[HLP] - Recolorable textures

[infiniteblue]

Can anyone explain to me how I can make my models recolorable without using the RCT3 recolorable palette? I've heard that there is a way to do it using PNG's but I'm still in the dark about that method. Can anyone enlighten me?

[rctmaniac]

Do you mean make a recolourable texture? If you like I can send you one. Or: Make a 4x4 bmp and fill it with a colour that is B: 255 R: 0 G: 0. Set to 1 recolourable in the importer, and voila. If you want some sent PM me .

[infiniteblue]

I think that if you sent me some it would be very helpful. I sent you a PM right now.

:EDIT: For some reason, none of my image editors want to open the file you sent me. Maybe you could just explain it to me. I actually only have one real question regarding recolorability: can I just recolor a texture image that I already have to B: 255, R: 0, G: 0 and have it be recolorable in the game (as long as the option is checked in the importer)?

[Belgabor]

If you make it a indexed picture applying the recolorable palette file, then yes.
The easy way is to make it 128/0/0 and save it as truecolor.

[infiniteblue]

I don't know if my first post was clear enough, but I found the instance where I heard of the colorizing method. The post here (http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8724394&postcount=3) by Vodhin explains that if you colorize a texture R: 255, B: 0, G: 0, save it as a PNG and make the model recolorable for one color, that should make it recolorable. I was just posting here to see if that method actually worked. I'm in the process of testing this method out, so I'll post here if it works.

:EDIT:

Well, the recolorable method outlined by Vodhin works except for one tiny little problem. The color is there, but the texture does not appear to be. And my test object ends up very different in-game than what I modeled it to be. I think that may be an issue with not fixing the orientation in the importer, though.

[kylr23]

sorry to bring back the longers but it happens i need one to please i cant seam to get the hang of it

[Vodhin]

First, use a real photo editing program that has good color tools: Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, TheGimp, etc.

Second: Use PNG file formats- they are smaller files to work with (needing fewer memory resources when you have a lot of textures loaded in the modeling program). The importer will properly convert the PNG to the FTX file format RCT3 uses in game.

For a single color option, you simply need to make your image into a monochrome image and tint it pure red. To do this, make the image grayscale (remember the old black and white photos?) and then colorize the image red.

You might also have to adjust each color separately after that- here's why: Gray is made up using red, green, and blue all at the same values: R128 G128 B128 is dead center between black and white. You need to inspect your texture so that there are only values in the Red channel, between 0 (darkest) and 255 (lightest).

A solid color that is perfectly re-colorable (black is black and white is white, not gray-ish) will have Red at 128. Any value over about 213 will appear too light to be a noticable color change and below 48 will appear just as black.

Your range needed will depend on the texture used (does it have bold lines or subtle patterns?), and you will need to adjust the contrast and brightness (in the grayscale step) to reach a desired range once colorized,


Good Luck! :D


-V