Help with a custom beard idea.

[Evee]

Hello! First time coming to seek some guidance here and actually posting something but I figure it couldn't hurt since I can't quite find anything else in line with what I'm trying to do! (At least from my brief scanning)

I'm working on a Mod with a friend and doing the art for the sprites and such. We had a fun idea to use the beard as means to generate honey for a bee character but wanted to make it out to be a scarf instead of a straight up beard. I was curios if anyone knew if it is at all possible to make it so that when facing away from the camera the beard sprites appear over the body and head rather than still being underneath? Alternatively can the code for beards be used to call upon different sprites/custom sprites? Say make it so it's like a satchel the character carries on their side and it's like a tray of honeycomb that they shave off the honey from?

Any kind of input or help is welcome, also again I'm only doing sprites so if it's something really small I just didn't ask my friend about I'm very sorry!

[IronHunter]

I probably utilize follow symbols, as you want them to overlay over your characters existing symbols and can even make them animated.

The beard symbol is hardcoded into the animation and is purely decorative. You don't need to use the beard symbol for beards to work. So go wild using other symbols.

[Evee]

6 hours ago, IronHunter said:

I probably utilize follow symbols, as you want them to overlay over your characters existing symbols and can even make them animated.

The beard symbol is hardcoded into the animation and is purely decorative. You don't need to use the beard symbol for beards to work. So go wild using other symbols.

Follow symbols? Could you explain those a bit? An idea that was going between us was trying to call upon the sprites in another way besides using hard coded sprites set for the beard and that kinda sounds like what you're talking about I think. Just some clarification would help out since I have no clue what those are. Like how would you go about making a symbol that could then be called upon with similar code?

[IronHunter]

A follow symbol is essentially a FX prefab that becomes a child follower targeting a specific symbol of the parent.

 

--Spawn the beardfx prefab and create a reference variable so you can interact with it later.
inst.beardvariablename = SpawnPrefab("beardfxprefabname")
inst.beardvariablename.entity:SetParent(inst.entity) --make it a child of the parent inst (your character presumely)
inst.beardvariablename.entity:AddFollower():FollowSymbol(inst.GUID, "torso", 0,0,0,true) --make it a follower

--follower parameters
--Parent GUID
--Parent symbol
--x,y,z offsets
--boolean turns on synchronized follower causing the follower prefab to become a symbol and inserted into the animation of the parent overlayed on top of the parent's symbol.
--boolean not really sure what this one does
--sub symbol visibility, defines which sub symbols this prefab is visible on for rotation.

--Recommended that you look at how some of the late game armors and weapons work as they heavily utilize this mechanic.
--e.g. sword_lunarplant, hats, armor_wagpunk, armor_lunarplant, armor_voidcloth
--As you'll likely also want to make it so they utilize the highlight children component later on once you got it functioning

Take note you do not need all the parameters for a follow symbol to work, absent ones just default to always being visible, and coordinates.

Edited April 10, 2025 by IronHunter

[Kaisen_]

On 4/10/2025 at 4:57 PM, IronHunter said:

A follow symbol is essentially a FX prefab that becomes a child follower targeting a specific symbol of the parent.

 

--Spawn the beardfx prefab and create a reference variable so you can interact with it later.
inst.beardvariablename = SpawnPrefab("beardfxprefabname")
inst.beardvariablename.entity:SetParent(inst.entity) --make it a child of the parent inst (your character presumely)
inst.beardvariablename.entity:AddFollower():FollowSymbol(inst.GUID, "torso", 0,0,0,true) --make it a follower

--follower parameters
--Parent GUID
--Parent symbol
--x,y,z offsets
--boolean turns on synchronized follower causing the follower prefab to become a symbol and inserted into the animation of the parent overlayed on top of the parent's symbol.
--boolean not really sure what this one does
--sub symbol visibility, defines which sub symbols this prefab is visible on for rotation.

--Recommended that you look at how some of the late game armors and weapons work as they heavily utilize this mechanic.
--e.g. sword_lunarplant, hats, armor_wagpunk, armor_lunarplant, armor_voidcloth
--As you'll likely also want to make it so they utilize the highlight children component later on once you got it functioning

Take note you do not need all the parameters for a follow symbol to work, absent ones just default to always being visible, and coordinates.

Hi IronHunter, I'm working on the mod with Evee and your explanation for follower symbols has been incredibly helpful! It took a bit for me to understand how they work, but we have it now. Thank you so much!