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Self Illumination Colour Tool

The self illuminating color tool is designed to change the color of any self-illuminating material. This tool will not make every model glow magically!

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First off, this tool is located in the "Render" category of your spawn menu. Second, it is called "Self Illumination Tool". Right, now that is out of the way, let's get started:

With the tool deployed, Right Click to select an entity (model/ragdoll/effect), or hold "USE" [Default = E] and Right Click to select your current playermodel.
If the entity does not contain any compatible textures, the tool will let you know. Be sure to read the text at every possible moment.

If the entity you selected has compatible materials, a list will appear in the tool menu/context menu. It will automatically select the first material in the list, but if your prop has more than one valid material, then you can select that in the menu. It will highlight it when you have selected it.

Now you can play around with the color. Keep in mind that, due to the way Self Illuminating on materials work, results may differ on what color you choose. The Tool in its current state struggles with certain materials, like some where the illumination color is baked into the base material, meaning that tinting it certain colors makes it darker rather than that color

To apply your tint to your entity, press Left Click, or if you are coloring your playermodel, hold "USE" [Default = E] and Left Click to apply.

Now you have colored your material! Should you wish to remove the tint at any given time, press reload [Default = R] on your entity or hold "USE" [Default = E] and press reload [Default = R] if you are resetting your playermodel

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Q: Why should I use this tool? Can't I just use the color tool that comes with Garry's Mod?
A: The Color Tool applies a color over the entire model, and doesn't produce the same results. This tool is better targeted towards lights, since they generally have a white illumination, yielding better results.

Q: What is a self illuminating material? How do I know if my material has one?
A: A self illuminating material is, as its name suggests, a material that appears to glow. The tool will know which models have these materials and which don't, but if you want to know more, keep reading below:
A material is comprised (in Garry's Mod and the Source Engine) of a .VMT (Valve Material Type) and .VTF (Valve Texture Format) file.
To check if your material has this enabled, you need to check the corresponding VMT file of your material. Using the SubMaterial tool is a great way to get its name. In it, check for a line that reads "$selfillum 1". If it isn't there, it is not active.

Q: Why is my illumination color not the same/ darker than it should be?
A: As explained earlier, this tool works better with pure white illuminating materials, since they can broadcast every color. Some materials have their illumination already baked in, making changing it from the outside very difficult. A good strategy to know is that, with any pre-colored illumination, you can still tint to its nearby colors. So if a material is already light blue, you can get away with tinting it more to the green side of the color spectrum.

Q: Why does this tool not work with saving and dupes? And why doesn't it work with certain valid props?
A: This is where I tell you how this tool works, so it might get a bit technical. You see, I can't change the material for just one of the props. In my original design, it would end up changing the material of every single prop on the map. Obviously, you don't really want this, so the method I use is to create temporary materials. It copies the values and data almost perfectly from the original file and puts them in a new material that I can then assign back to the prop. At the end of the day, these materials are discarded and are not recovered. This is why it can't exist through saves and dupes, or at least doesn't work properly, because these temporary materials are saved only for the current session.

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