Creating a Tint Maps

[Pyroblasta]

There are armors that can be tinted with Nez Dye Kit...

and then there are these ones which cannot be done without a working tint map:

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/893

 

I'm trying to recolor the clothing which I have no luck and I'm hitting the wall finding out how to do it.

 

I don't know what I am doing using photoshop. I am also hitting the wall trying to learn about doing tints, editing .dds D, N, S, T without messing up the files completely.

Searching around the Nexus forums and googling gave very few answers. Many are not straightforward for photoshop illiterates like myself.

 

 

I did found video tutorials on how to retexture, but retexturing does not allow me to change the color from MS clothing mod.

There are no video tutorials on how to create these tint maps when you are retexturing.

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

 

EDIT

 

I believe from looking at MS mods I see a few clothing similar designs but different coloring done by retexturing then creating it as a new piece of clothing. Should anyone out there know how to do something like this please share.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Pyroblasta

[Pyroblasta]

Here is my update.

 

I still haven't successfully created a tint map after a few days but I have found a work around with coloring...

 

I found a guide for recoloring and retexturing for DA2 but it still works for origins

https://wiki.nexusmods.com/index.php/Recolouring_an_armour_for_Dragon_Age_2

 

I used both Photoshop and Gimp2.8 to edit Diffuse and Specular maps to change the colors.

 

Heres the good, bad and ugly

 

Good - Color change was a success!

Bad - Really TEDIOUS work, using the Hand Free Tool and Recoloring and you still need to be creating .NCS scripts & .UTI those are only replacers.

For Standalones they require more work. You need to thoroughly edit .MMH .PHY .MAO files.

Ugly - Each time you want make/add a different color you have to edit the Diffuse and Specular maps from scratch! Exception is having the same model templates.

 

EDIT

 

It is strongly recommended to save a .PSD file with all your layers you have made BEFORE merging down all the layers. This can be a costly mistake that will make you do the tedious work all over again. Redrawing with the Hand Free Tools and recolor the layers required from the start. Save your energy and your sanity. Especially if you ever need to make any color changes in the future.

 

EDIT

 

Making a Specular Map

This is more for Origins mod when making a S map, the Diffuse map image is much bigger than Specular map image.

 

1. Open Diffuse image with all your layer edits still in place and save it as .PSD file. Do the same for Specular image. Make a backup copy in case of any errors.

 

2. Open in GIMP the .PSD Diffuse image with all your layer edits.

a. Select all with Ctrl + A

b. Image > Scale image

c. I use 512x512. I am trying scale both the width and the height to match the size of the Specular image.

 

2. Open in Adobe Photoshop the .PSD Diffuse image with all your layer edits

a. Hold down the Ctrl key and click to highlight all of the layers except for the background

b. Select all with Ctrl + A and then Ctrl + T to use the transform tool

c. I set the height & width to 25%, your settings may differ. The purpose is to reduce height and the width to match the size of the Spec image.

 

3. Follow the instruction on the link above on how to recolor the Specular map.

 

1. Now we are going to recolour the specular map, too, to get the armour to reflect light with the new colours we have given it.

   1. Open in GIMP the specular map of the armour. For the Noble outfit A it is the hf_cth_noba_0s.dds file.
   2. Open also in GIMP the backup copy of the file you've used for recolouring the diffuse map, with all the coloured layers.
   3. Copy the specular map into the backup copy as a new layer:
      1. Go to the specular map image and select the menu option Edit -> Copy.
      2. Then go to the backup copy and select the menu option Edit -> Paste as -> New Layer.
      3. On the layer stack you will see now the original specular map you've added as a new layer. Move it to the bottom of the layer stack by pressing the green down arrow.
      4. Delete the layer that contains the diffuse map base image (select that layer and click on the dustbin icon in the layer stack window)
   4. Now you will have an image that will have the specular map as the base image (the bottom layer) and all the colouring layers on top of it.
   5. Change all the blending modes of the colour layers to Color.
   6. Merge down all the colour layer to the specular image as you did before to merge them down to the diffuse map image:
      1. Select the layer that is just on top of the specular map image in the layer stack and select the menu option Layer -> Merge down.
      2. Repeat the merging down process for all layers, merging always the layer that is on top of the specular map image.
   7. Save the image as a dds file (that is the type of file the game recognises):
      1. Select the menu option File -> Save As
      2. Save the specular map in the same folder and with the same name the original specular map had (we are recolouring an existing armour and want to replace the existing colour with the new one). For the female Noble outfit A that means that we have to save the file to the art\characters\playercharacter\humanfemale\textures\folder and with the name hf_cth_noba_0s.dds
      3. A window will pop up asking for the parameters for saving the dds file. Check the Generate mipmaps flag and select the BC3/DXT5 compression as shown in picture Parameters for saving the DDS file.

 

***world of caution - Adobe Photoshop transform tool may not be 100% accurate. If the layer edits are accurately not on top of your Specular map then you have either

1. Realign the Specular map to make sure they are sitting on top BEFORE you merge down.

2. Try repeating step 2 by editing and transforming the layers one by one.

 

That is the best I can do unless someone can somehow fine tune this.

Edited March 10, 2019 by Pyroblasta

[Bikerdruid]

I haven't tried any of that but I have changed the skin texture or df_arm_nuda in NBAIO by simply creating a new layer taking the color or texture from another pasting it to the dds and setting it to overlay then merging down.