DEV INFO: Customizing player colors

[Marc von Martial]

To customize the player colors you will need to look at 3 file groups:

1. art.txt file "/dat"
2. unit popup chips "/dat/art/gui/ [respective country]"
3. the two MilForce.bmps "/dat/art/gui"

To customize theplayer color of the map artwork you can do this in the "art.txt" file located in the "/dat" subfolder.

The colors must use hex values, disregard the front "ff", those are for DirectX only. First hex value is the normal color and the second is the frozen color. Also, leave the ,0 and ,1 at the end of the two UN lines as one is for British and the other is for US colors.

Editing the chips colors behind the little units in the region popups and the MilForce screens is more involved and can only be done (at least by you guys [;)] ) with the "replace color" tool, and some experience so it looks good, in Photoshop or respective applications.


This is the original setup:

Code: Select all

PLAYER_COLOR,0,ffffffff,ffffffff
 PLAYER_COLOR,GER,ff979797,ffacacac
 PLAYER_COLOR,JAP,ffCE4424,ffc0573f
 PLAYER_COLOR,SOV,ffCE7E38,ffD89860
 PLAYER_COLOR,UN,ff8F9F37,ffA5B25F,0
 PLAYER_COLOR,UN,ffECD29F,ffEEDBB5,1
 PLAYER_COLOR,CHI,ffecc04b,ffefc866
 PLAYER_COLOR,NEU,fffbf4cd,fffbf4cd

Example:
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PLAYER_COLOR,JAP,ffCE4424,ffc0573f

CE4424 = normal color
c0573f = frozen color

Keep in mind that the colors you will pick will look different in the game because they are layed over the greyscale region artwork. You will need to play around a bit.


Tools to use:
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- "Notepad" to edit the TXT file.
- "Smart Color" (just as an example there are tons of others ways to pick colors) to pick colors
http://www.isotton.com/smartcolor
- "Photoshop" / "Paint Shop Pro"(yuck) to mod the artwork files . Or get "The Gimp" (GNU freeware), make sure you also get the "gimpShop" extension for it, since it adds a whole lot of better ergonomics.


Tips:
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Make sure to back the org files up. So you can allways go back to the original.