In this tutorial I will show you how to make recolorable textures to make scenery recolorable in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3.
I will be using a free imaging program, GIMP 2.4, if you want to download this software, please click here if you wish to download the software or you can find out how to do these steps in your own imaging program.
First, open up GIMP. It will appear like this:
Then you should open up the image you want to make recolorable. I am using a plain brick wall in this tutorial but it is the same method for every texture:
Firstly, you need to convert the image to Greyscale. This is shown below (Image-Mode-Greyscale):
It will then look like this:
Then you need to convert the image back to colour so you can colorise the image. This is shown in the image below (Image-Mode-RGB):
But as you will see, the image will not change. However do not worry about it not changing.
Then you need to colorise the image. You can use Red, Green or Blue. In this tutorial I will use red. If you want to have two different recolorable textures on a scenery item you must use different colours for each. I will tell you what to do if you want to use Green or Blue for another texture. To colorise follow the image below (Colours-Colour Balance):
Then you need to set Shadows, Midtones and Highlights to maximum red. It should be a value of 100. If you are using Green or Blue you need to set Green or Blue to maximum on each of Shadows, Midtones and Highlights. As you can see there are values for Red, Green and Blue. Set the appropriate value to the maximum:
The image will then look something like this:
But this texture is far from finished. Next, you need to remove the Green and Blue levels, as we are using red. If you are using Green, remove Red and Blue levels, and if you are using Blue, remove Green and Red levels. You do this as below (Colours-Levels...):
First, as we are using red as our colour, select Green:
You remove the colour as shown (There will be a value in the middle that says '1.00' change it to the minimum, which should be '0.10'):
Then select blue (As we are using red as our colour):
And remove the colour as before:
You probably won't notice much has changed. You will then have an image looking like this:
Then you must adjust the brightness and contrast (Colours-Brightness and Contrast):
A window will appear like this:
You need to adjust these levels. The idea is to get the RGB Red Value to 127, but the Blue and Green levels shouldn't matter. To do this, follow these instructions:
STEP 1: Adjust the Brightness and Contrast levels.
STEP 2: Test the colours by choosing the tools as shown:
STEP 3: Click on a red area to test the colours. As shown the Red value should be 127, but Blue and Green levels do not matter. If the red level is not around 127, go back to step 1 and repeat until they are:
When you complete those steps, you need to save your texture. (File-Save As):
First choose a place to save your texture. I have chosen a textures folder. Then you need to choose a texture name. So delete the whole name as shown (Including '.jpg') and type in a name (Don't worry about the image type just yet):
Then choose a file type as shown below. I've been told of lots of different file types but PNGs work best for me:
Then click save to save your texture:
This window will appear. I just ticked everything for simplicity. Then click save and it will save your texture:
Then close the texture and GIMP and open the importer and select 'Create OVL':
As usual click the '+' sign to add the recolorable texture:
Locate the texture we just made, select it and press OK:
In the window appears click on the bottom menu, called 'Object Colors Player Can Change', as shown:
Then change it from 'No Colors' to 'One Colour' and press OK to complete adding the recolorable texture and close the window:
The recolorable texture will appear in the textures menu as shown:
I hope you have found this tutorial helpful. Keep checking my tutorial page for more tutorials on RCT3!