I have always enjoyed creating A Hat in Time content through creating posters using SFM.
In terms of creating custom dyes (and sometimes doing a little color correction), I often times find myself doing this tedious task:

1. Convert the Hat/Bow kid skin VTF file to a png file
2. Edit the png file with a photo editing software (I use pixlr website to edit)
3. Convert it back to VTF file
4. Doing the steps to override the material

And doing all of this task on EACH PART OF CLOTHING.

So I created this program called the "DYE PROGRAM" !! (HUZZAH)

The dye program is a tool to easily create and apply dyes to the models of Hat kid and Bow kid!

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You're going to need the following:
1. SFM and Hat in Time Models
2. Java 8 or higher version
3. VTFEdit[gamebanana.com]
4. Dye Maker v1.3[drive.google.com]

The program is very simple!
First, run the program and enter the name of the dye.



enter the name of the dye.



Click the button of the clothes you want to dye



A window will appear where you can choose a color like this, select a color and click the OK button to apply!





(If you click the RGB tab, you can directly input values ​​like this)



HEHE. Clicking a few buttons is much easier than using the photo editing software!

also If you right click on the button instead, the color will be removed.

if you look at the bottom, there is a button called Hat Kid Dye -> Bow Kid Dye.

Pressing this button will copy the dye of Hat kid to Bow kid!

(Hat Kid Hat Color = Bow Kid Hat Color
Bow Kid Hair Color = Hat Kid Hair Color
Bow Kid Orange = Hat Kid Orange
Bowkid innerwear color = Hat Kid leg color
Bowkid outerwear color = hat kid cape color
Bow Kid Shoe Color = Hat Kid Shoe Color
Bow Kid Skirt Color = Hat Kid Body Color)



(The color of the clothes the Bow Kid wears on the inside is linked to the color of the Hat Kid pants, and the clothes outside the Bow Kid are linked with the Hat Kid cloak.
Bow Kid Skirt Connects With Hat Kid Clothes)

When the design is complete, click the Create Kids Dye button to start production.



making....





You can check the created dye files in the dye maker folder/dyes/"your dye name folder". Remember to come back here later :)

There is also a DMX folder
remember this too!

PNG files were created, but SFM does not recognize PNG files, so we need to do some more work. It is time to run the VTFEdit installed above.

VTFEdit provides a function to convert png files into VTF files recognized by SFM.

we will convert png file to vtf file!

Execute the VTFEdit installed above.



press the tools tab adobe



and Click Convert Folder
(Convert Folder provides a function to convert multiple png files into VTF files at once)



In the input Folder field, specify the folder containing the dye png files you want to create.
(dye maker folder/dyes/"your dye name folder")





And you need to designate the location where the vtf files will be saved in the output folder.
Be sure to specify the location as the SFM installation folder/game/usermod/materials/hat/dyes/"your dye name folder"!

(SFM is usually installed in this path)
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SourceFilmmaker\game

(In fact, it doesn't matter if you specify a different path and manually apply a custom texture, but Dye Maker also includes a function to conveniently apply a custom texture. If you want to use it, follow me as I said!.)





And set it to *.png in the To VTF field



and click the convert button



If you followed along, go to the SFM folder and you will find the dye folder we created.
If all goes well, then it's time to run SFM!

Now launch SFM and load Hat Kid or Bow Kid into SFM.



Bring up the hat kid, then right click on the hat kid and click "Add Override Materials"
By clicking on this button, you will be able to modify the components of the model.



Then click on Model in Show in Element Viewer



Click + Materials at the bottom to expand



There are five things we need to edit: hatkidcape, hatkidbody, hatkidhair, kidhat, kidhat_yellow
(There are also hatkidbody_m and hatkidbody_ch, you can ignore them)



Let's edit the hat kid cloak first, right click on the hatkidcape.



Click Import Elements to bring up the file selection window.

The DMX file we saw above is used here!



Load hat_kid_cape.dmx located in the dye maker folder/dyes/"your dyes folder"/dmx folder.



Then done!

The rest can be loaded in the same way!

It's time to apply it to the Bow Kid!

The basics are the same as the Hat Kid, but the Bow Kid has slightly different element names, so it can be confusing.

Right click on the bow kid, enable add Override Materials and click show in element viewer -> model



For the bow kid, coopcharacter_diffuse is the bow kid body.



Just load bow_kid_body.dmx like we did with Hat Kid before and it will be applied!



If you want to apply the Bow Kid hair color



You have to set all the parts I clicked here



For fbx default material 9, put the bow_hair_default_material9.dmx file
In fbx default material 8, add bow_hair_default_material8.dmx file
In fbx default material 7, the file bow_hair_default_material7.dmx...

You must look at the numbers carefully and apply the name.
Even if you apply the wrong file, SFM will apply the file without any problem, so be careful...

When you're done, Bow Kid's done!

(Only a few hats are supported yet.)

Applying a texture to the hat is exactly the same as applying it to the hat kid.
But just in case



One tip before applying textures first



Drag the hat kid's rootTransform to the hat's rootTransform



Then, click the rootTransform of the hat and drag the zero in the photo above to the right.



The hat will immediately move to the correct position.
And don't forget to connect the hat kid bip_head by dragging it to the hat root

Back to the texture editing, add override materials to the hat... and go into the viewer...







done!

There are Save and Load functions, New Dye on the upper left.
New Dye is used when making new dyes.



Load is a function that loads a dye

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Bow Kid's eyes cannot be manipulated with ViewTarget, so we need to modify the texture.
this feature will help!



Left click to adjust the left eye, right click to adjust the right eye!




And click once more and your eyes will stop

When you click the create button, a dmx file is also created, so you can apply it easily.

The guide is over.
Thanks for reading

Some simple posters made with this program



If you have any questions or bugs, please leave a comment!

1.3 -
Feature update
Bow Kid Eye Maker has been changed to allow editing of the eyes separately.

Right-clicking on the color button removes the dye.
(For example, right-clicking on the Hat Kid Hat button will remove the dye applied to the hat.)

The load function has been changed to load a dye by entering the dye name.

bug fix
Fixed to properly check if a file exists when saving as.

Fixed Create New Dye to work properly.

1.2 -
Fixed Hat Kid Cape color to be applied correctly

1.1 -
Fix Bow Kid's hair to color properly
Fixed Bow Kid button color to show properly in preview screen


1.0 Release!