--- FOR THOSE LOOKING TO UPDATE THEIR EXISTING EVO ADDONS FROM 1.0.6/1.0.7: ---


You may notice that your aliens are crashing the game. This is likely because of the new formatting of our alien render layers.
You no longer need any pre-generated color files for uniforms. Anything using "AlienEvo.Color" as a variable will be looking for files that do not exist and will crash you.
This applies to both uniforms and badges. The badge layer must also be updated to use the new "watch_state" variable instead of using scoreboards.
Please refer to the structure of the test pack render layer for reference.

There are also a few new entries in the alien_codex.js file that are required for your aliens to be fully compatible with the new interface.
Please reference the comments in the example file to understand what must be added.
The only other requirement is to add an alien description to your addon's lang file. The string is auto-generated by Alien Evo.

You will also want to add the new two-part nickname ability to your power and its corresponding lang entry to be compatible with the nickname editor.



--- USING THE NEW COLOR SYSTEM: ---


Alien textures have been split into 3 file types: skin, uniform, and glow. One of these is required for each uniform type (prototype, 10k, default).
(If your alien does not have glow or uniforms, simply exclude that section from the render layer.)

Enabling customization for your alien may seem complicated and lengthy at first. I will explain as clearly as I can. For now, we will stick to just the prototype variant.
First, head to your alien_codex.js file. You want to declare whether your alien has an editable glow color, primary (uniform) color, and secondary (uniform) color:

global.alienevo_172_prototype_uniforms = [true, true, true];

Then, you want to declare the color palette you used to create your alien texture. The color array must be listed from BRIGHTEST to DARKEST.
These color shades must match the EXACT hex color values that are on your texture.
This palette will tell our system what the default colors of your alien should be. If your alien uses more than 1 color palette, then add them accordingly:

global.alienevo_172_prototype_skincolor_palette_1 = ["a8865a", "9c784d", "86623f", "6c4a2d", "513622"];

Now that you have a palette declared, Alien Evo will automatically generate properties of those colors for you to use in your render layer.

For simplicity's sake, we will only change a single shade of that palette as an example.
In your render layer, on the layer with your alien's skin texture, you will want to add a new transformer and a new variable:

EXAMPLE TRANSFORMER:
--------------------------------
{
    "type": "palladium:color",
    "color": "##SKIN_PROTO_1",
    "filter": "#a8865a",
    "ignore_blank": true
}
--------------------------------
--------------------------------
EXAMPLE VARIABLE:
--------------------------------
"SKIN_PROTO_1": {
    "type": "palladium:string_property",
    "property": "prypiatosian_b_prototype_skincolor_palette_1_color_1"
}
--------------------------------

The transformer is looking for an exact color provided (in the filter). The variable in this example is the first (brightest) shade of the palette 1 declared in the codex.
With just this, you should be able to boot up your game and cycle through customization tabs to find "Color 1".
Selecting a color will now apply it to any pixels on your texture with the hex code "#a8865a".



--- CREATING 10K AND RECAL SKINS WITH CUSTOMIZATION SUPPORT: ---


You may have noticed that the alien skin and glow textures for 10k and default use color palettes different from how they appear in game. 
This is because each color transformer can only be assigned one color input.
Creating two transformers with different color inputs (ex. ##SKIN_PROTO_1 and ##SKIN_10K_1) and the same filter (ex. #a8865a) will conflict with each other and not work.
To circumvent this, unique palettes must be used across your different textures, functioning as placeholder colors that get replaced by the default colors from your codex.
This conflict only occurs inside of a single layer, meaning you can re-use the same placeholder palettes on other texture layers like glow, or even other aliens entirely.



--- MORE QUESTIONS ---


If anything seems unclear, please reference the test pack files, as they have everything you need as a base for your custom aliens.
Any other questions are welcome in the custom-aliens channel.