Here is a link to the archived blog post in which the item’s original appearance is referenced above: https://blog.roblox.com/2010/01/more-cowbell/
I used the Wayback Machine to reread the article and grab the image to reference.
I’m not sure if the item’s texture has been corrupted or what, but this is an issue I’ve noticed for a long time. I don’t own the item, but it’s been a pet peeve of mine and hopefully it can finally get fixed.
Because all blogposts were archived you need to use the wayback machine or another method in order to access the past variants. Thats my bad I should have provided these links:
Some further information regarding this issue that I’ve discovered with the help of @Spectaqual:
Originally this item had a black and white-texture and the blue-hue effect was given by having the VertexColor values of “1, 1, 120256336”.
The VertexColor z-value which is very large was at some point changed to be 0 which resulted in the entire item becoming yellow. I was able to test this myself using a version of the texture converted back into black and white, after modifying the VertexColor values.
The new version of the texture was created somewhere between summer 2013 and autumn 2014. This was likely when the VertexColor attribute for official Roblox hats/accessories was changed/deprecated and the the incorrect VertexColor values were baked into the texture.
Even with a black/white texture variant the original effect the item had is no longer able to be reproduced presumably due to changes with how the VertexColor attribute works now. Using the original values the item had with the b&w texture results in an entirely blue-tinted hat rather than the blue/silver gloss it originally had.
Awhile back, Roblox had to go through and remove VertexColor tints from hats, applying the hue directly to the texture. Probably assumed the weird yellow color was intentional, since there was a decent amount of VertexColor hats to fix.
Looks the same as the b&w version I manually corrected!
I expected as much because it would have just been applying the vertexcolor modifications which in reverse would be the same as just converting it to black and white.
Thank you for the find though! This is great as confirmation of original assets.
Also just realizing that the link to the texture I manually converted didn’t seem to be working, so I fixed that!
There’s also a third version that was released in November 2016, which was an updated Accessory based on the second version, so it’s also yellow.
Our (somewhat) educated guesses at what had happened are:
The engine back then and the engine now interpret the giant vertex color value differently. The old version interprets it as Blue, while the newer one thinks it’s yellow. Since this item is from 2010, it’s hard to say what the intended look is either.
We’re reluctant to make the change because most of the evidence we have right now point to this Accessory being yellow, and the only hint that this asset is blue is that one thumbnail. We won’t say we won’t fix it, but we’re think it’s fair to say we need more evidence that this is the wrong color.
That being said, IMO there’s already enough evidence to believe that the hat was originally intended to be blue: the original blog post announcing the hat, freeze/frost commonly being associated with blue/white color palettes, and the fact that VertexColor Z value controls blueness, and it was set very high.
Considering that it has had issues seemingly since it first came out, I can understand a hesitation to update it. Personally, I think other appearance issues like the one affecting Ghostwalker and Icedagger’s transparencies are more pressing. But I do think it would be cool to see this fixed too or a fixed version of this hat being published separately.
The hat was released blue, and marketed on the blog as blue. The name and description are both ice themed, which while sometimes blue, is very rarely neon yellow. I don’t think the updated texture being yellow suggests that’s the intended look, considering it was likely part of a larger batch of VertexColor fixes. If the original artist wanted this to be bright neon yellow, they would’ve needed to use a VertexColor of 2, 2, 0. Instead, they gave it a blue value of 120256336.
Here’s some hi-res footage of the Brainfreeze hat in a late 2010 client. Light grey with blue lighting, both on its own and when worn by an avatar.
