Okay, so I was messing around with The First Descendant today, trying to figure out how to tweak the color schemes, right? Thought it would be a cool little project.
First thing I did was dive into the game files. Used a basic file explorer, just poked around in the folders until I found something that looked promising. I was looking for textures or materials, something that screamed “color!”.
Spent a good hour just digging, honestly. Ended up finding a bunch of .ini files and some texture folders. The .ini files looked like config stuff, so I cracked one open in Notepad++. Figured maybe there’d be some RGB values or hex codes I could mess with.
No luck in the .ini files, mostly just gameplay settings and stuff. So, I went back to those texture folders. Found a bunch of .dds files. I remembered reading something about .dds being a common texture format for games, so I downloaded a plugin for Photoshop to open them.
Opened one of the .dds files, and it was… a mess. Like, a bunch of distorted colors and weird patterns. Realized I was probably looking at a normal map or something, not the actual color texture. So, I kept digging through the texture folders, looking for anything that looked like a flat color palette or a texture that was clearly used for character customization.
Finally, I stumbled upon a folder named “CharacterCustomization.” Bingo! Inside, there were a bunch of textures with names like “HairColor,” “SkinTone,” and “ArmorColor.” Opened up the “ArmorColor” texture, and there it was – a simple palette with different shades of metal and colors.
Now the fun began! I started tweaking the colors in Photoshop. Changed a few of the metal shades to brighter colors, saved the file, and then… the moment of truth. Copied the modified .dds file back into the game’s texture folder, overwriting the original.
Launched the game, hopped into the character customization menu, and… nothing. The colors were exactly the same. Bummer.
Okay, so overwriting the texture didn’t work. Figured the game probably caches the textures or loads them in a different way. Did some more research online, looked up “The First Descendant modding” and “Unreal Engine texture replacement.” Found a few forum posts about using Unreal Engine’s material editor to change colors.
That sounded complicated, but I was determined. Downloaded the Unreal Engine editor, imported the game’s assets (which took forever), and started poking around in the material editor. It was super confusing at first, a bunch of nodes and connections. Felt like I was trying to defuse a bomb.
Watched a few tutorials on YouTube about changing material colors in Unreal Engine. Slowly started to understand how the material editor worked. Found the material for the armor, and there it was – a node that controlled the base color. Double-clicked it, and a color picker popped up.
Changed the color to a bright pink, compiled the material, and saved the project. Launched the game again, and… YES! The armor was now bright pink! It looked ridiculous, but it worked!
From there, it was just a matter of experimenting with different colors and materials. I even managed to add a subtle metallic sheen to some of the armor pieces. It was a long process, but I finally figured out how to change the colors in The First Descendant.
Lessons learned:
- Don’t expect simple texture replacements to work.
- Unreal Engine’s material editor is intimidating, but powerful.
- YouTube tutorials are your best friend.
- Bright pink armor is always a good choice (for testing purposes, of course).
It was a fun little project, and now I can customize my Descendant to look exactly how I want. Definitely worth the effort!
