March 29, 2024, 09:03
bigger smaller reset     1020px Wide width Full width Reset   * *

Gildor's Forums

  Homepage Facebook Read news on Twitter Youtube channel Github page
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

« previous next »
Print
Author Topic: Color Codes  (Read 3182 times)
Huzzel
Sponsor
Newbie
*
Posts: 12


View Profile
« on: May 26, 2011, 23:56 »

Hello and thank you for enabling us to extract the awesome models from these two games.
I can extract the textures properly and i know how to use the channels in the *_mask.tga files to color them.
What i'm asking is if anyone knows where the color codes are stored and how to view them, like, what makes some geth white/purple and others red/green.
I always try to capture the colors from screenshots, but this is very difficult because due to ambient lighting the colors come out wrong.
Thanks in advance.
Logged
Gildor
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 7978



View Profile WWW
« Reply #1 on: May 27, 2011, 00:00 »

where the color codes are stored and how to view them, like, what makes some geth white/purple and others red/green.
color channels are used in shaders (materials).
Quote
I always try to capture the colors from screenshots, but this is very difficult because due to ambient lighting the colors come out wrong.
Try Ctrl+L - it will change lighting mode (3 modes)
Logged
Huzzel
Sponsor
Newbie
*
Posts: 12


View Profile
« Reply #2 on: May 27, 2011, 00:44 »

Thank you for the quick reply.
Do you know of a specific example, something like:

geth "white guy" uses:
dif: GTH_TRO_Tnt_Diff
mask: GTH_TRO_Tnt_Mask
                channel R: 222, 222, 222
                channel G: 111, 111, 111
                channel B: 255, 255, 255
                channel A: 123, 123, 123

geth "red guy" uses:
dif: GTH_TRO_Tnt_Diff
mask: GTH_TRO_Tnt_Mask
                channel R: 222, 0, 0
                channel G: ...
... and so on
Or the same with the default colors for shepard's armor in ME2

I completely made this up, but surely something must tell the engine what colors to use on what entity.
I searched all the shaders in the engine/shaders folder, but there's nothing about specific entities. The .mat files don't give a clue either. Are there more shaders hidden elsewhere?
Logged
Gildor
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 7978



View Profile WWW
« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2011, 00:51 »

It is not possible to get exact mask channel information without looking at material structure in editor. We could suppose only. I have no information about mask in Mass Effect. Really, mask may have different purpose of any channel in different materials, but I think it should be the same because such way is easier to support for developers.
Logged
Huzzel
Sponsor
Newbie
*
Posts: 12


View Profile
« Reply #4 on: May 27, 2011, 01:07 »

Ah, ok. That's too bad, thanks anyway.
I thought maybe its as easy as in Dawn of War 2. Its not an unreal engine game, but it uses a similar coloring system, with each channel in the mask texture (called _tem in DoW2) representing an area to color.
In DoW2 its easy, there's one big textfile listing all the colors and their codes, and each unit refers to these colors.
Guess its more complicated in Mass Effect, so i'll have to go back to "guessing" the colors from screenshots.
That is, make a screenshot of a geth and use the Eyedropper tool in Photoshop.
My problem here is, the only way to see the units in their colored form is in-game, thats where i take the screenshots, but thats also where all the ambient lighting falsifies the colors on the screenshots (a white geth looking pink under a red lamp)
Logged
wraithcat
Newbie
*
Posts: 29



View Profile
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2011, 20:57 »

Essentially in mass effect each material file can store it's own colours, not to mention glow values and a few extra options. The ease of dow was in the fact that the end user has to be able to apply the colours themselves so they are stored in easily accessed options.

ME2 on the other hand tends to litter the values around in the inis, material files and a bunch of other places, which often makes the simplest option to just guestimate the stuff more than anything else really.
Logged
Print 
« previous next »
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC
Leviathan design by Bloc | XHTML | CSS