You can add variety to your weapon finish by using a pattern.

Unlike custom paint styles, where you design a finish by painting over the weapon's UV map, patterns are much simpler to author and allow thousands of different and unique variations. However, unlike custom finishes, your pattern will only apply to certain parts of the weapon, which differ depending on the finish style.

The patterns used in the Spray-Paint, Hydrographic, Anodized Multicolored and Anodized Airbrushed styles all have the same basic properties. Each style can use up to four colors.

The pattern is applied one layer at a time, starting with a base coat that covers all paintable areas of the weapon.

Colour images are normally stored in red, green and blue channels that combine to represent a large range of colour values.

We take part of the RGB channels to store three separate images. The final result is a bit bright and hard on the eyes, but this is for re-use later.

Experiment with colour harmonies

Try different colour combinations with your pattern to see what works. The same pattern can be reused with different colours to create a new finish.

• Color 0: Base Coat
• Color 1: Red Layer
• Color 2: Green Layer
• Color 3: Blue Layer

Pattern Application Methods

Depending on the Paint Style, patterns are applied in one of two basic ways.

UV Application

This method simply tiles the pattern over the weapon's existing UV. This would be the equivalent of disassembling the weapon into separate parts before applying the paint kit.

This method is used for the following styles:

• Hydrographic Style
• Anodized Multicolored
• Patina
• Custom Paint
• Animated
• Chromatic

Triplanar Mapping

The second method uses triplanar mapping. Real-world examples would include spray painting through a stencil onto all sides of the weapon. The pattern blends across the surface normals.

This method is used for the following styles:

• Spray-Paint
• Anodized Airbrushed

Pattern Scaling

Paint Kits that use patterns define a base pattern scale. Increasing the scale tiles the pattern.

Since weapons are all different sizes, a pattern on a large weapon will have large features, while a smaller weapon such as a knife or a pistol will have very small features.

This is fixed by modifying the scale per weapon.

For most paint styles, the scale of a pattern is relative to a pattern sheet of 91.44 cm (36 inches). For Anodized Airbrushed and Spray-Paint, which use triplanar mapping, it is 45.72 cm (18 inches). In order for the size to remain consistent, the pattern's scale must be adjusted per weapon.

For some Paint Kits, the automatic scale adjustment is not desired. This can be disabled by checking the "Ignore Weapon Size Scale" checkbox in Workbench or by setting "IgnoreWeaponSizeScale" to true in your paint kit JSON file.

Randomisation

All Paint Kits specify ranges for offsets and rotations. When a weapon with a paint kit is created, random values are chosen within those ranges to ensure each item is unique.

Paint Kits also specify a range for wear. On item creation, a random value is chosen within this range. As the wear increases, more scratches appear and the weapon becomes grimier.

The textures responsible for the grime and wear are both placed randomly so that each item is unique, even when the wear value is identical.