Immersive Skin Tones

Introduction

Replaces RimWorld's nine default skin tones with new tones inspired by the 10-point Monk Skin Tone (MST) scale. In addition it completely removes the vanilla red shadow shader from darker skin tones, with a configurable option to remove it from lighter tones as well. This mod is an updated successor to Inclusive Skin Tones.

Technical Details

RimWorld uses two separate values to assign skin tones: minMelanin for faction pawns and selectionWeight for factionless pawns. For faction pawns, the game rolls a melanin value within the faction’s range, usually 0-1 and assigns the highest skin-tone threshold that value reaches. Because only one vanilla faction explicitly defines its own unique melanin range, all other factions inherit the default 0-1 range, meaning they generally share the same skin tone distribution. In my mod the minMelanin brackets and selectionWeight values use matching proportions, keeping skin-tone generation consistent for both faction and factionless pawns.

Features

• Balanced Skin Tones: Uses precise RGB values inspired by the MST scale.
• Multiple Generation Presets: Includes a demographic-inspired default distribution, along with equal, symmetrical, and vanilla-style alternatives.
• Shader Customization: Permanently disables the red shadow shader for darker skin tones, and includes a mod setting to toggle it for lighter skin tones (tones 1 to 5).

Skin Tone Generation

The default generation tries to reflect real-world demographics, with the two most extreme shades, tones 1 and 9 each set to a 5% appearance rate. Default generation: 5%, 6%, 11%, 17%, 19%, 17%, 13%, 7%, 5%. Prefer different rates? Optional XML presets are included in the mod’s /About/XMLs folder:

• Equalized: Each skin tone has an equal 11.11% chance of appearing.
• Symmetrical: 5%, 7%, 11%, 17%, 20%, 17%, 11%, 7%, 5%.
• Vanilla: 10%, 15%, 20%, 13%, 5%, 12%, 8%, 7%, 10%.

Compatibility

• Facial Animation - WIP
• Humanoid Alien Races

Mods Used in Screenshots

• Rudo's Body Variant Retexture
• Facial Animation - WIP
• Vanilla Textures Expanded - Facial Animation

Development Note

AI tools were used to assist in updating and creating parts of this mod.