Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Modding Major/Minor Colors: Dye mods Q - Single component dyes?

I think I've watched like all the vids by Padme4000 regarding custom dyes using the official toolkit, but haven't been able to determine yet if this is possible...

Right now the way it seems to work, each dye has like a dozen different potential material components that could display on a given outfit, with an assigned colored value for all those components. But what if we only want to change 1 color for a single component type instead of all of them? Dyes that only affects a single material, so they can be additive/cumulative?

So for example, each type of material (Cloth, Leather, Metal) has 3 colors per material and then there are also accent colors and glows, all pre-assigned. So primary color, secondary, tertiary etc. like shown here in her tutorial vid...



I've seen a few other different dying mods, but they all seem to work in a similar way, meaning the player has to choose from among a series of pre-sets there. Basically using our Inventory UI as a kind of pseudo palette, with consumable icons for the swatches.

I recall at one point seeing a Dye Preview mod that created a palette for use in-game, which bypassed the dyes and just gave us a color wheel and swatches similar to what's seen in the toolset menu UI.

I'm torn now, because I like the customization/freedom provided by a more robust color picking UI, but I also think Dyes (in the consumables scheme) are better for gating certain combinations, to achieve a sense of aesthetic progression over time. E.g. Player gains more control over the color palette during course of the campaign.

For the Dye mods that exist right now on Mod Io, things tend to be pretty frontloaded. So like all the Dyes or Clothing in a chest from the outset, as opposed to being attached to specific merchants by game Act, or where they might be priced individually by desirability. So instead of having an all Black dye that costs 5 grand and only becomes available in Act III or whatever, you'd just have it immediately like soon as we hit the beach, which I think takes something away from the ultimate satisfaction of building towards an endgame look via the chromatics.

Instead of Duo tones or Tri Tone combos, we got like a full dozen color fields for each dye. Works well enough where all the components have matching hues within the same basic color family, but most stuff includes all the colors already set up. So can't go in a tweak a single accent color or whatever, but have to work with like 12 colors at once. I think that's too deep to be serviceable, cause it would require thousands of dyes just to make a simple Duo tone series of dyes that only isolates a couple hues per dye. I mean it adds up quickly.

Clearly Black on Black is a winner, but then if you go to say combine Black with ROYGBIV, Black + Red, Black + Orange, Black + Yellow etc (or their inverts) we quickly end up hundreds of dyes cluttering up the inventory trying to achieve that. Right now we don't have Black, just Black and Summer Green or Black and Azure, stuff like that. Vanilla encapsulates the issue, because it's usually the safety color or the accent or whatever that clashes. Or more simply a desire to get a combo that will carry over into the portrait itself or riff off the background gradient color there.

What I'd like to see might be something more like...

In Act 1 the Player can access Dyes for Cloth and Leather. In Act II they can Dye Metal, in Act III they can Glows or Accent colors.

Or similarly where the player can access the Primary color component early on, but the Secondary and Tertiary colors unlock later in the campaign. Again to preserve the sense of progression, while still letting the player play around with a magic paintbrush more than vanilla allows.

Ideally it might start with something manageable, rather than aiming for 16 million colors, a more modest Web style palette to start? Instead of color names for flavor, it could use some familiar HEX and just be organized like a basic spectrum along a Value gradient for each component.

I want Volo's magic paintbrush for a narrative conceit, but the idea of giving the players a more modular/granular way to achieve their prefered color spread is very appealing to me. I like a scheme that more closely mirrors the color picker of BG1. A simple way to color coordinate within the broad strokes. I was happy with many of the new dye options available, they're all cool, but it still seems kinda cumbersome as an approach. Requires so many dyes just make a full spectrum for Hue, even without messing with stuff like color Value. I wish we had a progressive palette built-in, but in Vanilla there is always a clashing safety color somewhere. I want Black, but get stuff with Black and White, or Black and Blue. I'd like to see something handled the same way the palettes in Char-creation are, more limited unless you click the unlock all colors tab, but something similar could go down for the dyes by Act. Similar to Transmog, I feel like Dyes are one of those things where a progressive scheme is more engaging than one where everything is unlocked at once at the start, but I'd still wish we could get more control this stuff as we play through. Anyway, just curious, it's all still a black box to me and hard to parse, but I still mainly just want a basic color picker that can tweak the cloth and the leather and the metal independently.

ps. Random follow up

Another idea along these same lines would be - Dyes for fur, feathers, hide or barding for the various summons. Magic Mirror for the Familiars? Call Woodland Being!

I feel like there should be more color customization options for our Summons. Across the board really, but especially for the principle Animal Companions/Familiars to have some extra flavor there.

There are some summoning spells where it makes sense to have generic models/skins so they're easy to identify, but also couldn't we get the Street Fighter II 'versus' treatment on that? Like where if there are redundancies, then the model changes colors? Green Blanka vs Blue Blanka, something like that...

You know where player 1 has the standard Woodland Being with the platinum fringe, but maybe ready player 2 has a Woodland Being with a totally different hairstyle/trim/color/glow (the Zethino or whatever). That sort of thing. Other examples might be...

Dress your Skeletons

Red Imp vs Purple Imp

The Djinn of many colors

Devas with different Underwear etc...



For the more normal-ish looking Animals, the Wolves and Ravens and such, it could be something simple like a subtle tweak to the fur/feather/skin coloration, or alternative colors for the collars/barding. Each Beast could at least have a secondary variant for the visualization, but ideally it'd be more like pick 6 to cover all the bases.

Using the classic Brown Bear to riff, maybe we could have a Brown Bear who reps a Raw Sienna Brown, another Bear rocking Burnt Umber Brown. A range of different browns from the rust reds, to the yellow ochres. Maybe one Bear has a black muzzle, but another has a more frosty snoof. Those are like the big color sweeps, but they could have different spots or stripes or scars, different colored eyes, things that only show up on closer scrutiny but still make them feel more custom.

Naming the various Familiars and Animal Companions would be a nice touch as well. Although not exactly dying, it comes under a similar rubric I think. Color is the low hanging fruit, since it's such a simple way to differentiate two otherwise identical characters and still have them feeling unique in some way.

pps. further follow up...

The initial color unlocks (to dye Cloth and Leather components individually) could be discovered among the Alchemical whatnots in the Blighted Village, and further elaborated on by Volo. It's easy enough to reach, but not the very first thing that happens, so there can be some build-up in anticipation.

Later when we reach Grymforge, it would make sense (now that we've discovered the secrets of the arcane tower and the adamantine forge) that this newfound knowledge would allow us to 'dye' Metal and unlock some basic glows. I mean who knows, perhaps the runepowder in combination with the mushroom dust creates an improved reagent, that allows us to bind better and see deeper into the mysteries than ever before! hehe

Or perhaps something similar could crack off at the Monastery where we discover an ancient illuminated manuscript with full spectrum insights.

Obviously the picture is still incomplete there, because as everyone knows, the deepest hues require Draconic magic and Diabolist incantations! So when we get that far along Volo's magic paintbrush can dye the legendary stuff too, with yet more accent unlocks or even more potent glows.

Mask Black has been my fav so far, tie into the campaign with level ups for the color combos in each Act would be so legit. Right now the vanilla camp clothing works this way, and to an extent the standard dyes, but it could be made cooler I think with the tie ins and some stuff for the summons too, along the way.