Libgdx change color of Texture at runtime

colors, java, libgdx, textures

Solution

I faced the same Issue for generating weapon with random colors using the same texture.

So I wrote this. Basically I make a pixmap of the texture you want to edit.

Then you iterate over all of the pixels, while iterating I check for certain colors which are a part specific part of the texture. (I suggest using different shades of gray since the RGB is the same) Then when it is on a pixel where the color needs to be changed I grab a color for those pixel groups using a color picker method which is basically random which gets a color from a prefabbed color array, and then changes that specific pixel to the new color.

/**
 * Requires a asset's textureName, and requires gray scale colors of the
 * parts
 * 
 * @param texturename
 * @param colorBlade
 * @param colorEdge
 * @param colorAffinity
 * @param colorGrip
 * @return
 */
private static Texture genTexture(String texturename, int colorBlade,
        int colorEdge, int colorAffinity, int colorGrip, int colorExtra) {
    Texture tex = Game.res.getTexture(texturename);

    TextureData textureData = tex.getTextureData();
    textureData.prepare();

    Color tintBlade = chooseColor(mainColors);
    Color tintEdge = new Color(tintBlade.r + 0.1f, tintBlade.g + 0.1f,
            tintBlade.b + 0.1f, 1);

    Color tintAffinity = chooseColor(affinityColors);
    Color tintGrip;
    Color tintExtra = chooseColor(extraColors);

    boolean colorsAreSet = false;

    do {
        tintGrip = chooseColor(mainColors);

        if (tintAffinity != tintBlade && tintAffinity != tintGrip
                && tintGrip != tintBlade) {
            colorsAreSet = true;
        }
    } while (!colorsAreSet);

    Pixmap pixmap = tex.getTextureData().consumePixmap();

    for (int y = 0; y < pixmap.getHeight(); y++) {
        for (int x = 0; x < pixmap.getWidth(); x++) {

            Color color = new Color();
            Color.rgba8888ToColor(color, pixmap.getPixel(x, y));
            int colorInt[] = getColorFromHex(color);

            if (colorInt[0] == colorBlade && colorInt[1] == colorBlade
                    && colorInt[2] == colorBlade) {
                pixmap.setColor(tintBlade);
                pixmap.fillRectangle(x, y, 1, 1);
            } else if (colorInt[0] == colorEdge && colorInt[1] == colorEdge
                    && colorInt[2] == colorEdge) {
                pixmap.setColor(tintEdge);
                pixmap.fillRectangle(x, y, 1, 1);
            } else if (colorInt[0] == colorAffinity
                    && colorInt[1] == colorAffinity
                    && colorInt[2] == colorAffinity) {
                pixmap.setColor(tintAffinity);
                pixmap.fillRectangle(x, y, 1, 1);
            } else if (colorInt[0] == colorGrip && colorInt[1] == colorGrip
                    && colorInt[2] == colorGrip) {
                pixmap.setColor(tintGrip);
                pixmap.fillRectangle(x, y, 1, 1);
            }
            else if (colorInt[0] == colorExtra && colorInt[1] == colorExtra
                && colorInt[2] == colorExtra) {
            pixmap.setColor(tintExtra);
            pixmap.fillRectangle(x, y, 1, 1);
            }
        }
    }

    tex = new Texture(pixmap);
    textureData.disposePixmap();
    pixmap.dispose();

    return tex;
}

I hope this helps. Please don't just copy paste, try to rebuild this to suit your needs or you won't learn anything.

Problem

In a game made with libgdx I have a `TextureAtlas` in which I have stored all the `TextureRegion`s for my `Animation`s of the `Player`. The `Player` by default has a blue T-Shirt (for example). Now I would like to be able to have more then one `Player` and each should have another T-Shirt color. So basically, I want to replace the blue with red for the second `Player` and with green for the 3rd `Player` and so on. I am sure I can do this with `PixMap` but wouldn't. Because then I lose the advantage of the `TextureAtlas`(?). Is there another way to do this? Or do I need to have every "color version" as a `TextureRegion` in the `TextureAtlas`? Another little question: With Gimp (and maybe a few other programs) you can use color indexes for ".gif" files. This reduces the size of all your `Texture`s by saving an index for every color in the file and then using this index to describe the pixels. So for every red pixel you would have a "1" instead of "#FF0000" and somewhere in the file you have a "1=#FF0000". If we then pack the ".gif" files with the color indexes inside a `TextureAtlas`, is the index then lost and it restores the default RGB colors or will that make problems? Thanks a lot!

Original source