Recoloring with Image Adjustments

Transcription

By Sim_man123, 18 May 2008
Recoloring in its simplest form is exactly that: changing the color of something. Depending on
the program that you are using, there are many ways to do this. This tutorial will be using
Photoshop CS3 (although most options used are available in older versions as well) and will
cover the different methods that affect color, such as Hue/Saturation, Variations, and Color
Balance, among others.
The very first thing you want to do before you start Recoloring is make sure that you have CEP
installed and enabled, as it will make every object in the catalog recolorable. The newest
version of CEP can always be found at http://cep.modthesims2.com/ . Make sure this is
installed before you start the actual recoloring.
You also want to install the nVidia DDS Utilities, which will allow you to import the finished
texture back into the package file without losing quality. The DDS Utilities can be found here:
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/dds_utilities_legacy.html and instructions on how to point
SimPE to them can be found here:
http://forums.thesimsresource.com/showthread.php?t=352209
To actually edit the textures, you will need a graphics editor. There is a wide array of programs
available, two of the most prominent being Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. You do have to pay
for both, however they each have a free trial. If you would rather just get a free program to
start with, Paint.NET and GIMP are both decent replacements that work just as well as
Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. For this tutorial I will be using Photoshop CS3. Almost all
options used in this tutorial will work in any older version of Photoshop. They are also available
in other programs, however they will probably be under a different menu/name.
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Creating the file
The first step, obviously, is to decide what you want to make. At the moment I’m thinking along
the lines of a kitchen, so I’m going to find a counter to recolor. Either on the bottom or on the
side of your SimPE window, find the tab for “Object Workshop” and click it. A blueish-gray
window should appear and say that the object data is not yet loaded. There should be two
buttons below that, click the one labeled “Start”. Depending on your PC and how many
Expansions/Stuff Packs you have installed, this could take a while to load and it may seem that
SimPE has froze, when really it’s just still loading.
After a while of churning, the screen should go away and it will now show a list of object
categories, Like Decorative, Lighting, Surfaces, etc. Click the + box next to the base category
of the item that you want, and it should expand with either a new list of sub-categories, or
actual items, depending on what you chose. Because I'm going to recolor a counter, I'm going
to look under “Surfaces”. From the sub-menu I'm then going to choose “Counters”. Now it
should actually show me different counters available (although remember that the catalog only
shows Maxis/EA items, you should click “Open” and load the mesh file if you would rather
recolor a custom mesh.).
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Feel free to look at different parts of the catalog if you don’t want to make a counter, the
Recoloring process is just about universal for all objects. When you find the item you want,
click on it once in the catalog listing and then at the top click “next”
The screen will change again, and this time it should be the “task” menu. If it’s not already
selected, make sure to select “Recolor”. “Create Color Extension Package” should be checked
by default. Once you have those two set, click “Start”. A Save File dialog will appear, go ahead
and save your file into your Downloads folder.
Depending on what you have chosen to recolor, you may or may not get a “Subset Selection”
dialog box. The way this works is that if you are recoloring something with more than one part,
you can choose which one, or both, parts to recolor. Because if a user deletes something from
within the game, the game will delete the ENTIRE file, and all recolors that you have put in that
file as well (not just the one texture that was selected), it’s recommended that you only recolor
one subset per file.
If you are recoloring something like a dining table or an end table, you may find that there is
only one subset, so you won’t be given a choice. Since I'm recoloring a counter, I'm going to
get to choose if I want the counter top or the cabinet. If it’s an item that already has recolors,
you will also be able to select which texture you want to use a base in your file. In this
screenshot I have deselected the counter top, since I don’t want to change it, and have also
selected the texture that is closest the final one I want, which is the tan one that I'm going to
darken to brown.
Counters, Plumbing, and Pet Beds all have two textures. Represented by the line and “2” (you
can see what I mean in the screenshot above), one is the normal clean state, and the second
is the dirty state. As the name says, the second state is just a dirty version of the clean one.
Lamps also have two textures, one for “on” and a darker version for “off”.
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Once you have the subset you want selected and the texture you want to use a base, click
“OK” and your file should be created. At the bottom of the screen, switch the tab back to “plug
in” and you should now see your texture.
Click the export button towards the top right, and you should be asked to save the image. So
that I can find it easily, I'm just going to export it right to my desktop. To help preserve the
quality, change the format to JPEG before you save it.
Changing the texture
Open your graphics program, and go File > Open. Browse to where you saved your texture
image at and open it.
If you only have one subset on your texture and are going to recolor the entire thing, you can
skip these next few steps
.
The first thing to do is to select the parts that we want to change. Since I am only going to
change the counter base, and it’s on the same texture as the counter top, I'm going to use the
rectangle marquee to remove the parts I don’t want. Select the entire texture, then by holding
the [Alt] key, click and draw around the parts that you don’t want, and it will remove them from
the selection. On my texture it’s fairly obvious where the counter top is, so that’s one part that I
don’t want to have selected. In addition to that, there is the texture for the back of the counter,
which looks somewhat like a bulletin board. Because the back will hardly ever be seen, I’m
going to just leave that as it is and also deselect it.
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If you are only going to recolor a certain part of the texture, go ahead and with the marquee
tool selected, right click somewhere within your selection and choose “New Layer via Cut”.
This will allow you to freely manipulate this layer without worrying about the other parts of the
texture that you don’t want to change.
So, once you have the image divided how you want, let’s go ahead and start actually
recoloring it. Please note that although I am going to use several tools before I get the final
result that I want, most of the time you won’t need to use all of them. I am simply going through
and using all of them so that you can see how they work.
Almost all of these options can be found under the Image > Adjustments menu, so let’s start
with the first one: Levels.
“Levels” is a method that is used to change the
brightness/darkness values in an image. At the
top there is a “channel” option that lets you
select either RGB (which is all channels), or
Red, Green, or Blue independently to lower
the brightness of that selected channel.
Because I want to lower the brightness of the
entire thing, I'm going to leave the channel at
RGB. Then, at the bottom there is a slider for
“Output Levels”, click on the white arrow to the
right and drag it towards the left to darken it.
(Dragging the black arrow towards the right
will brighten it.) I’m going to lower mine to
about 170 to get a medium-dark gray color.
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Once you have the adjustments looking the way you want, click “OK”.
Next, go back to the Image >Adjustments menu and this time choose “Curves”. Again, at the
top of the window there is a channel selection for Red, Green, or Blue. Below that is a graph,
with a diagonal line going from the bottom left corner to the top right corner. That is the default
“contrast” that Photoshop displays the image with. By experimenting with curves, you can
effectively modify the brightness, contrast, and tone of the image overall.
This tool will give different results with different images, so there isn’t really a set way to modify
it. To find what works best for the image, and to help get closer to my desired final image, click
somewhere in the middle of the line. It should add an anchor point to the curve, which you can
then drag around the graph. The image won’t change much immediately, but as you move it
around the graph you will find that it slowly changes.
I start at the middle, and then slowly work my way out and around until I like the result. You
can add multiple anchor points if you want. If at any time you decide you want to move one,
you can just click on it and drag it somewhere else. If you want to get rid of that anchor point,
just press the “delete” key on your keyboard. I’ve added four anchor points, and my resulting
image is a dark green.
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Once happy with how the image looks, click “OK”. The next tool we will use is Color Balance.
It’s also found under Image > Adjustments. This is a fairly simple dialog; you just drag the
sliders towards the color that you want to add to the image. Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow (From
the CMYK print media color system) are on the left, and Red, Green, and Blue are on the right
(From the light-based RGB system). Because my texture is slightly green, and I want to get to
brown, I'm going to drag the first slider just a little towards the red side, +10. (Red and Green
mixed together are brown).
Once the image looks how you want, click “OK.”
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The next tool is fairly basic, Brightness and Contrast. (Image > Adjustments >
Brightness/Contrast). With this you are presented with two sliders, one for Brightness and one
for Contrast, just as the name says. Dragging brightness to the left will darken your picture,
dragging it to the right will lighten it. Dragging Contrast to the right will make your image stand
out less, and look kind of faded. Dragging it to the left will increase the difference between
colors and make it stand out more. With my image, I am going to darken my image to -40
brightness, then further darken it by increasing contrast to +40. Depending on the image you
started with, you might not be able to do much with this tool if the texture is already really
light/dark.
When you have the image looking how you want, click “OK”. The next tool on our list is
Hue/Saturation. This lets you change the overall hue (or color tint) of the image by shifting it
towards a different color than what it is. You can also change the saturation (High saturation =
bright colors, low saturation = washed out colors), and lastly you can change the brightness. I
don’t recommend using the brightness slider from Hue/Saturation because it usually decreases
the contrast and washes out the image (I find it easier to just use the Brightness/Contrast tool).
Depending on what you’re doing, (mainly changing the shade, like I'm doing, or actually
changing the entire color, this can be the most useful tool.
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I’m only going to tweak my image, to hint at a little more red and increase the saturation to
make the color richer. I'm changing hue to -10, and saturation to +20, and leaving brightness
as it is. Once you have it looking the way you want, click “OK”.
The next tool we aren’t going to actually use, but it can be useful. This would be Image >
Adjustments > Desaturate. There is no dialog for this, because there are no options for it. This
is a really basic function that simple lowers the contrast all the way and converts the image to
black and white.
I’ll also go over a useful tool (although another one I don’t need to use) called Replace Color.
With this dialog, you click somewhere on the image to select the color that you want to chage,
then at the bottom of the dialog there is a color swatch box that you click to choose the color
you want to change too. The fuzziness slider in the middle of the dialog will let you select the
“Tolerance”, or how many different shades of the selected color you want to change. A low
fuzziness setting will change only the pixels matching exactly to the selected color, while a
high fuzziness setting will adjust several shades of the color you want to replace. The black
and white image in the middle of the dialog shows what part of the image will be affected in
white, and what won’t be affected in black. Pixels that will partially be affected are shown in
shades of gray.
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Photo Filter is also a useful technique, it will add just a slight hint of color to the image overall.
This is mainly used for cooling (making more blue) or warming (make more red). It also has
filters for other colors like orange, green, sepia, etc, and the option to choose a custom color. I
usually find this option to be good to add just a bit more saturation to an image so that it
appears more vibrant. For my texture, I'm going to add an Orange filter at 25% density. (The
density controls how strong the filter is)
It will show you a preview of what the filter will do, although it is very subtle so you might not
notice it instantly. You can click the color swatch to change to a custom color if you want, as
well as changing the density to make it more noticeable. When it looks the way you want, click
“OK”.
The last tool that I will show is called Variations, and is used to make slight (or drastic)
changes to the basic tint of the layer. Found under Image > Adjustments > Variations, it is a
large dialog but its simple to use. At the top if the window it shows the original document and
next to it, how it looks now. Next to that are options for Shadows, Midtones, Highlights, and
Saturation. Shadows will affect the darker parts of the images, Midtones will affect it overall,
highlights will affect the lighter parts, and saturation will affect the saturation of the image.
Below that is a “Fine vs. Coarse” slider, which affects how strong the variation is. Fine is barely
visible and coarse is a very strong, bright variation. Feel free to adjust to suite what you want
to do.
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For my image, I'm going to set the slider to one notch above Fine for a very slight adjustment
on “Midtones”. Then I am going to apply “More Red” from the main box, and “Darker” from the
options on the far right. Once it looks how you want, click “OK”.
Depending on how drastic of a change you want, this can be a very useful tool for slight, as
well as major adjustments.
Now, as I said earlier, you don’t have to use all of these changes to make your new texture.
Most of the time just one or two of them will be enough to get the result that you want. It’s
always good to know the options available though ☺
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Go ahead and save your texture as something you can recognize, in a place that you can
easily find it, in JPEG format with highest quality.
Depending on what you are making, there are two ways to go from here. If you are making a
recolor of an object that only has one state you can skip this and jump ahead to importing the
texture into SimPE. If you are recoloring a multi-state object, now it’s time to make the texture
for the second state.
Making a Dirty texture (Click here if don’t need to do this step)
Since I’m recoloring a counter, I now have to make a “dirty” version as the second state. I
could go back and export the second texture and redo everything I did to the first again, but
this time to the second one, however that would result in the food and other “dirt” becoming
odd colors and not really looking like it should. Therefore, I think it’s going to work best if I just
draw new dirt.
Drawing dirt by hand is somewhat difficult, so I recommend using “grunge” brushes. My
personal favorites can be found here: http://darkvortexx.deviantart.com/art/DVX-Grunge26763643 . (You can also find lots of brushes on Google) The .abr brush files get extracted
into Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop *Version Number*\Presets\Brushes. After you
install them, go into Photoshop and get the brush tool. Right click somewhere on the canvas
(actually on the image itself) and you should get a small brush dialog. In the top right, there is a
round button with a small black arrow in it, click it. From the menu that comes up, choose
“Load Brushes” and browse to Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop *Version
Number*\Presets\Brushes and select the DVX_Grunge.abr file you extracted. The small
window at the bottom of the brush dialog should expand, and if you scroll down you should find
the brushes.
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Add a new layer to your document, and select one of the grunge brushes. (In the bottom two
rows) Change your foreground color to a mucky brown/yellow/green nasty looking color, and
“stamp” dirt onto the texture. (Just click once where you want to the dirt to go, no
clicking/dragging). You can change colors, I usually do some of green and brown, and you
might also need to make the brushes smaller by making the “master diameter” a lower number
(around 300 works pretty good). My final “dirty” texture:
I’ve used various brushes to stamp different shades of green and brown around the texture, for
an effect that looks “dirty”. Save this image as the dirty version of your original, again in JPEG
with the highest quality.
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Importing the Texture into SimPE
Go back to SimPE and open your recolor file, if it isn’t already still open. Go to the normal state
texture image, or the regular texture if there is only one. Right click on the image itself, and
choose “build DXT”. (You need to have the DDS Utilities installed. See beginning of tutorial if
you don’t have the option enabled)
In the dialog that comes up, click the link for “open image” and browse to your texture and click
“open”. You should be taken back to the DDS Utilities window. Make sure that format is
“DXT3” and sharpen is set to “none”. Do not check any of the boxes. Click “Build” and your
texture should be imported.
In the top right of the plug-in view tab, click the “Commit” button. Then from the File menu,
choose “Save” to save the new texture into the file. If you’re recolor has a dirty state, select the
other texture image resource in the package and using the same steps mentioned above,
import your dirty version of the texture. (Or lit/unlit if you’re recoloring a lamp). Click commit
again, and save the file. That’s it, you’re done! If you open your game and find the object you
recolored, you should now see your new color option listed.
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Troubleshooting
If you think that you successfully made a recolor and it doesn’t show up in the game like it
should, there are only a few things that could have gone wrong.
1) You imported the wrong texture. If you’re really in a hurry when you’re making your recolor,
you might actually imported the original texture, rather than new one you made.
2) You imported the correct texture, however you either forgot to “Commit” after importing the
new texture, or you forgot to save your file.
3) You’ve saved the file to the wrong location. Some people would rather save files to their
desktop, or another folder, and then move it to Downloads after they are completely finished
with it. If you prefer to do it that way, just make sure you remember to move it. If the file is
sitting on your Desktop, don’t panic when it’s not showing up in the game
Page - 15 -

Recoloring with Image Adjustments

Transcription

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