite slow which I should think would give me an advantage in the long run. My TPS is terrible and my lookahead is average, all I need to do now is practice these to get faster, so just solving.
 

cmhardw

Premium Member
Joined
Apr 5, 2006
Messages
4,115
Location
Orlando, Florida
WCA
2003HARD01
YouTube
Visit Channel
I'm in the transition to switching to color neutrality.

I'm approaching this cold turkey style. My thoughts are that the most difficult part of color neutrality at the moment (for a total beginner to it) is to pick the starting color. I figure that when choosing the starting color that I have white/yellow bias since this is my old method. I've been keeping a log for about half my averages of which starting color I am picking on each solve. I find that early on I am already favoring blue and red, but I am not picking green or orange quite as often. I'm trying to force myself to pick green and orange more often to balance this.

I still solve white or yellow crosses if one of them is the obvious best cross. Also, I am forcing myself to use only 10 seconds of inspection, as this is the amount I used with white and yellow.

So far my color neutral pb average record is 16.08
15.22, 17.67, 16.79, 15.17, 15.16, (19.64), 15.24, 18.68, 15.59, 14.54, 16.75, (13.92) = 16.08

My best single on a non-white or yellow color so far is 12.59 on red cross start.

I'm trying to keep jskyler's method of forcing yourself to solve other colors in mind, but I'm not using his method any where near as strictly. I did force myself to take one average picking between the best of orange or green (the two colors I was picking least often). I figure I will do stuff like this if I find a color bias against any specific colors. Otherwise I still plan to have to force myself to pick the best starting color, as I find this to be the biggest challenge so far as a total beginner.
 

NaeosPsy

Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2010
Messages
238
Location
Latvia
WCA
2011DREI01
Well, I'm now W/Y CN, with intention to switch to full CN. I use Fridich. I switched to W/Y CN, when i was about 20 seconds, now i average about 16-17 with W/Y.
I have done almost only CN solves(about 50 a day) from the 29th December, most of the time i did them like slow solves, and since then, my CN lookahead has became better, i now constantly average sub-20, on good moments sub-19 with CN. The most difficult part of course is F2L. On W/Y solves i can remember/think out, where i have my next corner/edge piece and it comes naturally to me, but on CN solves i struggle to find a green corner, which was in front of cube all the time. Struggling with this also helped my W/Y times a bit. For example, when i am now solving a W/Y cross, my lookahead is almost always really good(better than it was before i tried CN).
I saw jskyler91 video about color filters, and i tried solving just one CN side(red), and it really worked. I now know, how the cross pieces should be correctly added to the center, and i can lookahead in F2L(doing red cross) much better. I think, i will try to the switch with that method, hope it works. ;)
 

5BLD

Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2011
Messages
3,179
Location
England
WCA
2011LAUA01
YouTube
Visit Channel
I find Roux CN much harder than CFOP. Roux has 24 blocks, CFOP 6 crosses.
I did blue for 5 days, got about 13s average. I'm moving on to orange although im considerably slower with blue still.
 
Last edited:

5BLD

Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2011
Messages
3,179
Location
England
WCA
2011LAUA01
YouTube
Visit Channel
And it is the blockbuilding which I generally have a bad time optimising my solutions. And finding the most efficient of the 4 blocks within inspection time.
 

Kirjava

Colourful
Joined
Mar 26, 2006
Messages
6,121
WCA
2006BARL01
YouTube
Visit Channel
he is wrong. IMO
roux users can take advantage of it because there is an inspection time to plan for their blocks.
unlike cfop users, there is no inspection time to plan for their f2l.

Of course there is. Many CFOP users plan the start of their F2L, and it's not like roux users plan the second block most of the time either.
 
Joined
Jun 6, 2010
Messages
238
Location
Philippines
WCA
2010BULA01
YouTube
Visit Channel
Of course there is. Many CFOP users plan the start of their F2L, and it's not like roux users plan the second block most of the time either.

the hardest part (for CN transition)in cfop is the f2l.
the hardest part (for CN transition) in roux is the first block. (in my opinion, i maybe wrong)(sorry if i'm wrong. :) )
assuming same condition for both methods, inspection only for the first step of each method.
there is a inspection time for the hardest part in roux
unlike in cfop, there is no inspection time for the hardest part in cfop. (i know, others can inspect up to f2l)
 

Godmil

Premium Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2010
Messages
2,203
Location
Aberdeen, Scotland
YouTube
Visit Channel
he is wrong. IMO

What you're missing is that us Fridrich users are perfectly happy to do as many ys during cross or F2L as we like, it doesn't mess up our recognition... but a y turn before a roux solve makes a big difference... that's why roux solvers as well as having a standard down colour also have fixed left and right colours.

For my check in, I've only been doing yellow cross this last week. I felt like I was making great headway on my first day with an Ao5 only a second slower than normal, but after a week it's not changed all the much, my Ao12's are about 20% slower, and I get the odd solve that is twice as long as normal. I'll stick with it another week at least, before mixing back in white crosses... what I'm liking is seeing different colours on the cube, it's quite refreshing visually.
 

Stuhl

Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2012
Messages
3
WCA
2010boll01
I never really thought about this before, because I've been Colour Neutral since I started practically. I never consider what colour I am ever solving. I apparently just have the colour scheme totally engrained into my mind. Once I pick my cross I just solve, I know exactly what pieces I am looking for, I don't particularly filter any other colour, I just know... If you give me a solve, let me solve it, if I wasn't asked beforehand to remember the colour I did my last layer on, or what colour I did my cross on, I absolutely wouldn't know upon completion of the solve if I were then asked. Actually trying to remember my cross colour actually hinders my solve.

same here :p
i'm CN since i started and i just don't care about colours. even when i scramble and i'm trying to have green front and white up i'll just forget that 2 cubes later and scramble just CN. That might be a problem in case of reconstucting a solve. i think finding the perfekt cross needs a bit practice if you want to change. you need more inspection time first, but often you get it with fewer moves (obviously...).
My current average is about 16s, and i'm kinda stuck... i often think about how it would be if i am colour specific... because somehow i have the feeling, that people who aren't CN get faster to the 10s-mark, but on the otherhand it is (in my opinion) just more efficient to be CN... (in a long running term)
 

Florian

Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2010
Messages
726
Location
Germany
WCA
2010KREY01
YouTube
Visit Channel
I don't if it fits in here.
But Yay ‎1. 8.30 F D2 L2 D2 F D2 B L2 F' D2 U' F U R D' F2 R' Non-Lucky on green - average on white is around 12

I'm at Day 8 now. 1-4 Yellow 5-9 green and so on - it's blue in the original thread but i did green as the second colour
 

Rune

Premium Member
Joined
May 11, 2006
Messages
277
WCA
2003WESS01
I don't if it fits in here.
But Yay ‎1. 8.30 F D2 L2 D2 F D2 B L2 F' D2 U' F U R D' F2 R' Non-Lucky on green - average on white is around 12

I'm at Day 8 now. 1-4 Yellow 5-9 green and so on - it's blue in the original thread but i did green as the second colour

"and so on" - it means 10 to 15...?
 
Top