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Thread: New Character Creator - Alpha (Source included)

  1. #1

    New Character Creator - Alpha (Source included)

    Like many on this board a long time enemy of mine has been placeholder (or programmer) art in my applications as I'm either too cheap or too untalented to actually get real artwork. I ran across a great site the other day for characters (http://silveiraneto.net/tag/pixelart/) and after some reading (and downloading) I realized that this guy had generated an almost perfect template for multiple different characters. The only problem (at least in my mind) was that the template was done in GIMP.

    I'm no GIMP expert, and doing things in it takes me much longer than it should. So, being the awnery lil feller I am, I exported each layer of his graphics to a PNG file and then wrote a quick and dirty app to build characters from it. A bit of Google and some playing with basic math and I managed to add HSV adjustments to the editor. Now you can grab different building blocks, drop them into "layers" change the color/etc and export to a PNG for your own use.

    Of course, you can also easily create new layers to be added.

    Anyways, I'm posting the entire source as Open Source (not my fault if it formats your HD) for anyone to screw up. Hopefully this will be of some use to someone. If you make improvements that you want to share, post them here for others to make use of. If you make improvements and don't have a website to host them on, post the code changes here and I'll think about putting it into my build ()

    Anyways, download link: http://www.eonclash.com/charsbuilder/charsbuilder.zip

    Screenie:



    Some planned updates:
    Export frame information
    Preview animations (as you can see from the icons and buttons)
    More effects
    Import/Export per Parts Bin entry
    etc etc etc....

    BTW: This should work on MAC, Linux, and Windows as I've done all I can to stay away from platform specific code!

    - Jeremy

    PS: Yes, I did take a bit of concept from Charas Character Creator.
    Last edited by jdarling; 27-09-2010 at 09:47 PM.

  2. #2
    PGD Community Manager AthenaOfDelphi's Avatar
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    To post images, check out this post:- http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com...Posting-Images
    :: AthenaOfDelphi :: My Blog :: My Software ::

  3. #3
    Thanks AOD, I'm sure I'm the only moron in the group, but the new board has been a hard move for me to make .

    One upside I've found is not having to enter bbCode for URL's as they seem to get picked up automagically.

  4. #4
    Oh that's very nice. I'm not really working on something 2d now, but if I do, I'll have a close look at this.
    Coders rule nr 1: Face ur bugz.. dont cage them with code, kill'em with ur cursor.

  5. #5
    Made a few minor updates, added in RGB color shifting and (basic) Palette editing. Updated screenshot above, and posting a new Char from the builder for all to see:


    Updated zip has also been uploaded.

    Enjoy,

  6. #6
    cool and clean work

  7. #7
    Co-Founder / PGD Elder WILL's Avatar
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    Hey cool concept. If only I had such a thing for some of my older projects. Hmm... actually I was thinking about doing a somewhat retro style Castlevania style RPG not too long ago where you can change your clothes and general appearance. I wonder if this approach could be helpful.
    Jason McMillen
    Pascal Game Development
    Co-Founder





  8. #8
    Would it be easy to create a new character with your editor, based on a template?

    I'm curious about the workflow. Could you elaborate?
    Coders rule nr 1: Face ur bugz.. dont cage them with code, kill'em with ur cursor.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by chronozphere View Post
    Would it be easy to create a new character with your editor, based on a template?

    I'm curious about the workflow. Could you elaborate?
    Thats the basic idea. The "templates" that are there now I grabbed from http://silveiraneto.net/tag/pixelart/ and broke each layer (in Gimp) from his images into a new PNG with full alpha. Then the app basically puts your select layers (in order) back together into a single image again. Of course allowing you to edit each layer. Granted you could do the same thing in Gimp, but I wanted something faster, easier, and lighter than Gimp.

    You can add your own stuff and organize it by placing it into the partsbin directory (and sub directories) as you see fit. The app takes care of actually sizing the image, but doesn't do scaling (yet). I think I'm going to work on setting it up so you select a base body and then it attempts to scale the graphics appropriately. This way you could have multiple sets of graphics for different sized characters. Right now I'm working out using different scaling techniques so you can create larger/smaller versions of the given character without much trouble.

    Hopefully this will be of some use to someone besides myself, but if not, I'm having fun with it for now

    - Jeremy

  10. #10
    This seems great! I didn't downloaded it yet (I'm at job now) so I have few stupid questions.

    Are the templates "fixed" or can add new ones? I'm thinking in some character templates I've seen in opengameart.org.

    Is transparece set by alpha channel only or can define a "transparent colour" (i.e. pink)?

    Does it support 8bpp sprites?
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