You can use multiplacative mode colouring in code. Take a base texture, and use the alpha channel to mask areas that you want recoloured - white=100% colour, black=0$. That way you can not only mark the areas you want to change, but have fade in/out.
I am trying to wrap my head around this. I want to create a texture that contains come details and colors, highlights, and shading, but if a programmer changes the underlying object color then large portions of the texture will change color but retain their shading. Think of a game where you can dye portions of your armor.…