How can I spawn vehicles with a colour assigned to them?

[Master Chris]

Hi there everyone, very simple question with hopefully a simple answer (I'm still pretty much a lua novice despite many years making vehicles for Gmod). How do you spawn a vehicle with a custom colour assigned to it in the spawn script?
I've looked through the documentation and found that colours are defined in Lua with the line:

Color( 1, 2, 3, 4 ) 

but how do I put that into a vehicle spawn script so it will be assigned to the vehicle when the player spawns it from the menu?
I've tried

local V = { 	
				-- Required information
				Name = "Beta Grand Am V0.8.1", 
				Class = "prop_vehicle_jeep",
				Category = Category,

				-- Optional information
				Author = "Master Chris",
				Information = "Bae has a Grand Ass",
				Model = "models/vehicles/pontiac_grandam/pontiac_20l2.mdl",
				Color = (Color( 0, 255, 0 )), 
				
				KeyValues = {
								vehiclescript	=	"scripts/vehicles/GrandAm-v037.txt"
							}
			}
list.Set( "Vehicles", "Beta_GrandAm", V )

but that had no effect, no error either.
I've also tried putting the Color( 0, 255, 0 ) bit into the KeyValues section but again no luck. Frankly I have no idea if I'm close or way off here so any help would be appreciated.

[mx.silent]

ent:SetColor( Color( 0, 255, 0, 230 ) )
ent:SetRenderMode( RENDERMODE_TRANSALPHA )
Example found here:
Entity/SetColor

[Master Chris]

Ok, but those lines don't look as if they will just slip into the vehicle spawn code though.
local V = {
-- Required information
Name = "Beta Grand Am V0.8.1", 
Class = "prop_vehicle_jeep",
Category = Category,

-- Optional information
Author = "Master Chris",
Information = "Bae has a Grand Ass",
Model = "models/vehicles/pontiac_grandam/pontiac_20l2.mdl",
ent:SetColor( Color( 0, 255, 0, 230 ) )
ent:SetRenderMode( RENDERMODE_TRANSALPHA )
KeyValues = {
vehiclescript = "scripts/vehicles/GrandAm-v037.txt"
}
}
list.Set( "Vehicles", "Beta_GrandAm", V )
I tested this but it just spat out an error. I'm afraid I'm going to need more context on how I need to actually use the commands. They look like something you would call after the entity was created.

[Spar]

According to this
list.Set can't accept colors.
So you nee to create hook PlayerSpawnedVehicle (Sandbox and SBox-Derived gamemodes only)
or OnEntityCreated (for all)

If entity name is Beta Grand Am V0.8.1 then change it color

[Master Chris]

Ah ok I think I get where this is going.
So the code I need to add would look something like this:
hook.Add( "PlayerSpawnedVehicle", "MC_GrandAm.ColourChange", function( ent )
if PlayerSpawnedVehicle = "Beta Grand Am V0.8.1" then
ent:SetColor( Color( 0, 255, 0, 255))
ent:SetRenderMode( RENDERMODE_TRANSALPHA)
end)

[mx.silent]

I think that one should work but with the other ones it would have to be "V:SetColor"

because "local V" is saying...
local V = { --is equal to all the stuff in these brackets

-- Required information
Name = "Beta Grand Am V0.8.1",
Class = "prop_vehicle_jeep",
Category = Category,

-- Optional information
Author = "Master Chris",
Information = "Bae has a Grand Ass",
Model = "models/vehicles/pontiac_grandam/pontiac_20l2.mdl",
ent:SetColor( Color( 0, 255, 0, 230 ) )
ent:SetRenderMode( RENDERMODE_TRANSALPHA )
KeyValues = {
vehiclescript = "scripts/vehicles/GrandAm-v037.txt"
}
}
list.Set( "Vehicles", "Beta_GrandAm", V )

but as Spar said it might not work but that is the correct function to use because you're trying to apply the value Color to an Entity

[Master Chris]

I'm afraid that code gives me the error "attempt to index global 'V' (a nil value)"
local V = {
-- Required information
Name = "Beta Grand Am V0.8.1", 
Class = "prop_vehicle_jeep",
Category = Category,

-- Optional information
Author = "Master Chris",
Information = "Bae has a Grand Ass",
Model = "models/vehicles/pontiac_grandam/pontiac_20l2.mdl",
V:SetColor( Color( 0, 255, 0, 230 ) ),
V:SetRenderMode( RENDERMODE_TRANSALPHA ),
KeyValues = {
vehiclescript = "scripts/vehicles/GrandAm-v037.txt"
}
}
list.Set( "Vehicles", "Beta_GrandAm", V )
I think I'll go ahead with trying to write a working version of the hook I started in the last post but I'll do that later today, right now I need some rest as it's been a long day.

[Spar]

No it shouln't. V is a table, not a entity.
It is used in SpawnMenu List

Almost. For understanding you can read this: Hook Library Usage
PlayerSpawnedVehicle just an ID of hook, it's not an argument. Read you code and see where function argument is.
You need IsVehicle and ent.VehicleName == *name*

[mx.silent]

I wasn't talking about V I was talking about ':SetColor'

[Gmod4phun]

Here is how you can do it:
hook.Add("PlayerSpawnedVehicle", "MC_Vehicles.SpawnColorChange", function(ply, vehicle)
local realClass = vehicle:GetVehicleClass()
if !list.Get("Vehicles")[realClass] then return end

local vehicleTable = list.Get("Vehicles")[realClass]
local color = vehicleTable.SpawnColor
if color then
vehicle:SetColor(string.ToColor(color))
vehicle:SetRenderMode(RENDERMODE_TRANSALPHA)
end
end)
and your vehicle code would look like this:
local V = {
-- Required information
Name = "Beta Grand Am V0.8.1",
Class = "prop_vehicle_jeep",
Category = Category,

-- Optional information
Author = "Master Chris",
Information = "Bae has a Grand Ass",
Model = "models/vehicles/pontiac_grandam/pontiac_20l2.mdl",
SpawnColor = "0 255 0 255", -- use string, not Color

KeyValues = {
vehiclescript = "scripts/vehicles/GrandAm-v037.txt"
}
}
list.Set( "Vehicles", "Beta_GrandAm", V )
You just have to set the color as a string instead of the Color structure.

[Master Chris]

Thanks guys, I'll take a closer look at this when I get back to the computer later.

[Master Chris]

Thanks Gmod4phun, that code worked perfectly. Though I have to admit I'm a little surprised it took something that complicated just to change the colour of a vehicle :S
Anyway, the reason I wanted to add this code is because I recently found out about a method of making colourable metallic paint but for the sake of the end user I wanted something other than white to be the starting colour you get when you spawn the car.
Would it be possible to set up the code so that a random colour was chosen every time you spawned the car? Kind of like this:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1313913818

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1313913870

[Gmod4phun]

Sure. You can either use a totally random color, or pick a random color from a table of colors to make it not as much random. Stuff is explained, so you can modify it to fit your style
local SpawnColorTable = { -- add more colors here
Color(255,0,0),
Color(0,255,0),
Color(0,0,255),
Color(255,255,0),
Color(255,0,255),
Color(0,255,255),
Color(0,100,180),
Color(0,180,220),
}

hook.Add("PlayerSpawnedVehicle", "MC_Vehicles.SpawnColorChange", function(ply, vehicle)
if !IsValid(vehicle) then return end -- just check if stuff exists
if !vehicle.GetVehicleClass then return end -- some vehicles dont have this function (I don't know why) despite being vehicles
local realClass = vehicle:GetVehicleClass() -- get our real class
local vehicleTable = list.Get("Vehicles")[realClass] -- get the parameters table
if !vehicleTable then return end -- if we failed, it probably does not exist, dont continue

local spawncolor = vehicleTable.SpawnColor -- gets what is in the SpawnColor, either a color or RANDOM or RANDOMTABLE
if spawncolor == nil then return end -- if it returns nil (does not exist), dont continue

local clr = string.ToColor(spawncolor) -- tries to convert to a Color, defaults to 255 255 255 255 when it fails to properly convert
if spawncolor == "RANDOM" then -- if SpawnColor was set to "RANDOM", pick a fully random color
clr = Color(math.random(0,255), math.random(0,255), math.random(0,255))
elseif spawncolor == "RANDOMTABLE" then -- if SpawnColor was set to "RANDOMTABLE", pick a random color from the table of predefined colors
clr = SpawnColorTable[math.random(1, #SpawnColorTable)] -- picks Color from table on the index of i, where i is a random number between 1 and the length (#) of the table
end

vehicle:SetColor(clr) -- color that car!
vehicle:SetRenderMode(RENDERMODE_TRANSALPHA) -- makes alpha work
end)

[Master Chris]

That is fantastic, thanks very much!
On a side note I was going to say that I just found out about a conflict with the old code you wrote and simfphys vehicles but the new code removes that problem, so no need to worry.

[Gmod4phun]

Yeah I found out, too. They seem not to have the GetVehicleClass function, so it called a nonexisting function. It should not throw out any errors anymore