I stupidly didn't save my project files, only the final DDS and phyre files. However, what i did was pretty simple:
-In photoshop (i'm probably going to be using Gimp in the future because it works better with normal maps), I started by quick selecting his entire vest, then using quick select again to de-select all the black elements of his vest (had to zoom in hard and use a 1 pixel brush). Note that I also selected the parts of his vest that doesn't have the intricate pattern on it, basically every brown color on the diffuse map. I then recolored the the brown/green parts of his vest using "replace color," and further getting the color I desired with hue modification.
-Rinse and repeat for his pants and belt buckles.
-I then inverse selected the vest selection to work on the inner black/green parts of his vest to match his armor color, which is based on the color of one of four metals. This part was a bit tricky because photoshop won't let me hue it to black unless i make it black and white. So I did it to be black and white and raised the brightness for the silver/platinum colors, while using "colorize" in "hue/saturation" to get the copper/gold colors I wanted in the other recolors.
-I then selected all his metallic/armor pieces using quick select too. This includes his belt and the harnesses that hold the back of his vest. I was satisfied having only those be accented with the metallic colors (along with inner vest), so I then also selected his boots and shin guards, including most of the straps that hold his shinguard (notice that the lower part of the straps are still black). I also threw in the pockets attached to his belt for contrast. I then used "auto-color" once to give it a silvery hue, thanks to his shirt being white. I then further modified the hue using "hue/saturation" to match the armor pieces with the inner vest color, using the "colorize" option.
-Finally, for the shirt I did something rather simple. I selected all his shirt assets and used "auto-color" and "auto-contrast" once each to make it a lot whiter. I then used "brightness/contrast" to lower the brightness a bit to make it a more realistic white color and lowered the contrast a bit too as there was too much black on his shirt (I wanted the shadow effect to be more subtle). I finished it there for his white shirt variation, but for the black shirt, I lowered the brightness further to achieve a black/grey color.
That being said, the uploaded recolors are probably not the final products. I want to fix the shinguard straps so that they all have the metallic accent color, and I also recently learned how to apply sheen to different parts of the texture thanks to this fantastic guide by XULLoxid. I will be applying sheen to his inner vest where the metal colors are and also to his boot plating and shinguard.
https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy12/articles/17 (Article by XULLoxid)
Currently, I have finished work on Ashe's recolors, though the blue variants require a small amount of editing that shouldn't take more than five minutes per file (there are 2). I have also started work on doing the same thing for Vaan, though for Vaan I am using Balthier's shirt textures to give Vaan a shirt. I didn't want to copy mugeneer's Vaan reskin shirt texture as that would be plagiarizing (though he pretty much used the exact same tactic I did). One difference my Vaan texture will have though is that on the diffuse texture, the upper-left part of his skin is just the same as the lower right part of his skin, only rotated 180 degrees. I don't know what mugeneer did on his version, but that's what I'm doing. I'm also adding buttons for my version of Vaan's shirt.
https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy12/mods/41 (mugenee's Vaan reskin mod)
The goal for me here is to make a set of these four color mixtures for all six main characters so that the player can have matching color pallettes for all of them, if the player so pleases. You could always mix and match.
3 comments
-In photoshop (i'm probably going to be using Gimp in the future because it works better with normal maps), I started by quick selecting his entire vest, then using quick select again to de-select all the black elements of his vest (had to zoom in hard and use a 1 pixel brush). Note that I also selected the parts of his vest that doesn't have the intricate pattern on it, basically every brown color on the diffuse map. I then recolored the the brown/green parts of his vest using "replace color," and further getting the color I desired with hue modification.
-Rinse and repeat for his pants and belt buckles.
-I then inverse selected the vest selection to work on the inner black/green parts of his vest to match his armor color, which is based on the color of one of four metals. This part was a bit tricky because photoshop won't let me hue it to black unless i make it black and white. So I did it to be black and white and raised the brightness for the silver/platinum colors, while using "colorize" in "hue/saturation" to get the copper/gold colors I wanted in the other recolors.
-I then selected all his metallic/armor pieces using quick select too. This includes his belt and the harnesses that hold the back of his vest. I was satisfied having only those be accented with the metallic colors (along with inner vest), so I then also selected his boots and shin guards, including most of the straps that hold his shinguard (notice that the lower part of the straps are still black). I also threw in the pockets attached to his belt for contrast. I then used "auto-color" once to give it a silvery hue, thanks to his shirt being white. I then further modified the hue using "hue/saturation" to match the armor pieces with the inner vest color, using the "colorize" option.
-Finally, for the shirt I did something rather simple. I selected all his shirt assets and used "auto-color" and "auto-contrast" once each to make it a lot whiter. I then used "brightness/contrast" to lower the brightness a bit to make it a more realistic white color and lowered the contrast a bit too as there was too much black on his shirt (I wanted the shadow effect to be more subtle). I finished it there for his white shirt variation, but for the black shirt, I lowered the brightness further to achieve a black/grey color.
That being said, the uploaded recolors are probably not the final products. I want to fix the shinguard straps so that they all have the metallic accent color, and I also recently learned how to apply sheen to different parts of the texture thanks to this fantastic guide by XULLoxid. I will be applying sheen to his inner vest where the metal colors are and also to his boot plating and shinguard.
https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy12/articles/17 (Article by XULLoxid)
Currently, I have finished work on Ashe's recolors, though the blue variants require a small amount of editing that shouldn't take more than five minutes per file (there are 2). I have also started work on doing the same thing for Vaan, though for Vaan I am using Balthier's shirt textures to give Vaan a shirt. I didn't want to copy mugeneer's Vaan reskin shirt texture as that would be plagiarizing (though he pretty much used the exact same tactic I did). One difference my Vaan texture will have though is that on the diffuse texture, the upper-left part of his skin is just the same as the lower right part of his skin, only rotated 180 degrees. I don't know what mugeneer did on his version, but that's what I'm doing. I'm also adding buttons for my version of Vaan's shirt.
https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy12/mods/41 (mugenee's Vaan reskin mod)
The goal for me here is to make a set of these four color mixtures for all six main characters so that the player can have matching color pallettes for all of them, if the player so pleases. You could always mix and match.