Repaints / Texture change

  • "Repaint" is the most prominent variant of a texture exchange. A texture swap completely replaces one or more textures of an object instance on the map or of a concretely placed vehicle, i.e. over all where texture A was previously used (no matter in which material and no matter for what purpose, i.e. as day, night, etc. texture), texture B is then used. In the following we will simply speak of "Repaints" for easier understanding.

    Repaints must (currently) be created in two steps:


    • Import the new bitmaps/DDS files
    • Configuration of the Repaints (selection of the base object, original textures, etc.)

    1 Import of the new textures

    It is recommended that repaints are stored in a separate folder. This does not necessarily mean that each repaint must have its own folder, but the folder should only contain the repaint configurations and the associated textures.


    The procedure is then as follows:

    • Create a folder for the repaint(s) and label it uniquely
    • Put textures there
    • Start ContentTool, click on "Independent Textures
    • select the first texture ==> the window "Independent Texture" opens, if it is a bitmap it will be displayed and on top you can see the newly assigned ContentID
    • uncheck the box "Visible in map editor":
    • Click on "Save"
    • Select the next texture with "Import...", check the checkbox, save etc. until all textures have been imported.
    • In this way you can import textures of several Repaints one after the other!
    • Use "Save & Pack" for the last texture!
    • Then close the ContentTool completely!


    Usually the original texture has got an alpha channel. If it is a texture in BMP format, the alpha channel needs to be placed in the same folder than the repaint texture and to be named like this: NameOfTheRepaintTexture_alpha.bmp.

    It will then automatically be recognized and processed.


    2 Configure Repaint

    • Now start the ContentTool again ==> "Mods" ==> "Texture exchange"

    The window looks like this:

    4286-pasted-from-clipboard-png


    The configuration is then carried out as follows:

    • "Name" is the text that is entered in the selection field when configuring the vehicle
    • "Object class" serves to filter the next field
    • With "Basic Object" you can select the object for which this repaint is to be created

    Now the list of textures to be replaced must be filled in as soon as the repaint is activated:


    • Original texture is the texture which is noted in the material properties and which should be replaced
    • Exchange Texture is the new texture. Here the respective texture imported before is selected
    • "Show only my textures or those of the team" filters the exchange texture list if necessary, so that you can only see your own textures. If you want to use a texture already imported from someone else, you have to uncheck this box to be able to find it in the list.

    At the end click "Save & Pack", then all imported textures (if they are properly located in the same folder) are packed into a container together with the configuration and are available from now on.