Step by step recolorable texture tutorial (photoshop) * pics included *

[hotroddude]

Ok ive decided to make a step by step recolorable texture tutorial for Photoshop, since i was completely clue-less on the subject untill i magically figured out how to do it. so here goes.


first off you will need the rct3 recolorable .ACT file it should be included with the importer but if not you can download it HERE!!! (http://rapidshare.de/files/34202246/RCT3-RecolorableOVLColorTable.act.html) ( USING THIS FILE YOU WILL BE ABLE TO USE A TEXTURE WITH MULTIPLE TEXTURES OR COLORS ON IT, FOR SEPERATE TEXTURES YOU CAN GET THE DOWNLOAD NEAR THE END OF THIS POST! )

so heres what you do... first open up a new picture in photoshop all the details will look like this...

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/1430/recolorabletutorialpic1lb0.png


once youve done that you can add the color you want, you should just start with a plain one color texture for now. when you got the texture you want go to the top of the page and click on http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/8978/recolorabletutorialpic2fz0.png go all the way down and scroll over " mode " and click on " indexed color ". when youve done that this should pop up.

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/5627/recolorabletutorialnewtb9.png

change the " forced " option to none ( this will keep it from changing and will help later on )

the texture SHOULD LOOK THE SAME AS IT DID BEFORE if it changed you did something wrong.


next thing to do is hit the " image " and " mode" again, but this time click on " color table " you should see this ( or something similar )

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/1350/recolorabletutorialpic6ww9.png

click on load and find the .ACT file.
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/6949/recolorabletutorialpic5fb9.png

then the table will look like the picture i posted earlier...
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/1350/recolorabletutorialpic6ww9.png

hit okay ( the textures color should now change color tone a little ) save it as an 8 bit .BMP image and your done! NOTE! using the first palette i posted will be good for only one texture i guess this is for something if you had a texture including many clolors . now to make three different textures you will need to read down.


if you need seperate recolorable textures keep reading


well you will now need three more recolorable .ACT files wich you can get HERE!!! (http://rapidshare.de/files/34229097/three_recolorables.zip.html) they are named 1,2,and 3 so you should know that 1 ( the blue-ish one ) is for the first texture like i had posted before number 2 is the pink-ish second color and 3 is the yellow-ish 3rd recolorable texture. just load wich ever one you want the same way i showed with the first file and it should work.


now in the importer....lets say you have two textures but only one that is recolorable, they BOTH need to have the " textures player can change " option to one. if you have two recolorable textures ALL of the textures need the recolorable option at two, and three you need three.


well i hope i got this figured out now...and i think this should cover it all now.


i hope you guys will find this easy to understand, thats what i was going for :D


-hotroddude

[LuckyGirl]

Thanks soooo much for this tutorial! I downloaded the GIMP palette made by one of the members, as I don;'t have Photoshop.
I will give this a shot soon ;)

[hotroddude]

^i figured a step by step tutorial was something new scenary makers needed.

and btw i screwed up the first time i typed it up i think its fixed now though ( and if its not could someone tell me what im missing? thanks :D )

[Vodhin]

Nice Tutorial! I have PaintShop Pro and the color table is not compatable. Anyone got a PaintShop version?

[rctmaniac]

nice one! not sure i get it yet-i will try soon

[marnetmar]

I stickied this for you. Nice work on it ;)

[hotroddude]

Nice Tutorial! I have PaintShop Pro and the color table is not compatable. Anyone got a PaintShop version?

thanks, and i have no clue where you could get one, sorry :(


nice one! not sure i get it yet-i will try soon

cool, hope everything works okay. :)


I stickied this for you. Nice work on it ;)

thanks.

[Belgabor]

While the efford is appreciated, I'm afraid this tutorial is pretty much wrong!
Mods: sorry for the picture cite, but I have to take this apart in some detail :D

The central point you misunderstood is that the color of a recolorable texture is completely unimportant. What matters is the position in the palette.


first off you will need the rct3 recolorable .ACT file it should be included with the importer but if not you can download it HERE!!! (http://rapidshare.de/files/34202246/RCT3-RecolorableOVLColorTable.act.html) ( USING THIS FILE YOU WILL BE ABLE TO USE A TEXTURE WITH MULTIPLE TEXTURES OR COLORS ON IT, FOR SEPERATE TEXTURES YOU CAN GET THE DOWNLOAD NEAR THE END OF THIS POST! )

so heres what you do... first open up a new picture in photoshop all the details will look like this...

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/1430/recolorabletutorialpic1lb0.png


You should note that the texture can be any square power of 2 size.


once youve done that you can add the color you want, you should just start with a plain one color texture for now. when you got the texture you want go to the top of the page and click on http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/8978/recolorabletutorialpic2fz0.png go all the way down and scroll over " mode " and click on " indexed color ". when youve done that this should pop up.

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/3158/recolorabletutorialpic3sf5.png

change the " forced " option to custom ( even if it already is, do it again )


something like this should show up ( it will probably be different, so if it is dont worry )
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/9137/recolorabletutorialpic4di7.png
just hit ok and get back the screen with just the texture showing up.

Here I have to call bs first. If the color table is not the one you show here, everything is likely to get fubared compretely either immediately or after the next step.



hit the " image " and " mode" again, but this time click on " color table " you should see this ( or something similar )

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/1350/recolorabletutorialpic6ww9.png

click on load and find the .ACT file.
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/6949/recolorabletutorialpic5fb9.png

then the table will look like the picture i posted earlier...
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/1350/recolorabletutorialpic6ww9.png


What you do here is overwrite the colortable of the picture. This is where you will fail if you didn't use the same one above.


save it as an 8 bit .BMP image and your done! NOTE! using the first palette i posted will be good for only one texture i guess this is for something if you had a texture including many clolors. now to make three different textures you will need to read down.


now in the importer....lets say you have two textures but only one that is recolorable, they BOTH need to have the " textures player can change " option to one. if you have two recolorable textures ALL of the textures need the recolorable option at two, and three you need three.



okay i just tried making a new texture and the clicking the color thing didnt work so i guess it only worked because i got lucky so now i need to add some more. if you need seperate recolorable texture keep reading


well you will now need three more recolorable .ACT files wich you can get HERE!!! (http://rapidshare.de/files/34229097/three_recolorables.zip.html) they are named 1,2,and 3 so you should know that 1 ( the blue-ish one ) is for the first texture like i had posted before number 2 is the pink-ish second color and 3 is the yellow-ish 3rd recolorable texture. just load wich ever one you want the same way i showed with the first file and it should work.


These tables will not work. They map the color range that is mapped normally (with the original act) to the second choice or third choice to the first. See your central misconception above.

What you have to do is:
Paint the texture using the colors of the original act (you can load it into the photoshop swatches). Use the blue colors for the first choice, magenta for the second and yellow for the third.
Then you have to convert to indexed like hotroddude explained, only it matters which palette you use. Load the complete act like hotroddude explains later for the color table.
Now you need a lot of luck. Very probably photoshop will missassign some colors (mostly magenta vs blue tones). Happy repairing!

You note a bit of sarcasm here. I didn't implement the RGB version for the Importer for nothing :p

You might get luckier if you convert to indexed with the act palette first and then start painting, but my impression was that this won't lead to a acceptable result easily either.

Sorry again to be so negative, but my impression was that this will probably confuse newbies, even more so now it's been stickied.

[hotroddude]

well that is what i did to get it to work :p

Here I have to call bs first. If the color table is not the one you show here, everything is likely to get fubared compretely either immediately or after the next step.


i did mention the table that would show up would look differently, i just wasnt in the mood for restarting my computer to get it the way it would normally be :)


What you do here is overwrite the colortable of the picture. This is where you will fail if you didn't use the same one above.

that is why i said to upload the act file so it would change and would be different from what was seen earlier.


Paint the texture using the colors of the original act

i explained when you hit the ok button it would automatically change colors to fit the color table, so you wouldnt have to make the texture all over again.


i think it was correct. but as you mentioned the color isnt important? but it if itsnt how come i wasnt able to make two recolorable textures untill i used a blue-ish and a pink-ish texture? so i guess it should do something right?

[Belgabor]

The main point is that what you posted will probably work for one shaded textures, but not for more complex ones. Just try it your way. Paint a truecolor image, convert to indexed using a different palette, apply the act using color table and see what comes out :) I guarantee it will be recolorable, but probably not the way you want it to be.
I'd have preferred writing a tutorial over coding the RGB scheme, but I just couldn't get satisfying results.

[marnetmar]

If this isn't going to work. let me know & I'll unsticky it. I've never tried making multiple colors recolorable before.

[hotroddude]

The main point is that what you posted will probably work for one shaded textures, but not for more complex ones. Just try it your way. Paint a truecolor image, convert to indexed using a different palette, apply the act using color table and see what comes out :) I guarantee it will be recolorable, but probably not the way you want it to be.
I'd have preferred writing a tutorial over coding the RGB scheme, but I just couldn't get satisfying results.

well it worked fine for the metal texture you sent to me for the catwalks, not sure if that passes off as complex but i wasnt exactly going for full images with this...if that would be really possible or not, ive never really had to.


If this isn't going to work. let me know & I'll unsticky it. I've never tried making multiple colors recolorable before.

neh you can keep it for now, it still works.

[Belgabor]

Ok, let me follow your steps, playing noob :p

I create a pic like you said and paint something:
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/7148/recol1kd5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
I even do it in one of the right colors (if I was really a noob, I might consider using lots of other colors).

Now I convert to indexed with the custom palette PS gives me, in this case it happens to be the windows system palette:
http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/2060/recol2mn1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Now my pic looks like this, quite ok:
http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/3631/recol3is6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Now I apply the recolorable act using Color Table:
http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/3800/recol4lf8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

While it looks artistic and is recolorable I suspect the result is not what was intended...

[hotroddude]

how did that happen? did you click ok with the palette that came up? or did i say to ckick ok...ya know i did say to click ok...i'll change it. anyway i saved that picture you put up and when i loaded the recolorable palette i got this.

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/9882/recol1kd5wm3.png


which looks exactly the same but had a tad bit of purple in photoshop.

[Belgabor]

I should have explained the issue in detail immediately, sorry.
Sorry again, if something I'll be saying is already known. I don't want to patronize, but these things need to be clear to understand :)

1) What is a truecolor image?
A truecolor image is a picture where each pixel stores exact color information, usually three different values, red, green and blue.

2) What is an indexed image?
An indexed image has a palette, which essentially is a list of colors (usually RGB like above). What each pixel stores in an index into this palette, not the color information itself.

3) What happens if I convert a truecolor image to indexed?
If you use the 'Local' option in photoshop, it first tries to find the best palette for the colors in your image, given the number of palette entries available (usually 256) and then calculates for each pixel which color from this palette is the most similar. Then the color information for that pixel is discarded and replaced by the palette index.
If you use a custom palette, as we are doing here, basically the same happens without finding the palette. The similarity is calculated to the palette you selected.

4) What happens if I use the Color Table menu item?
The palette is simply replaced with the one you load. The image pixel data is NOT changed, which means the indices now point to completely different colors. In my example indexing to the system palette 'spread' the blue tones over the complete index range (look at the distribution of blue tones in the system palette). Now when I load the ordered recolorable palette some of them turn up in the blue, magenta and yellow ranges.

5) Why did I say the color is irrelevant for RCT3 recolorable textures?
Because the palette is not used for these textures, only the index is (eg index 70 is the first color selection, somewhat medium brightness). You can look up which index range is for which color selection in the pdf that comes with the importer.

6) So what is all this ACT about?
It is just a means to get the right index range mapped to the right area of your texture. So if you originally want the first third of your texture recolorable with the first selection and paint it blue, the act makes sure only the correct palette indices are used in this area.

I hope this sheds some light on the issue ;)

[hotroddude]

^hmm i wasnt able to completely undertand that lol. it was stuff like that, that made the other tutorial i found really hard to understand. all i know is it works if you want to make a texture recolorable...i dont know how or why but it does :p

[Guybrush_47]

I followed this tutorial and unfortunatly... it does not work. I did however find out how to do it by simple trial and error.

Hotroddude, if you could change your first post to what i say, it might clear up the confusion people are having :)

When you convert the image into an indexed image, on 'pallete' go down to custom, load up the appropriate RCT3 table. Then where it says 'Dither' select 'none'. That will now switch the colours to the rct3 table, and it should now be useable!

(I hope) :P

As Belagabor said, you were doing it in the wrong order. You need to select the appropriate table when converting the image into an indexed image. If you do it afterwards, the table won't effect the image. However it will effect the image when you convert it.

[MaxInfinity]

Some textures are not suitable to be re-colourable. There are only 256 colours in an 8 bit indexed file. Open the swatch window in photoshop and click on the triangle to the right of the tabs. Click replace swatch and change the file type to .act and load the .act file supplied with the importer.
Click the triangle again and select save swatch, and save it as RCT3 or whatever you want, you can now load the re-colourable palete from the swatch.
Open your texture in photoshop, it must be an RGB file to start with, so if its not, convert it now. open the swatch window if its not already open, and load the RCT3.act file you saved earlier if its not already loaded.
click the first colour in the blue section of the swatch, and in the tool menu select colour replacement tool under the brush tool, Uncheck antialias and set tolerence to 100%. Paint over your texture. Now convert to a indexed file. If the texture is suitable for a one colour re-colourable texture, your texture should look the same or just a different shade of blue than you painted with, with out losing any of the texture pattern or definition. If so you can save this now as a 8bit .bmp file. If you did not get the results you were expecting, your texture may still be ok for a 2 or 3 colour re-colourable texture. I hav'nt got time to explain the process at the moment, but I will when i get time. You can make some very complex textures re-colourable this way.

[coasterman20076]

can someone make video tutorial for this so we can see what your doing .I think make it more easy to understand what your talk about.than doing write tutorial be new cso making I'm lose try to understand what this all mean

[mikeyca]

can someone make video tutorial for this so we can see what your doing .I think make it more easy to understand what your talk about.than doing write tutorial be new cso making I'm lose try to understand what this all mean

It's actually a LOT simpler now with the more recent versions of the importer. You can just use the RGB settings (no more converting to indexed color images) and use the Levels option on Photoshop to adjust the R, G and B levels. Belgabor wrote a nice and short tut on this for GIMP and Photoshop: http://belgabor.vodhin.net/importer/index.html#recol