Some time ago I had to do a lot of bottles of different colors, and then I thought about saving time and bytes.
This is a small tutorial on how to do a lot of the same model in different colors using only one texture.
http://pic.fullrest.ru/upl/KBkWjouV.png
http://pic.fullrest.ru/upl/KYT0fiYe.png
1. Detach the gold part in a separate object (its color will not change)
2. Apply the Vertex Paint to the main part using http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/16/ENU/3ds-Max-Help/index.html?url=files/GUID-EADD121F-482F-4387-8D6C-0548533E4F56.htm,topicNumber=d30e272707 or http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Materials/Special_Effects/Vertex_Paint.
3. Paint the model as you see fit. Now you can repaint the model as you wish, exporting every time.
I painted the bottle in the blue-green and used Adjust Color (3ds Max feature in Vertex Paint) to change the colors. Here is the result.
http://pic.fullrest.ru/upl/JVRvJDQL.png http://pic.fullrest.ru/upl/oJeEn3Wv.png http://pic.fullrest.ru/upl/RSxLZFD8.png http://pic.fullrest.ru/upl/nuW1Qkin.png
4. Profit, we have some *.nifs and only 1 texture instead pile of textures to each *.nif.
Small addition for 3ds Max users
First of all, you need to arrange the light sources. I usually set taupe Skylight with very low intensity as a warm fill light and somewhat bluish Omni with normal brightness as ambient light from the sky.
After the placed sources, apply the modifier VertexPaint, open settings tab AssignVertexColors and click Assign. Flag Shadows takes information from the lighting, Mapping - from the material. If the mesh has a material with a bitmap texture, vertex paint will take the main colors of the texture.
Remember that the color also depends on the shades of gray in the texture. If you want a clean bright color, use a very light gray, but not pure white (I noticed some artifacts in the game, if you use white).
Obviously, the FaceGen in Oblivion used exactly vertex paint when you choose colors for the face and hair.
I think this method could greatly reduce the time to create objects that have the same model but a different color. I have not tested it on hairstyles meshes, but if it works, it would be doubly useful.