Custom Team Colors Tutorial

[A Void]

This is a tutorial about creating and using custom team colors based on the replaceable textures method using War Club ability. You can find more information about this method here. This method basically involves using modified replaceable material id's to change texture of the model via in-game ability called War Club.

First of all to be able to change team color we need to edit replaceable id of your model that will be using custom team color.

Start Magos Model Editor, open up your model and do as showed:

Step 1

Now import the model into the map and save it. The second part involves triggering, but you don't need to worry about that. I've taken care of that by creating a system which you can download and edit. It's GUI and very simple to understand.

Currently it's not possible to change more than one material with War Club ability, thus you can't change Team Glows. Alternative option would be to create a custom team glow texture and apply it to your custom team glow model and then attach it to a unit.

This method is very useful for campaigns that don't have file size limit.

Screenshots

Screenshot 1

Team colors are 1x1 pixel .tga images to keep file size lowest. Converting them to .blp increases the size, so I kept it like that.

Furthermore, any questions will be answered in the comments.

 

[Warseeker]

The White, Aqua and Midnight blue team color remaind the same as they look, no difference except the black and green. So if I understand correct this isn't a total change of existing team color but making them more shading or alpha...etc.

 

[A Void]

The White, Aqua and Midnight blue team color remaind the same as they look, no difference except the black and green.

What do you mean? They don't look the same, White is similar to gray, Aqua is similar to teal and Midnight Blue is similar to purple but they have completely different tones.

You can add your own custom team colors, these were just my examples.

 

[RED BARON]

The White, Aqua and Midnight blue team color remaind the same as they look, no difference except the black and green. So if I understand correct this isn't a total change of existing team color but making them more shading or alpha...etc.

That's just the examples. When you change the blp it makes it much more obvious.

I would however given the above comment suggest to Void to make some radically different colors as examples so it would be very obvious that they changed.

Also you should mention that the editor requires something? At least mine crashes due to an unknown custom trigger.

 

[A Void]

That's just the examples. When you change the blp it makes it much more obvious.

I would however given the above comment suggest to Void to make some radically different colors as examples so it would be very obvious that they changed.

It's not .blp, it's .tga.

I will eventually update this tutorial, I kinda rushed it a bit.

 

[MasterHaosis]

A Void, you got rep from me for trying. Although not finished, this can mimic new colors to some extend with some drawbacks of course, but still, we are one more step closer to it!

Cool thing is that it can really give some new effect in game, even chat messages are in that new color. Also you can change your color in second. I can imagine few human players doing that all time haha.

But serious disadvantage is that you need to extract every single unit you want to change and import back which can make map very big especially if there are custom races. This works for maps with lesser units.
A Void, man I think you are closer to success. Keep researching maybe you will find way how to directly avoid this stuff with import/export of every unit. Maybe somehow it could directly affect main texture without editing it.

 

[RED BARON]

It's not .blp, it's .tga.

I will eventually update this tutorial, I kinda rushed it a bit.

Yea, I noticed. I was actually going to make some updates pictures with this.. but it crashes. I guess you used a jass version of the editor?

EDIT: Okay, so one cannot edit the triggers in any way, nor save the map. I have now tried both a fully updated regular editor and the newest newgen, nothing works. So what should the "unknown" script be? Just clicking the unknown crashes the editor.

 

[MasterHaosis]

Oh, and if you are Undead or got Black Ranger and posses/charm enemy unit they will still be original color, in this case red. I totally forgot about that

 

[A Void]

Maybe somehow it could directly affect main texture without editing it.

I tried everything already, changing team color path in War3Skins.txt, replacing one of the team colors with another, using team color id for destructibles and units. Nothing worked. This is the method I came up which actually is a solution.

Cool thing is that it can really give some new effect in game, even chat messages are in that new color. Also you can change your color in second. I can imagine few human players doing that all time haha.

You can change computer players to use custom color, you can disable changing team color for players. This system is free to be edited, you can make your own changes.

EDIT: Okay, so one cannot edit the triggers in any way, nor save the map. I have now tried both a fully updated regular editor and the newest newgen, nothing works. So what should the "unknown" script be? Just clicking the unknown crashes the editor.

I used Jass New Gen World Editor. I'll convert the map for normal world editor, thanks for notifying.

Oh, and if you are Undead or got Black Ranger and posses/charm enemy unit they will still be original color, in this case red. I totally forgot about that

I will update the map with a fix to that problem.

 

[PurgeandFire]

This seems like a nice alternative to the other tutorial, granted the author has enough file space within their map. You should write down within your tutorial that you have to edit the material for every model that you want to support custom team colors on.

Also, I haven't looked at the code within the map, but it appears to crash when I switch to a custom color and then back to a standard color (e.g. -Fuchsia to -Gray).

Other than that, it looks ready to be approved!

 

[A Void]

This seems like a nice alternative to the other tutorial, granted the author has enough file space within their map. You should write down within your tutorial that you have to edit the material for every model that you want to support custom team colors on.

Also, I haven't looked at the code within the map, but it appears to crash when I switch to a custom color and then back to a standard color (e.g. -Fuchsia to -Gray).

Other than that, it looks ready to be approved!

It probably crashes because I used a method to hide War Club aka change texture ability, it doesn't work with mac. But hiding it is not necessary as it is a temporary ability. I'll eventually update that.

 

[RED BARON]

I used Jass New Gen World Editor. I'll convert the map for normal world editor, thanks for notifying.

Sounds good. I'll check it again when time.

 

[Warseeker]

So, is it possible to create till 256 color from 12 team color with that?
I thought that depend on the contrast color as this model, the team color of it is quite different tho...

 

[MasterHaosis]

I tried everything already, changing team color path in War3Skins.txt, replacing one of the team colors with another, using team color id for destructibles and units. Nothing worked. This is the method I came up which actually is a solution.

Yeah, but there must be something. Shar Dundred and I are talking much regarding this. He believes that there is some order somewhere to tell game to look at mpq first instead of map file regarding colors.

I will update the map with a fix to that problem.

How? I think that it also applies to those possessed units as well, they must be exported/edited/imported too

 

[Chaosy]

Nifty. Seems quite size heavy which is quite the downside though.

Still, likely something I will use in the future.

 

[JesusHipster]

Or you could just replace the needed TC texture (ex. ReplaceableTextures\TeamColor\TeamColor00.blp, 01, 02... etc) with a colour of your choice. Or is there a sort of limitation regarding this method?

 

[RED BARON]

Or you could just replace the needed TC texture (ex. ReplaceableTextures\TeamColor\TeamColor00.blp, 01, 02... etc) with a colour of your choice. Or is there a sort of limitation regarding this method?

According to what I understand, it takes the color directly from the mpq, thus importing a changed texture to replace team colors has no effect.

 

[RED BARON]

Doesn't look like the map has been updated yet, still that "unknown" custom function that crashes the editor. Looking forward to testing it when it works.

 

[PurgeandFire]

Or you could just replace the needed TC texture (ex. ReplaceableTextures\TeamColor\TeamColor00.blp, 01, 02... etc) with a colour of your choice. Or is there a sort of limitation regarding this method?

That method is discussed in this tutorial. However, team colors are loaded when Warcraft III is started up, not upon map-loading, so you can't replace it individually for a map. The players have to use a modified MPQ.

 

[A Void]

Ok, I finished this system. The map has been completely redone. You can download and test it out now.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please comment.

 

[PurgeandFire]

Approved.

 

[RED BARON]

Ok, I finished this system. The map has been completely redone. You can download and test it out now.

Nice it works perfect now.

Hence I can present my screenshot that should showcase how much you can actually do with this.. and even more if willing to offer some space for it.

 

[A Void]

Nice it works perfect now.

Hence I can present my screenshot that should showcase how much you can actually do with this.. and even more if willing to offer some space for it.

Cool, you combined different colors in one team color texture. This system is especially useful for campaigns as they have no battle.net file size limit.

 

[RED BARON]

Cool, you combined different colors in one team color texture. This system is especially useful for campaigns as they have no limit.

Yep, my thought exactly. This one is just a 2x2 pixel.. but with more one can do a lot.

 

[A Void]

System has been updated, made some trigger optimizations.

 

[fran bel]

Ask this tutorial so that more than 12 colors can be selected or to replace the ones that already are? for example the mod nirvana adds more races, can't you do something similar with the team color?