How to make Custom Blocks ready for InGame Painting

There are two simple Tricks to get this work.

1. The Texturename ends with _me.dds instead of _de.dds

Important: you didn't need to Change the Texturename at your Model (at the *.xml for MwmBuilder), it can be still _de.dds (at the original Models it's still overall _de.dds in the *.mwm Files). SE search first for _me.dds and if it's find this Texture it ignore the _de.dds one.

2. Color and Alpha Channel Tricks on the _me.dds Texture File.

- Make your Skin like normal but let what should be colored Grey like the normal InGame Grey. Than create a Layer, use the Blend Methode "Hard Light" (Photoshop) and paint all Parts that should get painted InGame with the Color #892364 (I hope that Color works for you as it works for me). At the end you should have purple colored parts on your Texture. If the Color is not correct, than the Color on your Block is not correct and the same Color looks on your Block different from that of the official Blocks.

- SE now need to know, that this Parts should get painted and are not shown purple. Here comes the Alpha Channel into play. Switch to the Alpha Channel and use this Colors, that the Devs itself use (look at the Texture of the Solar Panel):

#898989 (137,137,137): for Parts that should get colored
#9f9f9f (159,159,159): for Parts that should not get painted

If you don't do this all Parts of your Texture is manipulated by the Painting InGame and that looks not so good (but sometimes it could be useful on some Objects). But you could use Gray Colors between this both to scale the Saturation of the Color InGame.

Thats all. Have fun.


Have test it with my Custom Block and that looks like this:





Edit: here is the Texture, the second one is the Alpha Channel

 

Awesome a way to colour my ship weapons when finished

do you think you could figure out how to add more ship weapons in the toolbar for ships? i can't seem to find it though me not knowing c# does not help

 

Not really, that is hardcoded so you can't do anything at the Moment, we need to wait for such things. C# alone didn't help there at the Moment (and I can't code in C#).

 

alright thanks how did you fix the postitioning of your custom model mine is all wonky ( i hope its not because i use google sketchup)

 

Funny, I was going to write up a tutorial for this, but you beet me to it. Though I did figure it out before the solar panels came out, my research led to different conclusions than yours and now I have to do more testing.

I got colour changes without an alpha. But, the only parts of the model that didn't change where any parts that where grey scale. White through Black. Also I used the Hue blend mode to preview what it would look like in photoshop, not Hard Light, Hue gives a closer representation to the colours in game.

Will have to play around with it a little more.

Ps any one figured out transparency yet? It is definitely doable. The best examples are the yellow interaction points and the small cockpit windows along with many effects.

 

4 Hours before i write this Thread I thought about my Custom Block to Update it to the actual State of the Game. So make it paintable was a Idea that I had really quick. And so I look into the Files what the Devs have Changed since we had the Color Picker in the Game and fast I saw that all Block that are paintable have a _me.dds Ending, have no white Alpha Map than the most other Blocks and all are purple painted. The rest was only testing with my Custom Block.

All what I want to say with that is, that this Tut comes now out have nothing to do with the last Patch. Was only because I want to do this now and not earlier. Had more to do with the Survival Patch, because I also want to do now Build States for my Block. ^^


This should only be a quick Tutorial, never said it is perfect and I will update it if had more/better Infos. The Blend Methode works ok for me with that Color, but sure, I'm also not 100% happy with that. But I think I match the Colors very well at the Shots, the difference comes more from my Texture itself, that I also must do completely new, so it was only a quick and dirty Test.

What Color did you use with Hue Blend Method?

Didn't look at the Transparency yet, so i don't know if the Devs change here anything, my last State was, that Transparency is hardcoded, but that Info is Months old.

 

Did you checked that your coloured block stayed same color after save\load? Mine reverts to red.

 

Yes, have started SE since I made this 10+ times and the Colors are still there.

Don't know what that could be, a wrong Option in den sbc Definition? I have seen the Devs changed here and there some things on the Format and other Tags are gone.

 

For me, your armored thrusters are holding their color state ever since Thursday's update.

 

Strange, as I made my Custom Block paintable some Blocks that I place the or my Test Map in Nov/Dec 2013 had Colors on it (painted Armor Blocks around it to test how it looks), could change the Color of that Block too without any Problem to save the Color State.

I will test that on a new Map.

Edit: No Problem on new Maps too, Colors of my Custom Block saved as it should.

Have you done something others than I described it here?

 

So they then fixed that with new update. That's good.

 

Ok, than i misunderstood his Post totally.

But good that it works now, so no need to update this Tut at the moment.

 

A little clarification for those who concerned: I found out that texture based around 157;157;157 (#9d9d9d) value (meaning that this value +-40 is main shade of your texture), hard-lighted by flat color 123;21;87 (#7b1557) provides almost exactly same shades of colors when compared to vanila blocks when painting ingame. Maybe it is affected by texture's brightness, or maybe Balmung get slightly wrong numbers, but his values gave me different results on my block, they were more pale ingame.

 

Thank you!!! I was having a heck of a time getting the right grey >:F

 

Isn't the Alpha on _me the emissive? AKA make your stuff glow. Which would explain the pale colors etc. some of you get. As far as I can tell as long as it's _me.dds instead of _de.dds and you have that pink/purple color it does the painting thing.

Will test this theory out more once I am done with this rusty thruster, would like to make some of my walls paintable.

 

The e in _me and _de means Emissive. But the Devs use it at the _me one for painting for that too. But I don't if they change something on that, this Tutorial is 5 Months old, but MSI's Post sounds so.

 

I cannot for the life of me get this to work. I need something more specific. I'm using Gimp. SO this is how I understand it. Make your normal texture, add layer, fill with the pink, hard light mode, merge down, export dds?

 

Since this post is related to texturing, painting, etc...

I can't figure out why my model is so shiny. I know (think) it is related to the _ns files, but I have no idea how to change the values properly. My current NS texture is colored a solid grey, 128 128 128 with a 1 1 1 alpha channel. What RGB values are proper for this kind of thing?

 

the alpha channel is for specularity (thats why its ns, normal/specular) , white=shiny

 

Changed normals to RGB 128 128 128 ALPHA 1 1 1

Here are results:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=316679734

Here is a less fuzzy version, to show just how fuzzy it is. Gets more fuzzy farther away.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=316679746

Blurry, fuzzy, not what I want...

 

your _ns Map contains the 3 RGB Channels and should have an Alpha Channel (otherwise it will be complete white)

the Alpha Channel controls the shininess of your Texture/Model

here is how a normal map normally looks like:

RGB Channel

Alpha Channel


Edit:
White=full specular reflection (glow)
Black=no specular reflection
Gray=less specular reflection

 

Eikester, for some odd reason, I was having problems with the lighting while the texture's alpha was black, but when I made it white instead, it was fine. I am not sure if it is a bug with GIMP, or a bug with space engineers, or whatever... But it only worked when I made it white.

Idk if it's just me or what, but I am just glad that I don't have to beat my head against a wall any more.

 

@Balmung

This block you show in your posts... is it on the workshop somewhere as a download? I do not seem to see it anywhere.

I have made a series of new blocks but I am having a very hard time understanding the texturing process to get colorable blocks, get shiny bits, get glowing bits, etc. so I am reading up on this trying to figure it all out. I found this thread today and started to look around but I do not see this block anywhere so I can look at it.

 

I'm not entirely sure the color of the texture is still relevant. It seems that now only the alpha channel controls recoloring - at least if the shader sourcecode is actually the current one.

 

Yeah, i didn't do anything the last Months. Possible this Topic is outdated and need an Update. But at the Moment I didn't work on any Mods.

@Volg: no, i never finished it. But there was a User that ask me if he could make such a Block and I saw it Yesterday in a Video, so it should anywhere in the Workshop, but I didn't have seen it there by myself, so I can't give you a Link.