Starbound

Starbound

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Recoloring Rebooted [Vanilla]
By PatJohnson
Everyone probably had this situation in Starbound once: You travel through the universe and find some cosmetics or outfits which you really like and then you start to mix and mash them and realize sooner or later that all your collected wearables don't fit together. You don't have to worry a thing, that's where Me and my Guide come in to help you out of your agony and save the day.

You like this outfit but the colors don't fit? Read further and you'll learn how to get it done yourself. Not only that, you can recolor every wearable you desire in the game. All you need is time, patience and the a few programs (which do not destroy your PC in any way, don't worry). The result will be Multiplayer-compatible and fill your friends with a lot of jealousy once you're done, except they did it too.

(This Guide is handling skills of so-called "Vanilla modding". Before you click away: This doesn't mean that you need a mod, this means your changing the normal Starbound stuff to "look" like it's modded. See the Title image for further explanation.)
   
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Introduction and Requirements
Welcome to the Guide
Guess that's what you expected? Anyway.....
So, you probably came to this guide because you were reading the introduction or saw the Title image..... or maybe you just stumbled here. You know what, I'm not picky, let's get right into it.
A few words of warning before we go, just to be sure:
WARNING: I do not take responsibility for anything that messed up your pc. If you clicked download links you shouldn't click, then it's not my fault. The same goes for links: Do not click any links that are not provided in this guide or that you see when you click on links in my guide. Know yourself around the internet or leave, It's up to you. Are you here for Custom Outfits? Well go ahead and check my other guide out instead of being here: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=876158258

That being said, this is what you'll need (put everything in one folder, for clarity and orders sake):
Asset unpacker and Starbound assets unpacked
Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B26Mt7vauZS7MWswUWVCQllweHM/edit
I'll get to this in the guide, don't worry about it now

Starbound Recolour Tool
Link: http://ilovebacons.com/showcase/starbound-re-colourer.34/reviews
Log in with steam at the top and download it on the right.
OR
Sprite Recoloring Tool
Link: {LINK REMOVED}
(Go Home Steam, you're drunk)
REAL Link: http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/sprite-recoloring-tool.98361/
I'm not familiar with this, but it should work like Starbound Recolour. The Download link is hidden somewhere on the side, press [CRTL] + [A] to read it.

MSPaint or a similar simple image editing tool
Every computer should have at least Paint, I'm not gonna do it for you.

Starcheat
Starcheat hasn't been working correctly for almost a year now, I'll show you real quick how to download the latest version:

First, go to the starcheat website: https://github.com/wizzomafizzo/starcheat
Scroll down until you see this and do what the picture tells you to do




Choose your Os Build, Blue for 32x and Green for 64x (User with x86 OS, use 32x version)




After that, simply click on artifacts.....




....and download the latest version by click on the Blue link.


After that it's simply unzipping and running the starcheat.exe file.

Alternatively you can use ReXmecks Starbounds ingame item editor (Extended GUI needed, which can be found in the workshop, the editor itself only in the internet)
Credit to ReXmeck for this awesome tool. ;)

Oh yeah and you need an archiving program like WinRar/WinZip/7-Zip etc. (and maybe some knowledge on how to use it, just saying)
Alright, it's time to get serious!
Starting up slow
Alright, you came this far, no reason to turn back, right?
Hope you collected everything downloaded in one folder like I told you to, because It simplifies things a lot.
The first thing that we need are the assets from Starbound, that means you gotta locate your Starbound folder. It's typically located in:
C:\Program files (or Program Files(x86))\Steam\steamapps\common\Starbound
DON'T fiddle with anything except that, again: I take no responsibility if you do.
Move the unpack.bat you downloaded from the first link into the win32 folder and run it. A black CMD-Window should open up and stay open. That means that It's working. Let it do thing, grab some popcorn, take a shower or do whatever it is you do when you wait for something ;).

After 15 minutes or something It should've closed, maybe even earlier. If not, you go close it, because it had enough time doing It's thing. There should be a new folder in the assets folder called "unpacked". Pull this folder to the folder where you put all that downloaded stuff that I told you to put in a folder for the third time now. If you got all that, good (If not leave a comment with the issue at hand). Now, this is where the image editing comes to hand. The assets are basically all the item files in the game (No, you cannot cheat with these files in your game). Now first, you gotta find out what Outfit or Hat you want recolored. Check the name in Starbound (In the actual Game) and remember it, I'm going to do it with the "Noble Trousers" as example. We need to find out the Item ID ingame, so pull up the Starbounder-wiki (Link: http://starbounder.org/Starbound_Wiki) or anything familiar and search for your Item, in this case the "Noble Trousers".

Check the image, the arrow shows where you can typically find the item ID.


From there on, it's just a hop. Use the item ID to locate the Item in the Assets using the search bar of whatever explorer you're using to navigate your folders. (You might need to put a space in beween legs and noble. The Devs were kind enough to shorten the IDs in the files. Whenever an item ID has something like "chest" or "legs" in the end you can simply leave that out. Example:
noblelegs -> search for noble, kimonochest -> search for kimono. Alternatively you can just leave it and put a space in between.)
The first thing you'll probably find is a .legs or .chest file (for outfits respectively, not dealing with hats at the moment). If you do, right click the file and click on "open file path" (or something similar, my translations suck).

This is what you should see: A bunch of PNG-files and 1 .chest and 1 .leg file:


Looks difficult? Don't worry, it's cool. If you're using Paint, Right click the "PantsF" or "PantsM" and click "edit", In any other situation or if you don't got paint use the tool you desire. I suppose you know how it works, if not I can't help you there. (small Sidenote: "PantsF and PantsM" stands for Female and Male respectively).
Mark the one which you think has the most different colors in it, but it's gotta be in the top row in the "idle" section. Copy it or cut it correctly. Do the same for "chestf" and "chestm" aswell as "bsleeve" and "fsleeve"
I'll guide you trough it if you're using paint with the following pictures:
(Don't mind the text: It's german. The assortment should be internationally the same, so don't worry)

1. Mark the one with the most color in it in the "idle" row


2. Use the "Cutting or something" option to assort the Picture how you want it to (big file formats don't work in the Starbound Recolour tool and make it a lot more difficultier)


3. This is what it should look like after that, you can also copy and paste the marked space into a new paint file.


4. Repeat the steps 1-3 with the other parts of the outfit/armor and put it all one paint file to simplifiy things even more. It's a lot easier to work with this now, trust me. Save the finished file in the folder with the downloaded stuff.


When you save, paint fills out the white section with... white, obviously. Alternatively you can use Photoshop or paint.net for transparency or you could just keep reading to solve this issue.
Now it's time for the main Thing: The Recoloring
Getting to Colors
You really nailed it, if you got here succesfully
If you didn't, sorry for you. Anyway.

We're gonna need the Starbound Recolourer Tool now, open it up and click on accept if your PC tells you something like "unknown software origin", no virus included.
This is what the tool looks like:


Aaaaand THIS is what everything does:


1. (Red) - This is where you can see the image, this weird couch is always preloaded, I don't know why. You'll also see the results when you fiddle with 2 and 3 immediately which makes it even more useful

2. (Green) - Your color panel, left is the original color and right the one you want. Click on the boxes on the right to open up a color mixer which allows you to change the color. (The second color from the top is a dark brown, changing the right box from dark brown to dark blue will result in everthing dark brown on the couch turning dark blue). The black and white boxes directly below each color are the Alpha-Sliders, which changes the visibility off the color. (Example: Turn the Alpha-Slider on Dark Brown from 255 to 0 and this shade of Dark Brown just vanishes).

3. (Blue) - Your free ticket when you're too lazy to change stuff: This is the hueshift slider. You can play around with it a little bit and you'll see what happens. This slider changes the entirety of the colorset and focuses it around one color (Turn the slider to 60: Everything seems Green, 120-130 and you're Blue, 220-240 and Purple it is, 310-320 and you'll see Red, Turn it all the way to the top and everything is normal again, maybe a bit darker).

4. (Black) - Get everything fixed up here, Undo or Redo a step to solve a problem you just made with the coloring, Load an image to start the your art and Copy the colorcode to the clipboard to apply it to an item (It's not that simple, I'll get to that in the next part of the guide.)

5. (Purple - Details, LOL. Just kidding, over the first text row we got real details, which are not particularly important. IN the actual first row of text we got us a nice little data path that shows us the location of the loaded image. The second row is the output of the directives that you'll need to recolor the item in-game.

Now we're getting creative, which means: YOU'RE gonna be creative.
The first thing you wanna do is load up the image, that you prepared in the last part of the guide.
It should look like that:


Now the first thing that is really important is to turn the alpha slider on the first color (the white box underneath the bigger white box) to 0, click on it and do that, because you don't want the background to be in your way.


You'll probably have noticed (on the picture in Green) that there are directives displayed now, we'll get to that later. For now you'll click on the big boxes which have white boxes underneath them and change the color to something that fits you more or that you like. You don't have to change the colors in boxes with black boxes below them, because these colors are not displayed, not even ingame. Now go and have fun with colors, if you have trouble with some that apply to other parts of the clothing you can go back to paint and delete the troubling parts out.
......
...............
.....
I took myself the time to create something too, to act as an example and to show you what can be made:


If you're done with yours, DO NOT CLOSE the Recolourer, we'll still need it in the next part.
The Steps for the Game itself
You probably learned something new on the way here..... no? Guess not.
We're up on the finish touch. We'll need to get Starcheat moving or it's never gonna get IN the game. Unzip or Extract Starcheat by double-clicking on the Archived file you downloaded. Create a seperate folder named "Starcheat" in the folder where the action was going on the whole time and drag everything out of the archive into the Starcheat folder. After that, run the Starcheat.exe (Green in the image)


Ideally, Starcheat opens and prompts you to choose a character after reading the player files. (That is, if Starcheat works correctly on your PC). Open the player you like and It'll load a second.
You probably have the Item you want recolored in your inventory in the game by now. If not, I'll show you real quick how to do it with Starcheat.

This is where you should be at the moment if everything works according to plan:


Getting a good look on my Character? Good, because that wasn't intended.
Right click on an empty slot and click "edit". An item filter will pop up, nothing there is really important. Go to "Filter" and search for the ingame Starbound item (NOT the itemID which we searched earlier).


Press "ok" and after that "ok" again. Congratulations, now you know how to cheat yourself cheap Vanilla Items which are worth almost nothing after you're done here. (Vanilla Items don't have any worth for Vanilla Modders, since they can easily have anything they want from the Normal Gameplay).

Now It's time to apply the color to the outfit, guess we were long overdue with that right?
Right Click on your outfit/armor piece and click edit again and Yes, I know the Window is exactly the same like the one you probably closed a few seconds ago. Now you do EXACTLY what I'll tell you now and what the pictures show you (except you do it for your item with your colors, duh).

1. After clicking on "edit", click on the little "+" symbol on the right hand side.


2. In the smaller white head box you write: "directives" (Without the "", that's why I used the word in the last part so much)
In the bigger box you first only write "", there will be something in there, don't worry.


3. Copy the Code from the Recolourer Tool and paste it into the "", after that click "ok".
(Use "Copy to Clipboard" for easier pasting)


Another "ok" to confirm this Act of Creativity and Awesomeness and you got yourself your item, well almost. Click on "File" at the very top and then on "save" to confirm it for the last time.
(PLEASE NOTE: Starbound should not be open when saving or restarted directly after saving or the whole work was for nothing.)

Take a deep breath now, You know what? You're done! You finished recoloring your first Outfit/Armor. The steps are the same for every ingame outfit/armor and even hats and even furniture. Take your new armor/outfit for an adventure, brag in front of your friends or just put it on a Mannequin to show it off, This is all your work and your success.


Not really my style, maybe someone else likes it and takes it as Inspiration.
DON'T leave now, take a look in the next and last part of a guide.
Finishing Words and Q & A
Now you got all the way, now what?
Did you like the Guide? If Yes what did you like? If No, what could be improved?

I hope the Guide helped you more then It helped me when I started with Vanilla Modding. Tell me if you want to see more and please share you're creations with me, I'd love to see some new and awesome stuff from the community.

Now I got some Credits for you -----------
Thanks to:
The people who made Starcheat
ReXmeck for his awesome ingame editor
Everyone who hosts and keeps Starbounder.org alive
The Starbound Dev Team
Lachee for his/her Recolouring Tool
C0bra5 for his/her Sprite Recoloring Tool
The Ilovebacons Community, check out their Starbound Server, it's awesome
P_2the_inni, Invalnorious, ColoRGirl for Inspiration and Moral assistance
Aurora, for being an awesome help and a nice friend
Steam for allowing me to publish this guide (lol what? xD)
And finally and most importantly
YOU for reading and (hopefully) sharing my Guide!

Questions and Answers
If you got any Questions, put them in the Comments and I'll drag them here for anyone who glances over here. (And please tell me if there are spelling errors somewhere in between, I'm not an English God, sorry xD)

What about Mac and Linux?
I don't know. I am not familiar with either. If you find a solution, put it in the comments for other Mac and/or Linux users and for me to add it in the guide.

My Starcheat doesn't work
I suggest you tell me in Detail what the issue is or you check here: https://github.com/wizzomafizzo/starcheat/issues , if your issue is listed. There might even be a solution too.
19 Comments
queentired 1 Aug, 2022 @ 1:52am 
breasts:Her2:
Orifan1 9 Oct, 2021 @ 9:24pm 
starcheat recently updated its artifact retention policy. the download is gone. this guide is defunctional now (unless someone updates the github)
JacobSaintPim 6 Mar, 2017 @ 8:27pm 
Thank you!
PatJohnson  [author] 6 Mar, 2017 @ 10:31am 
@TakesTheCake Yes, I see the issue. That was my fault. You have to move the unpack.bat into the win32 folder and run it there. After that you'll find the unpacked assets folder in the assets folder. I'll change that right away.
JacobSaintPim 5 Mar, 2017 @ 11:44am 
The unpack opens then quickly closes when putting it into the assets folder (pls help)
PatJohnson  [author] 5 Mar, 2017 @ 2:57am 
I suggest you checking out this site: https://github.com/wizzomafizzo/starcheat/issues to see if your issue is listed and maybe even solved.
Hatrian 4 Mar, 2017 @ 4:14pm 
i got it, if the top link doesnt work download using the bottom link
Hatrian 4 Mar, 2017 @ 3:22pm 
what if starcheat doesnt work?
OmegaUnknown 3 Mar, 2017 @ 7:12pm 
@Cannon Fodder
Way ahead of ya, just thought I'd share a little info.
Noraj 3 Mar, 2017 @ 2:55pm 
Oh. Ok. Thanks anyway!