[Tool] Character Designer v1.1.0b

[Night]

[Tool] Character Designer v1.1.0b

A nice little tool that allows you to combine and layer different apparel for custom pc-male and pc-female sprite sheets.
Comes packaged with over 140 unique default sprites for designing your dream character.

Created by myself and @Krutzelpuntz who provided some amazing 8 direction sprites for this project, as well as testing for bugs and providing great feedback. Major props to him for his amazing work.

Menu:


Instructions:

• Using the tool:
  By default, there are a variety of apparel items included in the tool for use, to begin start with a "Base" as your first layer. This layer represents your characters body, and should always be on the bottom of the list.
  
  Each layer type will contain apparel that you'll find on that particular layer:
  
  Spoiler: show

  
  
  When you're finished selecting what you'd like to add, click the add item button and it will add it to the list of layers on the left, where you can then move it on-top of or below other layers of apparel.
  
  
  
  The sprite sheet itself is automatically saved to the tools running directory as "TempSpriteSheet.png", you will need to rename this to "pc-male.png" or "pc-female.png" (depending on your characters gender), and then overwrite the original file in your UnRealWorld\truetile folder with the file generated by the program. As of 1.1.0, you may also use the save, and save as buttons.
  
  A couple of additional notes on check box options:
  
  • 8-Directional: Designates weather or not to generate the sprite sheet as 8-directions or 2. 8-Directional assets automatically generate 2-directional ones when this in unchecked. (meaning you can still use 8-directional sprites in 2-direction characters)
  • Add Fallen: Automatically generates the fallen pose for the sprite sheet.
  • Add Wading: Automatically generates the wading deep and shallow pose for the sprite sheet.
  • Add All 2Dir: Automatically generates a 2-directional sprite sheet from single 64x64 images (Not yet functional, fairly easy to add just lazy).
  
  Right click options:
  
  • Update Sprites: Checks the github's default sprite list for updates/new additions to the default sprites folder.
  • Goto home thread: Opens default web browser to this thread's page.
  • Goto fandom: Disabled for now.
  • Message developer: Opens default web browser to send a PM to @Night
  • Compiled BG Color: Allows you to set BG color of sprite sheet.
  
  
• Adding new apparel to the tool:
  Adding new items for the tool to use requires only a small bit of configuration once you have the sprite you'd like to include. To begin, start by moving your new item to the "Sprites" folder, located in the tool's folder/directory. If you'd like, rename the file to something easier to organize amongst the rest of the sprites, otherwise continue on to the next step by opening Config.txt located in the tool's folder/directory.
  In the configuration file, you can scroll down to the section labeled [Sprites] (or just use cntl+F), where you'll be able to see the configuration data for the default sprites already included, to add your new sprite, simply label it in a similar fashion for example:
  
  My_Chestarmor_Blue.png=(Blue Scaled Armor,Chest,Scaled Armor,Iron,Blue)
  
  the format of this example being:
  
  Filename.png=(NameOfItem,Layer,Type,Material,Varient)
  
  note: as of 1.1.0, the beginning of the file name is a reference to its items, IE: Male_base, will only use Male_ labeled parts, where as Female_base, will only use Female_ labeled parts.
  
  The "Layer" parameter for configuration must be set to one of the following:

  "Base", "Head", "Face", "Hands", "Arms", "Chest", "Waist", "Legs", "Feet", "Hair", "Beard"

  
  When you have your file in the sprites folder, and the configuration setup properly, save the config file and start/restart the tool and your sprite should now be loaded and ready to use.
  

Future goals:

• Complete layer saving/loading
• Bug fix for cropping height on bases with varying heights
• Community contributions to the default sprite sheets, possible reorganization of file management system if sheets are plentiful.

Version History:

• v1.1.0b ^5/24/21 - Updated image hosting URL, hopefully more reliable than fandom.
• v1.1.0 ^10/30/20 - Lots of new sprite's added and updated, Female base added, added right click options (update sprites, sheet background color, etc), added save and save as for compiled sheets, upgraded selection filtration for bases and their counterparts
• v1.0.0 - Initial release

Please report any bugs to me via this thread, my PMs, or contact me directly on steam:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/Nightipoo/

Fandom homepage: URWCharacterDesigner Wiki

Download attached to thread.
^{(Only registered viewers may see downloads)}

Credits:
   Night - Creator/Programming.
   Krutzelpuntz - Creator/8-Directional sprites, testing, constructive feedback.
   Enormous Elk - Unreal world.

Requires Microsoft .NET Version 4.6 or later. (Usually already installed)

>Source for study<

[koteko]

To be honest I really would like to see this within the game xD if you can make "dressable" sprites, @Sami should be able too

[Night]

To be honest I really would like to see this within the game xD if you can make "dressable" sprites, Sami should be able too

It would be nice to have some sort of character customization from within the game in regards to the player sprite, but I think the workload would be easier addressed here (the modding section) as far as the art work goes.

I've thought it out to the point where I could probably make this into a mod that synchronizes your inventory with the artwork and auto-generates the sprite based on what your character is actually wearing in the game, and it simply replaces the sprite in the sprite folder (if we had all the graphical representations for the items in sprite format). Then all you'd have to do is hit f9(i think) to refresh the graphics.

But it would be a lot of work either way (programming and art wise).

[Mati256]

Wow, this tool looks amazing! I have to try it out!

[BlankPaper]

Night, you're a blessing to this community. That's a fantastic mod! You should definitely rep it in your forum signature!

[paulkorotoon]

Looks great. I'll give it a try as well.

[trowftd]

Are you thinking about making this kind of programs open source? Maybe some other coders might give it a try and implement other stuff or personalise it more. I personally am not that great of a programmer but I am also interested in how to write something similar to these and slowly build upon this kind of programs.

Obviously it is your code and you are to give the final choice, but I think it won't hurt to make these open source just chilling there in github.   

And it is an amazing program IMO that's kind of why I want to see how it is implemented btw.

[Night]

Thanks guys. Krutzelpuntz and I are figuring out a good way for people to upload their own sprite sheets in the future, incase people start making their own sheets and decide to share ^^.

Are you thinking about making this kind of programs open source? Maybe some other coders might give it a try and implement other stuff or personalise it more. I personally am not that great of a programmer but I am also interested in how to write something similar to these and slowly build upon this kind of programs.

Obviously it is your code and you are to give the final choice, but I think it won't hurt to make these open source just chilling there in github.   

And it is an amazing program IMO that's kind of why I want to see how it is implemented btw.

I've edited the post and put a link to the source on pastebin at the bottom of the OP if you'd like to study it. The program itself is just an image manipulation tool of the sorts, as I don't really touch the game itself, I'm just manipulating images and making them ready for the game to use. The main function for layering is quite messy, and I believe there's some redundant code I could remove, but it gets the job done. The real meat and potatoes of the program comes with a good supply of sprite sheets so big thanks to Krutzelpuntz for his work on the art, as this program wouldn't come nearly as nicely packaged without it.

[trowftd]

Hey thanks for sharing the source code! I just dove into programming and the URW dev team was a great inspiration, and naturally I am interested in the things that also works around the game too . I think it is really cool what you are doing with both the cheat menu and this program (obviously amazing sprites in the designer thanks to the artist).

[paulkorotoon]

It's amazing. Hopefully there will be also female base and items, it would be really great!

@Night, seems I've found a bug. Leggins somehow doesn't display when a character stands in the east direction.

UPD: Just tried adding nothing except leggings, same result. Not a bug, the base-leggins.png sprite just lacks the east layer, there's only seven of them instead of eight.

[Krutzelpuntz]

It's amazing. Hopefully there will be also female base and items, it would be really great!

Night, seems I've found a bug. Leggins somehow doesn't display when a character stands in the east direction.

Thanks!
Yeah, I chose to make the male character first. Hopefully I'll get to working on the female version someday soon.
I found items to be a bit difficult to make, but it is not impossible I'll try some more after the female sprites.
Right now I am working on a bit of polish, missing apparel and bugfixing. Thanks for the heads up, it's been fixed. Wait for Night to reupload.

UPDATE: I'll put the worst offenders up here for now, we are working on a pretty cool release. It may be a little while before we get everything implemented

[paulkorotoon]

@Krutzelpuntz, thanks. Looking forward to the new mod version!

[Night]

Updated, added new sprites and polished the tool up some more. Enjoy!
@paulkorotoon , @trowftd , @BlankPaper , @koteko , @Mati256

[paulkorotoon]

@Night, thanks, it's a great update! I've noticed a couple minor inconveniences.

When wearing belts over overcoat, there's one-pixel gap in the east/west direction. Overcoat should be one pixel narrower in this directions to fit belts.



The program window is resizable. Not important at all, but I guess its size is meant to be fixed.



Also, it would be nice to have shirts/undershirts available for female character too.

[Night]

@Night, thanks, it's a great update! I've noticed a couple minor inconveniences.

Spoiler: show

When wearing belts over overcoat, there's one-pixel gap in the east/west direction. Overcoat should be one pixel narrower in this directions to fit belts.



The program window is resizable. Not important at all, but I guess its size is meant to be fixed.



Also, it would be nice to have shirts/undershirts available for female character too.

I linked krutzelpuntz to your reply as he's managed all of the sprites so far,
^{(you'll be able to update/download new ones using right click > update sprites when they're available)}
I'll fix the resizing next release, as well as a couple of other minor things. Also plan on adding layer saving/loading so people don't have to rebuild the layers every time they want to make a small change.

Thanks for the feedback ^^.