Heyo,
Recolouring the multiplayer armour parts can be a pain, especially when there are lots of them and all you really want to do is change the basic colours.
I made myself a custom action set in Photoshop for that, which i want to share here.
Prerequesites:
1. You already know how and where to extract the game files
2. You own Photoshop (obviously). I made it with CS4 so i don't know what other versions it works with.
Setup:
1. Open Photoshop
2. Open the "actions" window
3. press the options button and select "load action", choose the .atn file wherever you saved it to.
4. Extend the "SM Colour BR" action. You'll see three "fill" subactions, edit those to change the colours to your liking, they're set to a Blood Ravens template by default.
You'll find all the default templates and colours in "\sim\attributes\instances\custom_paint"
5. It's a good idea to dublicate this action set and set it up for colouring the specular maps as well. Gold only looks like gold if it's yellow in the _spc textures.
6. Close all documents you might have opened in Photoshop
Usage:
1. This order is important: with no document open, first open the _dif.dds, then the _pnt.dds. Select the "SM Colour BR" action and "play" it.
2. If you want to add anything else to the texture, now is a good time. If you're finished, save your file.
Ok and here's the download:
http://depositfiles.com/files/rxndwbb8v
EDIT: If you use a different program, or if your photoshop version isn't supported, here's what it does:
The _pnt.dds contains a "mask" in each colour channel. The white parts in the red channel will set the primary colour, the green channel is for the secondary, and the blue channel for the tertiary colour.
The Alpha channel is for dirt or gore or something, so i left it out of my action set.
1. Copy each colour channel (red, green and blue) from the _pnt texture and make each a seperate layer on top of the _dif texture. If those layers aren't black and white you did something wrong.
2. Set each of these layers' blending modes to "multiply"
3. Put an empty layer under each of these
4. Now this is where you pick the colours you want, Fill the empty layers with what you like. Refer to the above explanation for which one to use on what.
5. Make every layer (including background) invisible but the "red channel mask" layer.
6. Click on "load channel as selection", invert selection, make the layer directly below visible (should be the layer you filled with the primary colour) and merge both visible layers.
7. Press delete, the (hopefully still selected) black parts should disappear now.
8. Repeat 5. to 7. but with the green and blue channel masks
9. You should now have three layers with differently coloured "blots". Make them all visible and merge them.
10. If you want to add badges or other stuff, do it now, after 11., or after 12. depending on how you want it to look.
11. Set this new layer's blending mode to "overlay".
12. Make the background layer (the original _dif.dds) visible and merge everything
Save the new texture and you're finished.
