Costumes for Ep. 2 (artists and opinions needed!)

[Rixithechao]

So yeah, Ep. 2 is going to have unlockable costumes. They'll be completely aesthetic, just sets of alternate player graphics and some NPC changes (catllamas, projectiles, etc.)

So here's how we should probably go about this:
- If you want to make a costume, just start working on it and post the base sprite(s) and any further progress in this thread, then we'll move it to the WIP/finished list. All proposed ideas are up for grabs, so if you want to be the one to make something that's not in the ideas list, just start making it and posting about it.
- If you've started a costume and won't be able to finish it, post what you have. If someone has given up on a costume or hasn't posted a progress update in a while (two or three weeks, maybe?) another person can take over for them and finish it.
- Note that the characters' sprites were updated for Episode 2, so please base costumes on the new default sheets linked below.
- We can't guarantee that every costume that gets made will be included in Ep. 2, but the more we have, the more options we have.

NEW DEFAULT SHEETS:

Demo
Iris
Kood
raocow
Sheath
We're working on centered ones

WIP/FINISHED COSTUMES:

All 5 chars:
- Gameboy (chaoxys)
- Paper (chaoxys)
- Cosplay (chaoxys)
- "Real Life" (chaoxys)
- Robot (chaoxys)
- Cat (chaoxys)

Demo:
- Pily (Willhart)*
- A the Safety Demo (Hoeloe)
- Bobblehat Demo (Hoeloe)
- 1px Demo (rockythechao)

Iris:
- Nevada (?)
- Christmas Tree Iris (chaoxys)
- Cat Planet Cat (chaoxys)

Kood:
- Doctor Kood (HenryRichard)
- Robin Kood (rockythechao)

raocow:
- Megacow (chaoxys)
- Skelecow (chaoxys)
- Startropics Mikecow (chaoxys)
- Classicow (rao's original sprites)

Sheath:
- Broadsword (WasabiJellyfish, rockythechao, arabsalmon)**
- SHETH (HenryRichard)
- Boki (Mea)


IDEAS:

All 5 chars:
- Basic palette swaps
- Metal -- Gold Demo, Silver Iris, Pink Gold Kood, ____ raocow, ___ Sheath
- Chronotons pretending to be the characters
- Touhou cosplay -- Reimu Demo, Marisa Iris, Cirno Kood, Nitori raocow, Youmu or Yukari Sheath
- Buff
- Boom Boom mask
- Sanct mask
- Reverse statue (the statue frame is the regular sprite and every other frame is the statue)

Demo:
- Zombie Demo
- What the Hell/ASMT Demo
- Wademo

Iris:
- Pirate Iris
- What the Hell/ASMT Iris
- Wairis
- Undertale characters

Kood:
- Schoolgirl Kood
- Magical Girl Kood
- Horikoodwa
- Chicken Kood
- Goopa Kood

raocow:
- Crash Bandicoot
- Parrot Boom Boom
- Jumbo Rezcow

Sheath:
- Ninja Sheath
- Solid Sheath
- Soldexus Jon Arbuckle
- Brake (from A.T.X.S.)
- Aricelle (by Her Wandering Blade)
- An Elysian Tail Dust

Undecided:
- Mishi
- Umbra
- Garish
- Calleoca


* May be dropped due to reasons mentioned on Page 3
** As of SMBX2 Broadsword is his own character, and he will not be getting buyable costumes in Episode 2


(Note that as of lunalua 0.7.3, player graphics can be replaced at runtime and thus playerGfx.lua is no longer necessary for the costume system. The library can still be downloaded from the wiki page.) SMBX2 outright has a costume system now!

Original post:

I just finished the bulk of the work on a lua library for changing player graphics on the fly, gonna record a video of it later tonight. So unlockable/buyable costumes can indeed be a thing.

That said, if we're going to sell costumes at raocoin shops... if we have a minimum of one costume per character per world, that's 9 * 5 = 45 sets of graphics. Granted, we already have some of different characters like Nevada, Uncle Broadsword, etc. and they don't all have to be wildly different; some can be just simple edits.

Wings of Vi-style accessories that all 5 characters can wear have been proposed as an easier alternative, and while they would be much easier to make we'd need more work on the lua side to code that functionality.


Either way, these aren't going to have any effect on gameplay or the story, just optional visual customization for the player. We're not going to think about characters/accessories with different physics/mechanics/dialogue until Episode 3, if at all.

So yeah, discuss your preferences and ideas here, let us know if you'd be willing to contribute graphics, etc.

[sedron]

I think the best way to go about it is to just let people make contributions for both costumes and accessories until it's clear one or the other is doable. I don't know what the difference in workload is, so I don't feel qualified to make a statement about it one way or the other.

If inspiration ever strikes I could maybe add something, but I'm not much of a pixel artist so no promises.

Also, major props, Rocky. This is some seriously cool stuff!

[SAJewers]

If we do this, IMO it should new characters and whatnot that we can switch to, like in the video. If accessories win though, I think we'll need a lot more than 9 per character.

[Willhart]

I assume that this works with ini files? A giant hat might not fit into the sprite otherwise.

[Hoeloe]

I assume that this works with ini files? A giant hat might not fit into the sprite otherwise.

As far as I know, it uses Lua to draw the graphics over the top of the player, reading from the ini files to position them correctly. You could, in theory, make the graphics as large as you like.

[FrozenQuills]

If this were to happen, there should probably be a toggle for this for levels that modify the players graphics

like Sunrise.

But yeah I'm fine with either costumes or accessories or both really.

[Willhart]

Some of the costumes could be maybe related to the worlds too somehow.

[Chaoxys]

I think it'd be neat for the earlier worlds to have simplified costumes, like, it's still the characters, but dressed differently and what not, and then as you get to later worlds, you get more complicated costumes that actually make you into another character.

Truth be told, I've already started a sheet that would most likely work for a world 1 or two costume swap.

[SAJewers]

If this were to happen, there should probably be a toggle for this for levels that modify the players graphics

like Sunrise.

But yeah I'm fine with either costumes or accessories or both really.

Sunrise uses lua to achieve the black character by making smbx think one of the cheat codes is on.

Only other general level IIRC that changes the player graphics is

monoland

.

I think it'd be neat for the earlier worlds to have simplified costumes, like, it's still the characters, but dressed differently and what not, and then as you get to later worlds, you get more complicated costumes that actually make you into another character.

Truth be told, I've already started a sheet that would most likely work for a world 1 or two costume swap.

I could actually see that working out pretty decently.

With that in mind, Willhart did a small Pily Spritesheet some time ago, and small/large Nevada sprites were made for Ep1. Would just have to do the other powerups for those two.

[Chaoxys]

I've actually started a simple set for each character. The general idea is is to have the characters dressed as the official characters that they are swapped from.



And yes, that does mean we'll have Kood in a dress.

I also have plans to do at least Demo in 8bit, and a special other costume (this one being a full new character costume).

[Willhart]

Those look great. It'll probably take a lot of work to convert them though.

[Hoeloe]

I made an accessory/costume.



Demo the Safety Bee.

Also this one:

[Chaoxys]

Couldn't remember where I was supposed to post this but heres a (hopefully) complete costume, most likely an early game one.

[Rixithechao]

Dagnabbit, I thought I posted this hours ago.

I assume that this works with ini files? A giant hat might not fit into the sprite otherwise.

As far as I know, it uses Lua to draw the graphics over the top of the player, reading from the ini files to position them correctly. You could, in theory, make the graphics as large as you like.

At the moment it just uses the offsets specified for the game/episode/level for each character plus an additional offset applied to every frame, but separate ini files for each costume is something I'm going to implement.

If this were to happen, there should probably be a toggle for this for levels that modify the players graphics

like Sunrise.

But yeah I'm fine with either costumes or accessories or both really.

playerGfx.enable (), playerGfx.disable () and playerGfx.toggle ()


Here's the code I used for the level in the video:

Code: Select all

playerGfx = loadSharedAPI("playerGfx");


local smbxMarioArray = playerGfx.arrayFromPrefix ("mario1")  --The files are "mario1_1.png" through "mario1_7.png"
local smbxMarioSet = PlayerGfxSet.create (smbxMarioArray, 0,0);

local rexMarioArray = playerGfx.arrayFromPrefix ("mario2")
local rexMarioSet = PlayerGfxSet.create (rexMarioArray, 0,-8);

local toadetteArray = playerGfx.arrayFromPrefix ("peach1")
local toadetteSet = PlayerGfxSet.create (toadetteArray, 0,0);

local broadswordArray = playerGfx.arrayFromPrefix ("link1")
local broadswordSet = PlayerGfxSet.create (broadswordArray, -8,0);


local cycleIndex = {}
cycleIndex [CHARACTER_MARIO] = 1;
cycleIndex [CHARACTER_LUIGI] = 1;
cycleIndex [CHARACTER_PEACH] = 1;
cycleIndex [CHARACTER_TOAD] = 1;
cycleIndex [CHARACTER_LINK] = 1;

local numCostumes = {}
numCostumes [CHARACTER_MARIO] = 3;
numCostumes [CHARACTER_LUIGI] = 2;
numCostumes [CHARACTER_PEACH] = 2;
numCostumes [CHARACTER_TOAD] = 2;
numCostumes [CHARACTER_LINK] = 2;


local charSets = {}
charSets [CHARACTER_MARIO] = {nil, smbxMarioSet, rexMarioSet};
charSets [CHARACTER_LUIGI] = {nil, nil};
charSets [CHARACTER_PEACH] = {nil, toadetteSet};
charSets [CHARACTER_TOAD] = {nil, nil};
charSets [CHARACTER_LINK] = {nil, broadswordSet};


function onEvent (eventName)
	if  eventName == "Cycle Costumes"  then
		cycleIndex[player.character] = (cycleIndex[player.character]) % numCostumes[player.character] + 1;
		local tempIndex = cycleIndex[player.character]
		local currentSetArray = charSets[player.character]
		
		playerGfx.assignSet(player.character, currentSetArray[tempIndex]);
	end
end

[kitikami]

Both the costume and accessory ideas sound really cool, and the stuff people have come up with so far looks great. Creating new player graphics is a ton of work with all the different frames and spritesheets each player has, though, so I can see it becoming a major hold-up to wait on that many to get done. If adding accessories like Hoeloe's or Chaoxys' hats on top of the existing graphics is feasible with Lunalua, I would think it could be a lot less work on the graphical side, so it might be a good idea to supplement the full costumes with some accessories as well rather than try to do all of them as full re-sprites.

Sunrise uses lua to achieve the black character by making smbx think one of the cheat codes is on.

Only other general level IIRC that changes the player graphics is

monoland

.

Hakugyokurou

also uses modified/custom player graphics

(and is currently slotted for the postgame/zebraspace world, so it would probably come up after these are unlocked if I am understanding the implementation correctly)

.

[Hoeloe]

At the moment it just uses the offsets specified for the game/episode/level for each character plus an additional offset applied to every frame, but separate ini files for each costume is something I'm going to implement.

If we change the drawing to OpenGL, we could get costumes to change colour with the shadowstar cheat, which would be neat. I'm slightly worried that these costumes will break foreground objects though.

[Rixithechao]

Yeah, we really need priority drawing for the OpenGL functions.
(On that note, allow me to restate how happy I am that 0.5 priority displays behind the HUD :D )

[snoruntpyro]

We probably want to avoid OpenGL rendering because some people (me, Zyglrox Odyssey, probably more) can't even run it.

[Rixithechao]

Wiki page is up now, y'all can download the library from there.
http://engine.wohlnet.ru/pgewiki/PlayerGfx.lua

[Hoeloe]

We probably want to avoid OpenGL rendering because some people (me, Zyglrox Odyssey, probably more) can't even run it.

Ideally, we'd be able to get some drawing functions with tints that don't use OpenGL.

[Rednaxela]

Ideally, we'd be able to get some drawing functions with tints that don't use OpenGL.

Certainly is possible, but I will note that general-purpose tinting will be a lot more CPU costly than "render as black", so if we wanted something for easy shadowstar-like rendering, perhaps that should be it's own thing separate from general purpose tinting... (or could just be an automatic optimization when the tint value is black)

(Actually, this reminds me... currently, shadowstar doesn't render the player differently, if you're using a PNG image for player sprite replacement... this applies both with and without the opengl renderer... I should fix that some time...)

[Hoeloe]

Ideally, we'd be able to get some drawing functions with tints that don't use OpenGL.

Certainly is possible, but I will note that general-purpose tinting will be a lot more CPU costly than "render as black", so if we wanted something for easy shadowstar-like rendering, perhaps that should be it's own thing separate from general purpose tinting... (or could just be an automatic optimization when the tint value is black)

(Actually, this reminds me... currently, shadowstar doesn't render the player differently, if you're using a PNG image for player sprite replacement... this applies both with and without the opengl renderer... I should fix that some time...)

As a performance improvement, that sounds good to me, though it might be good to have an option for "render solid colour keeping alpha value", as that would allow costumes in levels like

Monoland

, too.

[Hoeloe]

Had another thought, which I mentioned in Skype, but should mention here too.

Does anyone have the original graphics from ASMT? They would be great as alt costumes for Demo and Iris.

[Rixithechao]

Did some work on playerGfx.lua last night, the only remaining issues with the library are
- Graphics don't display properly in multiplayer (lunalua issue)
- Slight jitter when moving with some mounts/vehicles
- Pipe cropping hasn't been implemented yet

Also, I touched up Wasabi's playable Broadsword sheet and gave him a full set of powerups, though they're just simple recolors.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-w323 ... sp=sharing
If anyone wants to take a crack at expanding on these things and giving him cooler outfits, go right ahead :)

[Chaoxys]

Heres some costumes I'm currently working on (The first set is just the normal sprites btw):


I won't bother claiming any others until I finish these, although I have some in mind that I'd like to make.

EDIT- Oh, and heres the sheets I've finished.