Team-color unit skins

[Nutty]

Making units that vary color depending on the civ or team is very easy. It's a simple trick with the alpha channel of your diffuse texture.

You'll need:
Adobe Photoshop AND the DDS plugin
OR GIMP AND the DDS plugin
OR Paint.NET with built-in DDS support.

[EDIT: Thanks to NomadOrWhat, see post #26 for a Paint.NET tutorial.]

Take a look at one of the vanilla textures [use Dragon UnPACKer to extract them from your game files], or you can download the Teamcolor Napoleonic musketmen shown in the screenshots.

In-Game screenshot:



You want to color the portion of the alpha channel that you want to be team-colored after making the corresponding portion of the RGB channels a fairly bright gray-to-white. For the most part, the pictures below should speak for themselves.

RGB:


Alpha:


RGB+Alpha:



It's a similar process in other programs, but I'm only familiar with the technique in Photoshop.

1. Switch from Layers to Channels.
   
2. Make selections with the RGB channel visible, then hide the RGB channel and select the Alpha channel.
3. Hit the Delete button on your keyboard to "delete" your selection on the alpha channel (since it's seen as a single-layer, Photoshop will prompt you to fill with a color; in this case, you want a dark gray color. The darker the gray, the more bold the teamcolor). Remember you can hold Shift to add another selection to your existing one (and likewise hold Alt to subtract), even after you've changed to a different selection tool.
4. Repeat. If you do it right, when the alpha and RGB layers are both visible, you should see a pink color where you have colored the alpha channel.
5. Save as a DXT3 DDS. Note that you can create multiple alpha channels, as shown in the screenshot above. I have done so because this unit has 3 variations using optionally visible layers in the same PSD file. However, when you save the DDS, it will inform you that only one alpha channel is supported. If you hit OK, it will save only the topmost alpha channel in the list.

There are other tutorials that explain how to add unit art to the game. See e.g., Add a new unit to the game. Also, these will certainly prove useful to you: ArtDefine files for Standard Units (inc DLC).

FWIW, I've attached below the simple mod I used to test my Napoleonic musketmen:

 

[hangman]

For those using GIMP, after selecting, I just use the color-to-alpha function with pure red, pure blue, pure green, and whichever out of cyan, magenta, and yellow make it completely grayscale.

 

[Nutty]

If I understand the technique you're describing, that would result in bright sections getting less teamcolor and dark sections getting more. Depending on the unit, that might work OK, but it's usually better to apply a fairly uniform color (or at least, realizing where you want bold teamcolor sections (e.g., a painted shield or banner) and where you want it be more muted (e.g., fabric).

 

[Ekmek]

so was firaxis' paratrooper supposed to be team colored? Its oddly white in the dds and in game.

 

[Nutty]

so was firaxis' paratrooper supposed to be team colored? Its oddly white in the dds and in game.

The teamcolor bits are the beret and the collar. If you look at the DDS without examining the alpha layer, i.e., on the RGB layers, the teamcolor bits should appear fairly white (so it doesn't compete with the teamcolor which is applied on top). If you view the unit in the Nexus 3D Viewer, the teamcolor bits will be gray.

 

[hangman]

If I understand the technique you're describing, that would result in bright sections getting less teamcolor and dark sections getting more. Depending on the unit, that might work OK, but it's usually better to apply a fairly uniform color (or at least, realizing where you want bold teamcolor sections (e.g., a painted shield or banner) and where you want it be more muted (e.g., fabric).

I think that's correct, although since I'm usually teamcoloring fabrics, I haven't noticed any problems. The dark overtones actually conserve the original texture, which I like. I suppose if you wanted to preserve some brightness, you could scale the value of the overtones to what they originally were. You still wind up losing a bit of saturation though... In any case, as long as the overtones aren't too opaque, it shouldn't muddy the teamcolor much.

 

[Ekmek]

The teamcolor bits are the beret and the collar. If you look at the DDS without examining the alpha layer, the teamcolor bits should appear fairly white, i.e., on the RGB layers (so it doesn't compete with the teamcolor which is applied on top). If you view the unit in the Nexus 3D Viewer, the teamcolor bits will be gray.

I see. but the whole damn uniform is white. Like he's an astronaut.

 

[Nutty]

@Hangman:
I'm not sure one of us is getting the other (it may well be me that's not understanding). Can you post a screenshot of your RGB and Alpha layers for an example unit?

I see. but the whole damn uniform is white. Like he's an astronaut.

I guess it's alpine camo.

 

[Nomad or What]

Thanks for this tutorial!

Unfortunately I am a perfectionist so I am going to have this continual urge to re-do all of my previous .dds files with team color attributes now...

 

[Civitar]

Can someone who understands how to make teamcolor skins with GIMP make a tutorial please? I tried what hangman said works but only got gray where the unit should have been teamcolor ingame. That means that in Civ5, the unit was gray where he should have been orange (I was playing as Polynesia). I know that teamcolor is gray in Nexus, but Nexus still isn't working...

 

[hangman]

Can someone who understands how to make teamcolor skins with GIMP make a tutorial please? I tried what hangman said works but only got gray where the unit should have been teamcolor ingame. That means that in Civ5, the unit was gray where he should have been orange (I was playing as Polynesia). I know that teamcolor is gray in Nexus, but Nexus still isn't working...

I don't feel like writing it up atm but I put together some pictures that should be fairly self-explanatory. On the last part though, I should point out that I cut the area and pasted it into the top layer. I may post a write up later. Also, be sure to only teamcolor the diffuse (diff) texture, not the specular (sref) texture! In fact, the sref texture should have the alpha channel removed.

Also, it seems that depending on the order of the colors you choose to convert to alpha, you'll wind up with either black overtones or white overtones.

 

[Civitar]

OK, second try. I made my Elf Warrior teamcolor as in your pictures. However, I got such "black overtones" that only small bits of the elf were red (I was playing as Darius), the rest that could have been tc were totally black. How do I reduce those overtones?

 

[hangman]

What you want to do is cut and paste the area into a new (higher) layer, turn down the opacity, and then merge it down.

 

[Civitar]

@hangman: I tried that and it still doesn't work, now I only get black where there should be teamcolor. Could you please just write up how you do your teamcolor with GIMP? Nomad or What and I both want to know how to do these, and I think Pazyryk would like it so that he can use teamcolor elves from me...

 

[abob101]

Has anyone had any luck with this?

I tried applying teamcolor to one of the dwarf units from the dwarf pack, and it doesn't work... came out black for the teamcolor like Civitar describes.

I'm thinking it might be the model(s), because it seems to work fine for any of the Civ5 models, but not custom ones. The (semi)transparent layer in the dds skin works, you can see through the skin but the model is "black" underneath rather than the teamcolor.... and i'm thinking that might be the model that's doing it.

Anyone got it working for custom models?

 

[hangman]

Custom models shouldn't be a problem; I've done it a number of times myself. If you're talking about the unit viewer, it actually should be black, since the teamcolor only shows up in-game.

 

[abob101]

I mean in game.... I did it in GIMP just how you described. Will try again when I get the chance and if it doesn't work post all the details.

 

[hangman]

It could be that the alpha got messed up somehow when saving it. It could also be that the model's textures aren't applied correctly.

 

[abob101]

OK got this working thanks hangman.

The problem was the sref I was using, it was black (mostly)... hence when making the diff skin transparent, it would show the black parts of the sref through.

So it looks like to get the teamcolor working the sref should be white/transparent rather than white/black.

 

[Nomad or What]

OK got this working thanks hangman.

The problem was the sref I was using, it was black (mostly)... hence when making the diff skin transparent, it would show the black parts of the sref through.

So it looks like to get the teamcolor working the sref should be white/transparent rather than white/black.

I still can't make this happen with GIMP. Unless someone can do a tutorial, I am just going to forget about using team color with the units I create.