Layer UV Mapped Textures + Change Color3 Values

[Fennecpaw (Fennec)]

As a Roblox developer, it is impossible to create customizable mesh deformation characters by colouring and layering textures.

I am the owner of a game called Felandia (✨[QOL update!!] Felandia - Roblox). In Felandia, users can customize their character by changing colour, markings, eye type, and more.

As you can see in this image, the amount of character customization is significant. However, it is impossible to do the same with mesh deformation characters. I believe that it is important to incorporate mesh deformation into Roblox games because this is the future of the platform. There are also performance benefits that come with mesh deformation rigs (no hidden vertices from parts clashing into parts, there would only be one Meshpart).

Currently, the only way to apply a UV-mapped texture onto a mesh deformation rig is by changing the TextureID or SurfaceAppearance ColorMap. Both options do not allow you to change the colour of the texture (think: Decal Color3 values allow you to change the colour of white images in-studio) or allow you to layer multiple textures ontop of one another. This restricts the mesh deformed character’s colours to being what’s on the ColorMap image, thus, restricting all customization in-general.

This is a dog model I created for RDC 2022 Gamejam. It uses a SurfaceAppearance ColorMap in order to display it’s texture. If I wanted to colour the white part of the dog brown (for example), I could not since there is no way to adjust the Color3 value of textures in-studio (and it’s a hassle to create hundreds of images for every single colour possible). Additionally, if I wanted to change the white part and the dark part of the dog separately, I could not since there is no way to layer each texture individually. Below, I attached an image for what it could look like if I were able to colour each part individually.

A solution for this problem would be either to introduce ZIndex and Color3 properties for SurfaceAppearances or allow Decals to use UV maps (since Decals have ZIndex and Color3 properties). That way, the ZIndex order can look something like this:
The ZIndex order would look something like this:

1 - Base Colour

2 - Underfur

(any player-chosen markings would go in here)

3 - Eye Whites

4 - Eye Colour

5 - Pupils

The user could colour each texture individually, resulting in customizable mesh deformation characters.

If this issue is addressed, it would improve my development experience because I could create a mesh deformation game similar to Felandia, but without the lack of real-time customization. Mesh deformation is the future of Roblox, and I’d love to make an experience that’s also competitive off-platform (blocky rigs turns down an older audience).

[Fennecpaw (Fennec)]

A list of other threads I found similar to mine:

Ability to layer SurfaceAppearance objects

It is currently impossible to layer multiple SurfaceAppearance maps on a single mesh. I’m working on a game that will allow the player to customize their experience-wide avatar with patterns colors, etc. This becomes a problem because avatars will be a single deformed mesh and said customizations are impossible to create due to this limitation (if there is another way to do this I’m all ears). Right now my only option is to create a whole duplicate of the deformed mesh and set the SurfaceAppear…

Allow Decals/Textures to read MeshPart UV maps

As a Roblox developer, it is currently too hard to layer images on mesh parts. Rather than deal with the longstanding hurdles of layering texture ID’s, developers would easily accept a feature for Decals and Textures to render based on the UV coordinates of a parent MeshPart rather than being projected onto one of the face normals. Decals and Textures are already highly customizable with their Color3 and Transparency values, as well as support for alpha channels and the newer ZIndex property f…

[dragonfrosting]

I’d like to add that we need the ability to tint SurfaceAppearances because it is even more difficult to recolor transparent meshes at the moment.

While you can leave the ColorMap blank to use the MeshPart’s base color, you cannot do this with transparent meshes since the alpha channel is based on the ColorMap. Therefore you need to upload a separate texture for every color variant you need, which is not always scalable.

Roblox is still supposedly on the fence about implementing tinting because they’re unsure about the best way to do it, but at any rate it is becoming a desperately needed feature along with all others mentioned in this thread.

[Fennecpaw (Fennec)]

Adding onto this, World of Warcraft Classic does what I want to do on Roblox regarding texture layering (with armour).

And it was released back in 2004…

[Fennecpaw (Fennec)]

The best way to do it is like what is done with Decals right now.

[BigScriptus]

bump this needs to be done

This minion has multiple textures so i cannot upload hot minion

[HumanMop]

Guess I’ll go ahead and bump this even though I’m sure there are dozens of lingering requests for this. Still patiently waiting on anything AT ALL resembling this feature, that many people have asked and made good cases for, with no communication from roblox whatsoever. It’s 2023 and we still haven’t gotten improvements in SurfaceAppearance functionality. Is it too much to ask or something?

[IdontPlayz343 (FPS_Enjoyer)]

Bump! I can’t believe that this is still not a feature! Roblox wants everything to be dynamic, yet forces you to swap the whole texture to change the colors of details. Having to upload a different texture for eyes of different colors, along with many other things, is painful. Both of these features would make my life SOOOO much easier.