#recoloring tutorial

Also, this is not the god given way to recolor. It is just my way of doing it. Also, I would like to mention, this is pretty much @srslysims​ method of recoloring. I just modified it a tad.

Once you have your texture imported into your program, add a completely black layer set to "color". This layer will make your texture perfectly black and white. Then on top of that layer, add another black layer set to "normal" with the opacity above 10%. Don't worry about the opacity right now. You'll see why.

Now add a new layer on top of your other 3 layers. Pick whatever color you like. I don't recommend just filling in your whole texture willy nilly. So go in and erase all the color that isn't touching your texture. Empty spaces and so forth. You can easily do this by going to your alpha layer and selecting the black space and deleting it on your color layer.

Keep this layer set to 100% opacity and play with hard light, soft light, linear light, etc and find something that works for you. Different colors have different effects depending on the color mode. Branch out and experiment! Please for the love of plumbob, don't use Overlay or Mutliply. I know they’re popular methods but they will not yield the best results! Just, please. Do it for the children. I personally use "hard light".

Now if you want to make different parts of your texture different colors, seperate the pieces of your texture into colors. In my case, pink is the table surface. And blue are the rods to the table. Now you have total freedom to make your texture different colors and with different blend modes.

Now, remember that black opacity layer? Now is where it comes in handy. Let's say your colors need to be brighter or darker, fear not. The intensity layer is here. Now lets say you love your color intensity but you’ve lost your texture under all that color. Go ahead and lower the opacity of your color layers. But only a tad. I usually use eversims and keep my layers set to 100% hard light.

The darker your texture, the lower you need to keep your intensity layer. In turn, the lighter the texture, the higher it needs to be. I usually try to use a relatively white/light gray texture, if you use a dark gray one, lighten it for different effects. 

Make sure to lock your layers! This will prevent you from accidentally coloring things that ain’t got no right being colorful. This also prevents your colors from bleeding and looking gross when you use the fill tool and stuff.

Now if I showed you the different combos, we’d be here all day. And I know you got an itch to go try this method out. 

But first some things to keep in mind/recap:

This method can be used on CAS items, build/buy items, anything.

Like I said before, use different blend modes for different colors.

The darker/lighter your texture, the more/less opaque you need your intensity layer and the lighter/darker your final product.

If you find your shadows getting lost, play with the “shadows/highlights” feature or "brightness/contrast” or “exposure” until you get the desired effect.

Save often!

And uh, I guess that’s it. Actually there’s one last step.

~The most important step is to not get discouraged!~

I’m serious. Don’t get discouraged. It might seem hard if it’s more intensive than you’re used to but all things come with practice. Go wild! Try all sorts of different things! Come back and teach me a thing or two!

Things you will need:

Sims4Studio

a .dds plug-in for Photoshop

Photoshop (I’m using CS6 portable)

If you don’t have Photoshop and would like to start using it, there is a link to download a copy in my resources.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Open the package in Sims4Studio. I wait until I am ready to take all my recolored images back into Sims4Studio before I make a new package as a CAS Standalone. But you do whatever makes you more comfortable in getting your texture image, however that may be.

Select the white, or lightest swatch available for the texture: grey, pink, light blue, whatever. Just not a dark color or your end result colors will come out dark. I mean, unless that’s what your going for then do you boo, do you. 

Export it as .png to get the texture image with a transparent background. I normally save this “original” texture in a folder dedicated to whatever I’m recoloring. Each object I’m recoloring has their own folder so to keep everything organized & in one place.

Open the file in Photoshop.

Select wand or w on keyboard to use the wand tool.

Click anywhere on transparent background. You should she a pulsating dashed line surrounding any colored part of the texture.

Still using wand tool, and holding down the shift key on your keyboard, click on any part of the mesh you DO NOT want to recolor. Holding down shift on your keyboard will allow you to select multiple things at once while using the wand tool.

Once you have everything selected that you DON’T want to recolor, move your mouse into a section you DO want to recolor, right click on your mouse & select ‘select inverse’. That will then highlight/select only the area/parts you want to recolor.

Go to the main Photoshop option bar, and select image > adjustments > desaturate to make everything grey scale.

Play @smubuh’s Hairbase action to even everything out. Yeah, I know it was intended to be used for hair, but I’ve discovered that it works well with other things, & since her action does better than the steps I had previously used to bring everything to an even base to start with, I’ll just use hers :)

Add a new layer [type control, shift, and N on your keyboard OR layer > new > layer] & select multiply for mode.

Type ctrl, alt, and G on your keyboard to create clipping mask.

If you are using actions, play your first action. I use WMS color palettes and she has graciously already provided us with actions. Type control, alt, and z on your keyboard to undo the flatten image which is the last thing in her actions. If you don’t do this, & import your completed texture image back into Sims4Studio, whatever you did NOT recolor will be completely white and that’s not the goal.

Type ctrl, shift, and s on your keyboard to save as .dds in the appropriate folder. Saving as a .dds reduces the amount of pixelation that may occur to your image when saving. Just save as .dds. The texture quality is better. 

If you are NOT using actions, & have saved your colors/color palette to swatches, click on your swatch tab, move to the color you want, type G on your keyboard, & click in the area you want to recolor. 

If you are NOT using swatches, just substitute whatever method that you are comfortable with, for the color swatches,  type G on your keyboard, & click in the area you want to recolor.

Once you have completed your recolor with your first color, go to your history tab, and click on where it says you create the clipping mask, and rinse & repeat with the colors until you have recolored to your hearts content.

For visual learners, here’s a short video at normal speed (no voice over, nope, sawry :P) that you can watch if you are having a hard time following the above steps without a visual aid.

If you are NOT using actions or swatches, it’s always a good idea to record your moves as actions & to save your colors as swatches just for ease & consistency.

I am going to assume that from this point, you know how to take the newly recolored texture images back into Sims4Studio & all that jazz.