Subscribe to download
KenTex (Full Remaster Of Kenshi in 2x Res)

Hello developer! I don't know English well, I'm writing through a translator. I have a problem with your mod in the crater area, the entire biome is black as ash without textures. I have a mod for height maps, maybe they conflict, please check this, I would be grateful. Plus there are mods for removing particles.

Ha, that's so cool! Thanks for indulging me as I explained what you already knew lol. He did include greyscale colormaps with his mod, so it's probably that he did intend them to be used with specific textures. That must be what the issue is. According to his posts from a few years ago he was basically learning as he went, which is what I'm doing now as well. I didn't realize Kenshi's colormaps work in a familiar way considering how quirky the engine can be at times, so I'm glad to hear that it's an established method that I can learn more about without having to rely solely on Kenshi-related information. My own texture work has been for games that didn't use them and all I ever released were a couple of brick textures for Morrowind on Nexus about a million years ago :D

I do appreciate the explanation, but yeah—I'm a texture artist, I definitely know how colormaps work, lmao. My guess is that his colormaps are simply overwriting mine or aren't playing nice due to some custom edits. He might’ve painted them with specific textures in mind, or possibly used a different compression method than I did. That alone could be enough to cause the incompatibility. Either way, it’s probably less about load order and more about mismatched design choices or compression conflicts.

(As a side note, if you're curious for more info on how colormaps work, you basically get 4 template colors to work with: one represents the primary faction color, one represents the secondary faction color, and the third and fourth represent the primary and secondary colors respectively but with a degree of shiny "metalness." There's also a couple extra template colors for allowing the primary and secondary to mix. A nicely painted colormap can define colors, their intensity, and varying amounts of shininess, and when paired with a compatible texture the results can be fantastic. The base texture doesn't even need to be fully greyscale, just the parts you're intending to color, so you could have something like just the leg straps getting dyed on the Drifter's Pants for example. After the colormap files are painted, there's just a tiny bit to do in the FCS and the new colormaps are good to go.)

Hey Deathfather, thank you so much for getting back to me. Basically, colormaps are a wash applied over the texture of the item. When this wash mixes with an underlying texture color, it can turn out really ugly in-game depending on what faction color gets applied to the item when a character equips it. This isn't noticeable in vanilla Kenshi because the default colormaps are super tiny and only seem to apply to places that are already grey or at least pale. But you can also barely see any color at all in vanilla, which is why the Better Colormaps mod was made to apply color to more parts of the armor so each faction can be more distinctive. It comes with its own greyscale armor textures to allow the color to apply without mixing. That's where the conflict with KenTex is, and what I seek to fix. (I hope this makes sense, it's been a busy day.)

I am overjoyed to have your permission, and I will absolutely credit you and keep you posted on my progress. Thank you again!

Cavan, I appreciate the kind words! I'm not entirely sure why there would be conflicts, as KenTex should override any vanilla textures. That said, mod load order can sometimes cause unexpected behavior, so I’d recommend experimenting with it—try loading KenTex first or second and see if that helps.

Regarding your request, I don’t mind you using the textures, but I’m curious—why would making them grayscale be necessary for colormap compatibility? If you could clarify how that helps, I’d have a better understanding. Either way, I don’t have an issue with you making colormap-friendly versions as long as credit is given. Let me know how it goes!

Hi Deathfather, this is GORGEOUS, but one thing I've noticed is that it doesn't seem to play well with custom colormaps like those in Faction Armor Colors - Better Colormaps . This is because custom colormaps use altered armor textures to allow the color to show more, and when I ran KenTex alongside Better Colormaps the result was weird and inconsistent — some armor would have its faction color mixed with the armor color, some coloring was lost altogether, etc. and would change depending on the load order of KenTex and Better Colormaps. Loading Better Colormaps afterward would also mean being stuck with original resolution textures on some pieces.

May I have your permission to make colormap-friendly versions of your textures? This mainly involves making some or all parts greyscale and possibly messing with transparency. Then we could have the best of both worlds. Of course I would fully credit you.

The 4x version I made used 30gb of vram lol!

Thanks iriemk!

Can't comment on that update's difference/effect, since I just found the mod after you pushed the update and announced it here on the forum^^.

I also downloaded Native Stylise and when I booted it first up with both mods enabled it nearly floored me. I was looking at an entirely different game. Native Stylise gives it a comic-ish look, almost a bit like Borderlands and your textures polish the whole thing.
Now I gotta fiddle with the options on my card and in Native Stylise mod a bit more to get the best possible visuals in conjunction with your textures. But that combo is definitely not for weak rigs though, just glad my GPU has a boatload of memory^^.