A Modding Tutorial: Re-Coloring

A. Basics

1. Open the fate files. we'll use the myconid as an example.

2. Open the folder called “MONSTERS”, and open the folder called “MUSHROOMMAN”.

3. Double click the file called “mushroom_color”, and a separate screen will come up with a pic of the myconid skin.

4. Right click on it and select the ‘open with paint’ option.

5. Save the file in paint as a 24-bit bitmap image. Do not save as .png, it will not allow you to use the full range of colors.

6. Edit it how you want.

WARNING:

DO NOT do the next step unless you don’t mind recoloring all the myconids in the game.

7. Save the modified file over the default file (this time you do want to do a .png image).

8. Now, delete any .dds files in the myconids folder. When the computer sees a skin, it makes the .dds file so it can quickly refrence it in gameplay and not have too make the skin every time.

NOTE:

DO NOT do this for the yeti model, it has a known problem generating .dds files.

9. If you did recolor myconids, go and summon one, and it’ll be your colors.

B. Recolored Version Without Replacing the Original

1. Do the same thing until you get to the save part.

2. Now a new folder within the MODS folder named whatever you like.

3. Make a new folder within that one named MONSTERS

4. And make another new folder within the MONSTERS folder named MUSHROOMMAN, if youre doing the myconid.

5. Now, copy all the files, except the .dds and .png files, from the original MUSHROOMMAN folder into your folder.

It should look something like this:

MODS ⌊ MyMod (Name of your Mod folder.) ⌊ MONSTERS ⌊ MUSHROOMMAN ↓ animation.dat attack1.SMA attack_headbutt.SMA attack_stab.SMA collision.MDL die2.SMA die.SMA idle.SMA mushroomman.SMS mushroomman_color.png (Your edited version.) run.SMA

You did it, it’s a new monster!

NOTE:

The monster will not appear in gameplay unitl you make a new monster file, as described in Section III.

A. Transparencies

Some monsters have transparent parts. I believe that the only monsters with fully transparent parts are the lich and the wyvern. Just to show you what you can do by redefining transparencies, here are a few screenshots:

Redefined Lich:

So, if you want to do that, here's how:

Take the black and white file (“lich_alpha.png” for lich, “wyverna.png” for wyvern) and change the colors. Use only black, white and shades of gray. Where there’s black, it’s transparent, where there’s white it’s solid, and grays add varying degrees of transparency. See the table below.

Transparency Example Table:

The table below shows how black, white and shades of gray affect the appearance of the map background in Fate.

On the left are the actual Alpha Transparency files used (with the exception of the labels, of course), and on the right are in-game screen shots of the mini-map background.

Note:

The in-game screen shots were taken in a modified town with a solid green “ground” texture for uniform contrast.

Gradient: Alpha Transparency “mapbackgrounda.png”	Gradient: In Game Map
Percent Grays: Alpha Transparency “mapbackgrounda.png”	Percent Grays: In Game Map

B. Refection and Specular Effects

For every piece of armor and almost every weapon there is an alpha file that’s black and white. You can edit it similarly as you did the transparencies. However, instead of adding transparency, the shades of gray work a little different: lighter shades add more gleam, and conversely, the darker shades add less gleam.