Making a character mod build using Spriter - Help !

[Sketchiverse]

Hello everyone,

In order to start working on my character mod efficiently, I decided to start by drawing a single frame (headbase-0), and directly replace wilson's head in the atlas-0.tex file of the sample_dude character mod...

... then renaming the code stuff in it, and then test if I could successfully wrap up everything and make it work in-game. That didn't work at all :

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=381503450

As you can see the head of my character is misplaced and partly cut, due to the lack of space on the existing atlas-0.tex file.

After a lot of fighting and raging about things not working, I decided to go deeper and completely remake the anim build using Spriter. Here's what I have right now : http://i.imgur.com/UBxRKDi.png

I'm editing the sample_dude.scml file and replacing the images in the exported folder with correctly-sized art.

After a lot of test and retry, it results in this : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=381457090

So far so good ! Until I realized that the original scml animation doesn't seem to include the variants of the face-0 image, which are face-1 to face-13. I don't see them in spriter, so of course I can't move their pivots. The result is a flinching face in game, none of the variants ends up correctly placed.

Can somebody help ? I'm stuck, and I really really want to make this mod happen...

[Sketchiverse]

The third link is broken so here it is, since I can't find how to edit the post : http://i.imgur.com/HctuVPV.jpg Sorry.

[outseeker]

I would really like to help you, but I can't do so from experience.

 

Searching around however, I can offer you some linkage that might help:

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/46849-tutorial-using-extended-sample-character-template/

(this one has a video and all)

 

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/37002-easy-character-art-tutorial/

(this one seems useful for your headbase, etc. work)

 

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/27341-tutorial-the-artists-guide-to-characteritem-modding/

(this one is pretty darned in-depth)

 

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/20336-creating-your-own-character/

(another sample to work from if all else fails, which I kinda expect it won't)

Best of luck and fun to you!

[Sketchiverse]

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/46849-tutorial-using-extended-sample-character-template/

(this one has a video and all)

 

Thanks very much ! This one helped me a lot, I didn't know you could right-click to see the other variants of an element in Spriter, so I found where the face-1 to face-13 were in the scml file.

 

The second source was too simple for me at this point, and the third one was already my main source of info so far. I recommend it to anyone who has trouble with making a mod in general. I still need to dive deeper in the fourth one to see if I missed anything useful. Thanks again for your help.

 

 

Just in case someone can help me further, I have a new problem with sprite placement in Spriter. My versions of face-0 to face-13 are not sized exactly like the original sample_dude ones... So even with an even image resizing, simply adding them to the folder doesn't work...

... and moving them by hand in spriter is impossible : if I move face-0 or its pivot, it moves every other variant of face, and same thing happens if I move the other images...

It's hard to understand how it works, but basically it's impossible to move sprites without messing up the whole build.

 

In game, it makes the face flinch whenever the character blinks or talks or anything that changes the face sprite. So I assume I need to place each sprite and its pivot correctly, pixel-perfect...

 

Is there at least a way to move only the sprite and not its pivot at the same time ? I can move only the pivot and not the image, but I want to do the opposite.

 

Alternatively I found that I can open the scml file with a text editor and change the values for the pivot position directly. Will try that soon.

[outseeker]

hmm I actually finally made use of these links myself in creating finished crockpot recipes.

 

It seemed to me that it makes zero difference what the coordinates are of the image in spriter; it just places it in the same spot in-game regardless of where you move it around in the Spriter window. Not 100% but same appeared to apply to Scale; I had to manually resize the original PNG's I was using in order to change the size of the object in-game and edit the scml file to reflect the new size.

 

I found when editing the saved Spriter project .scml in notepad, you can manually edit each image's position by modifying pivot_x and pivot_y, but I was kinda working with a "fake" animation that only consisted of a couple of frames to show in the finished pot, like that example, so I don't know if that's the right way to do it, but it worked for what I needed.

 

Anyway, all frames in an animation have to be the same size as eachother and the .scml wants to have that size accurate in width= and height= in order to achieve uniformity. Hope that's of some use XD

 

[Sketchiverse]

I noticed that as well, thanks for the confirmation ^^ It seems that pretty much all you can do in Spriter is move the pivot around. It's pretty hard to make a character with it.

I'm making progress with my mod. It doesn't look very nice in my opinion but it's my first mod so whatever. I guess I'll announce it on the forums when it's done. I'd be interested to have a look at your crockpot recipes too ! Feel free to post a link here if you want.

[outseeker]

The crockpot stuff I did still isn't released- it was for The Gentlemen's Mod (aka Tungsten Mod).

 

When he next updates it, you should be able to grab a full copy of the mod including the repaired crockpot stuff

[Sketchiverse]

Alright, I'll keep an eye out. Thanks again.

[outseeker]

He updated it
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=358015908

 

All crockpot recipes are now working real pretty-like

[RedRock911]

Out of curiosity, If body parts arent lining up....I can just use spriter to align them can't I?

 

[Sketchiverse]

Thanks outseeker,
That's a really cool looking mod. Nice job to you guys, I'm jealous.


Hey RedRock,
You can try, but let me warn you, it's not easy. Read outseeker's post here and you'll see why:

 

It seemed to me that it makes zero difference what the coordinates are of the image in spriter; it just places it in the same spot in-game regardless of where you move it around in the Spriter window. Not 100% but same appeared to apply to Scale; I had to manually resize the original PNG's I was using in order to change the size of the object in-game and edit the scml file to reflect the new size.

 

It seems to me that if you want a correctly animated model, with the body parts correctly aligned, the best is to make your body parts perfectly based on the sample character body parts that you're working with. I guess if you edit the images of the sample character directly to make your own, then you're pretty sure to have them at the right size and place.

The problem is when your custom body parts are bigger than the sample ones. That happened to me with most of them and it's not cool at all.

Final note: Be super careful with the nose from the sideview ! (face-4 to 6 and headbase-1) The face frame is animated in a way that it's not stuck to the headbase. I don't have really good advice for this, but be careful that the nose doesn't slide off the headbase in game during certain animations. It happened to my character model and he's really, really ugly now.

[RedRock911]

Thanks outseeker,

That's a really cool looking mod. Nice job to you guys, I'm jealous.

Hey RedRock,

You can try, but let me warn you, it's not easy. Read outseeker's post here and you'll see why:

 

 

 

 

It seems to me that if you want a correctly animated model, with the body parts correctly aligned, the best is to make your body parts perfectly based on the sample character body parts that you're working with. I guess if you edit the images of the sample character directly to make your own, then you're pretty sure to have them at the right size and place.

The problem is when your custom body parts are bigger than the sample ones. That happened to me with most of them and it's not cool at all.

Final note: Be super careful with the nose from the sideview ! (face-4 to 6 and headbase-1) The face frame is animated in a way that it's not stuck to the headbase. I don't have really good advice for this, but be careful that the nose doesn't slide off the headbase in game during certain animations. It happened to my character model and he's really, really ugly now.

Ugh, this is tough! I think It's my torso and neck. Ive been making FlapJack and it seems his face is in his stomach, or sticking out, and his neck in in his stomach. I can delete the neck, not a big deal, That and the arms see too far apart.  So I have some part mngmnt issues, everything seems to be the right scale. 

[outseeker]

ahh really wish I could be of any use at all.. Sadly the simple lil cookpot "anims" I was working on are the limit of my experience with the graphical side of modding DST.

 

I guess the only general advice I could offer would be similar to what's already been determined: start with an example character and overlay their body parts/templates underneath your own when you're making them, so they're identical in size.

 

Perhaps you could look at as many different character templates as you can find, to see if anyone made a larger working one? You could either use that as a base and redo it, or perhaps use it to determine the difference and see if it's possible to resize or scale the character / expected sizes? idk >.<