ShipShaper ship colors can be customized either through the procedural color theme generator or manually via the redesigned radial color wheel. In developer Tomas Sala's naval builder, colors are mapped to distinct structural zones across the vessel, tinting the lower hull, main deck, superstructure, sails, and dynamic light fixtures.
Because the game uses real-time procedural mesh generation rather than flat 2D texture wraps, coloring works in tandem with material sliders and vertex data. Understanding how these zones connect prevents unexpected color clashes across your warship or sailing vessel.
How the Color Wheel and Theme Generator Work
The customization palette sits at the bottom interface of the construction view. Players have two primary methods to style their ships: automated theme generation and manual segment picking.
- Theme Generator (Mood Box): Clicking the generate theme button rolls a coordinated set of complementary colors across the entire ship. The developer designed these presets using specific aesthetic rules, such as nautical racing stripes, historical pre-dreadnought tones, and white-and-orange Coast Guard patterns.
- Radial Color Wheel: The wheel is arranged into real-time segments that correspond to specific zones of the ship. Moving your cursor around the wheel adjusts hue, saturation, and brightness for the selected layer.
- Segment Eyedropping: You can right-click directly on theme segments within the wheel interface to sample colors or align separate sections with the same shade.
- Uniform Shading Support: While early demo builds required contrasting shades for internal part identification, updated builds allow identical colors across all theme sections if you want a monochrome ironclad or uniform wooden finish.
Color Zones and What They Control
ShipShaper organizes vessel aesthetics into stacked vertical layers. When you adjust a specific segment on the color wheel, every attached component belonging to that category updates immediately.
| Theme Zone | Affected Ship Elements | Connected Component Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| Bottom Hull | Waterline plates, lower hull, keel base, and rudders | Reuses anti-fouling paint tones for lower contrast lines |
| Decking | Main deck surfaces, secondary platforms, extended decks | Tints base deck plates; works directly with planking sliders |
| Superstructure | Wheelhouses, towers, castles, fighting tops, and turrets | Applies primary armor color to gun emplacements and cabins |
| Sails & Rigging | Cloth sails, jibs, torn canvas, and matching mast trims | Shades procedural cloth lines and matching mast bases |
| Lights & Windows | Lanterns, floodlights, signal lights, portholes, and bridge glass | Changes the emissive glow and dynamic light cast into the world |
In official community discussions, the developer noted that certain secondary props share palette channels with the hull or superstructure to preserve visual balance during random theme generation. For example, gun turrets now have their fixed yellow trims removed so they paint cleanly alongside your main superstructure choices.
Material Sliders: Planking, Rivets, and Struts
Color in ShipShaper is directly influenced by the surface material controls located immediately to the right of the color wheel. You can alter the tactile finish of the vessel using dedicated sliders:
- Planking: Adds procedural wooden seams to the hull and decks. Adjusting planking changes how light reflects off the wood grain, softening bold colors into realistic timber finishes.
- Deck Spacing and Angle: Alters the alignment and width of deck boards beneath your chosen deck color.
- Rivets and Struts: Adds industrial framing, metal braces, and bolted seams. When combined with darker greys or slate tones, these sliders turn a smooth hull into a riveted ironclad or pre-dreadnought battleship.
- Surface Shine: Darker and more saturated tones interact with metal plating sliders to yield a reflective sheen, while lighter matte tones give the impression of dry canvas or bleached wood.
Vertex Colors and 3D Exporting
If you plan to export your vessels out of ShipShaper, color settings carry over through vertex data rather than traditional UV texture maps.
- FBX Game Exports: Exported FBX models store your color palette in vertex color channels with a separate emissive channel for illuminated windows and lanterns. To display these colors properly in engines like Unity or Unreal, connect a Vertex Color node to your shader's diffuse input.
- 3MF Multicolor Printing: Because vertex coloring creates sharp, mathematical divisions between hull plates and superstructures, files exported to the 3MF format are ready for multicolor 3D printers without needing manual repainting in slicer software.
- STL Prints: Standard STL exports strip color data entirely, outputting pure geometry for single-filament printers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I enter RGB values or Hex color codes?
Currently, ShipShaper does not feature numerical input fields for hex codes or RGB coordinates. Color selection is handled entirely through visual positioning on the radial wheel and sample picking from existing theme blocks.
Why do some small props change color together?
Props such as deck fittings, ladders, and certain funnel segments share material contrast zones with the hull and superstructure. The developer explained that keeping props assigned to grouped zones prevents massive performance drops on ships that contain over 50,000 to 100,000 procedural mesh triangles.
Can I change navigation lights to red and green separately?
Individual light customization is currently not supported. Changing the light color zone tints all active floodlights, standing lamps, and window glass universally. The developer has confirmed that dedicated running lights and outlier accent options are being planned for future updates.
Can I paint custom logos or text on flags and sails?
Custom image uploads and manual drawing tools on sails or flags are not available. Due to Steam moderation rules for shared workshop files and the project's solo development scope, sails rely entirely on built-in procedural cloth seams and color-wheel tinting.
