Case A - Summary

Simple change mesh skin color.

Case A - Settings

• intr_bay_03_c_l_a.msh mesh used, from the meshes folder in the Assets window;
• Modified mesh's skin in the Skins tab of the Attributes window to Gold_tiles_b;
• Modified Color 0 field in the Misc tab of the Attributes window to 255,255,255 (default alpha value of 255 remained unmodified);

Case A - Results

Although color changes in editor, when play tested through developer tools player, custom skin color reverts to the skin's defaults colors.

Case B - Summary

Change mesh skin color. Dump mesh definitions.

Case B - Settings

• intr_bay_03_c_l_a.msh mesh used, from the meshes folder in the Assets window;
• Modified mesh's skin in the Skins tab of the Attributes window to Gold_tiles_b;
• Modified Color 0 field in the Misc tab of the Attributes window to 255,255,255 (default alpha value of 255 remained unmodified);
• Dumped mesh definitions through the Dump defs button in the Attributes window;
• Saved as intr_bay_03_c_l_a.msh.df2 in "data/defaults";

Case B - Notes on Exported File Through Dump defs Button

File exported through definition dump created a .msh.df2 file. There are several types of .df2 files, including .df2, .df2.dds, .eds.df2, etc.

Case B - Comparison Between Some .df2 Files

Case B - Result

On "play game" the mesh keeps the custom color (at least in the tools' player); it's only on tools reload that the mesh loses the custom color.

So it looks like the Tools isn't getting the definitions from the dumped definitions file in data/default, but instead from somewhere else. This is visible when reloading the Tools, but also by clicking the Load defs button in the mesh's attributes window. The definitions roll back to the default and not the new default.

Case C - To Do

• Enable User color0 and User color1 in the material for the mesh. Go to Tint, Instance and enabled them.
• Look into settings of .df2 files in "Dying Light Developer Tools\Engine\Data\Editor\generate_previews". These have more settings than the above ones, including color. They are named as "previews" so it might be possible to set a custom color in an exported .df2 file, and have the tools load the custom color, instead of going back to the default color on tools reload (like explained under Case B paragraph).
• Look into double-extensioned files; some tool's files include filenames including two extensions: "template.msh.df2", "template.eds.df2", "template.ogg.df2". This is present in a few files It might be required when exporting a mesh to a .df2 files for the custom colors mod - check to see if it ever exports to objects with double-extension.

Other Observations

Colors don't appear to be connected to the materials of the mesh. Going through the Info tab in the mesh's attributes window i can't see any mention of MeshColor or color codes.

These is a allow instance or something color-related that is disabled by default, in the materials tab. Check that.

• Editor options has a "Backup height map files" option. Tried importing a heightmap file created with software used to create Techland's rally game, which seems to use the same heightmap file extension as the Developer Tools (i think - it's been a few months since i tried, just updating this), without success.

"Common_crowd.scr" holds what appears to be info on spawned zombies in crowd; their walk, attack and hit animation meshes, sounds, etc.

The mesh animations seem to be the start of the problem, as i can't find any:

1. "run.msh" string in the game files, for the viral's attack animation;
2. "viral" and "run" strings in files containing the "zombie_man_a_v_walk" (which is the name of the walk animation) string; only two files with this string: "skip_gct_meshes.scr" and "common_crowd.scr"
3. "mz_infected.scr" has a list on animations but i can't find the "zombie_man_a_v_walk" string, so unlikely to be of any value in finding an animation for viral;

Side Note

• File .scr holds two Crowd Preset Definitions, and will crash the game if only has one.

Looking at the Dying Light default terrain texture files (found in the dev tools installation folder), there is an array of different texture configurations: some normals are blue, others are purple, but mostly are green. Some textures have alpha channels, others don't. And most don't have an expected colored diffuse (or clr - color) texture. Instead some look like they've been stripped of color, apparently gaining the color in the engine when mixed with the normal and specular (shn - shine) versions of the texture, idk.

Tests

Test 1

First test was to use ImageMagik to churn out clr, nrm and shn images with the color of my custom clr texture, nrm texture (normal made online) and shn texture (also created online) but with the alpha that the grass_b clr, nrm and shn dl textures have. TLDR created clr, nrm, shn with dl clr, nrm, shn alpha values for each type. (purple nrm)

ImageMagik cmd command:

convert imageA.png imageB.png -alpha off -compose CopyOpacity -composite out.png

"... out.png will be given the colour channels from imageA.png, and the alpha from imageB.png. "

This is a total bust. Getting color from my textures and alpha from dl textures, makes the textues look more like dl textures than my original texture.