![[PW] Expanded Horse Colors](https://media.forgecdn.net/avatars/thumbnails/896/53/256/256/638341046256239244.png)
You have to click 'files' on this page to see the download or you'll only get the lighting fix. :)
130 Coat Layer Base Colors with TRUE BLACK. The colors are selectable as coat layer colors, and show up in paint mode!!
*Some colors are good for paint mode highlights/shading but not good base colors.
- This mod will NOT affect your existing horses or change their colors at all.
- If you make a horse with this mod, it is completely safe to send to someone who doesn't have the mod! The horse will still look the same. :)
- This mod is safe to uninstall any time.
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Due to many users not being able to get through the Full Install Guide, here is the minimal install guide:
The minimum installation is just: Put either version 1 or version 2 of the mod into your mods folder, play the game. THATS IT.
What is different in the full install?
It includes a CAS lighting fix for horses that removes the annoying garish overhead spotlight and makes the colors of the horses pretty true to the colors they actually are. The base game has a horrible red tint and a pink rim glow + the spotlight that washes out whites. My light is neutral colored without the wash-out.
Full Install Guide
1. Put EITHER version 1 or version 2 of Expanded Horse Colors into your mods folder.
2. Install Mod Patch Framework into your mods folder.
3. Install the Lighting Fix (from this mod page in Files, same as Expanded Horse Colors) into the Patches folder created by Mod Patch Framework. | You can choose to install the Lighting Fix in your regular mods folder if you aren't using other lighting mods such as Northern Siberia's. My lighting fix only affects horses and is fully compatible with ALL lighting mods out there as long as you install it into the Patches folder.
Version Options
Version 1: Includes my colors, updated vanilla colors, and remastered vivid fantasy colors. (130 Colors.)
Version 2: Is version 1, except all of my colors are directly eye-dropper-tooled from the exact colors in the reference chart below, and the vanilla colors are still in order. This exists so that if anyone out there makes a different horse lighting/rendering mod that fixes the issues horses have, my mod would already have a version that works seamlessly with their fix.
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Example horse base (stenciling around belly and nose/eyes using a red swatch from this mod also) using this mod with Velveteen Light:
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Colors I added to this mod are ordered left to right in game, following the order on the chart and listed after the vanilla colors, with pure white/black and fantasy colors at the end. These are the version 2 colors (important if you need the colors to match perfectly in game) because version 1 was altered significantly to combat the game's lighting to appear more like these colors visually. So if you need this chart for painting in photoshop/etc **Use version 2 of the mod.** You can swap them in/out any time without already made horses changing color!
My example horses on this page are either using my default horse shader replacer or velveteen respectively. (Both can be used together, Velveteen toggles off the game's default shader.)
**Roan Stencil by Kebbe**
Here's some examples from version 2 and a closer to vanilla lighting, which is great for reds but not so much other things:
Brush Replacer Link for pet painting.
My Thoughts Through Making This (Skippable):
The hurdles this mod has to overcome are numerous. It looks like the TS4 artists themselves had some struggles getting horse coats to look good in game. There is a VERY heavy tint of red to pretty much everything, and that is the reason the 'gray' coats in game are actually green. Natural blues just turn purple. One way the devs solved that problem was to create separate icons from the actual color rendered on the coat. So the icon can show 'gray' while the actual color selected is a funky green. Whatever shader (Edit: It was the lighting itself and I fixed it) is being used for horses also over brightens them heavily so the devs dialed down the colors to compensate how bright the game would soon make them.
Adding horse colors feels like using several boxes of toner. Pure white has pink on it.
So besides color selection to get the coats to look good in game, there is the problem of how colors are created in the first place. They are added as "Pairs" but not as 'icon - color' like you might expect. They have an order pattern to the pairs and if you get even one wrong, all of the icons and colors will just shuffle since both the icon and the color can be displayed on the horse. Except they are ALL NAMED THE EXACT SAME THING so you have to count them. -Sarcastic clown laughter-
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On lighting: It turns out create a sim, interior lighting, world lighting, and the horses themselves all have a different lighting method. I got through create a sim, didn't need to do interior lighting (I use northern siberia's mod and might make my own mod for it to personal tastes, soon), and then actually made a package for world lighting that worked with existing lighting mods out there- but couldn't find a way to get the pink out of horses in the overworld in that. So it has to be somewhere else and I'm still looking for it.