First of all, thank you Damon for not locking this thread to allow me a chance to respond! ;D
Die_In_Fire said:
First of al, kudos to you for taking the time to write this much and wanted to help newcomers. In some parts I didn’t like your tone, but anyways, congrats for all the documentation.
I couldn’t give a slow reading as I was in the train, but here are some quick annotations:
1. I personally use Obeditor. I tried openborstats and no,‘obeditor is my easiest to use tool. But as it’s very buggy, I only use the visual part and I wrote all directly in the text file, never save directly from the program without having a backup file. I have never tried the CCT3.
Obeditor is a pecially useful to create walls for stages.
2. Since over a decade the engine has been supporting .png files.
3. It seems you haven’t open too many mods, or you’ll note that many mods uses different background color for the sprites. That’s because the “pretty pink” is not mandatory and it can be literally any color of choice.
The important part is that the chosen color must be the first color in the palette order.
4. You don’t need to open “again” the 90 files to convert them from png to gif, not only because the engine support the png files, but because there’s a program called palapply that also has the function to convert your images files in batch mode. So with a few clicks you can convert all the 90 files at the same time.
Palapply is usually to, apply palletes, but it also can convert as said. So you only need to work in one file’s palette and then use the program to give that palette to all the images.
5. It’s recommended that all the images of the character to have the same dimensions, that way you can make things easier for yourself and use just ONE offset for all animations. Or the same offset for most of it at least. Again, you’ll note this just by opening any mod and check how all sprites are inside in same dimension files.
Edit: best way to add a character, is to copy the text file of an already existing one and then using the manual to learn what does every text means, and according to that, to delete the unnecessary stuff and perhaps adding other stuff. Better to start with simple characters like from the Blank mod.
Thank you for your reply, DIF! I realize I had a bit of a tone to say the least. Most of that came from frustration, and certainly I apologize if I've offended you.
1. I've tried OBeditor as well, but honestly there's no comparison to Piccolo's work with Crash Tools imho. I may look into OBeditor again and really sift through the features to better understand your preference though.
2. Yeah, I am seeing conflicting information on the forums. Part of my misunderstanding comes from conflicting information as the game engine has advanced over the years. Using google, I've been reading posts from 2013 and older, and so there's been a lot of changes since then and I'm trying to figure out what all of them actually are.
3. Guilty. Two mods I'm looking at in depth, and I've asset stripped over 20.
4. See? This is what I'm talking about. Thank you. I've asked for your feedback on better ways to do that, and you've given that information freely. Again, thank you!
danno said:
This isn't even an idiots guide, almost all of the information you posted isn't true, there's quite a few different ways to do 1 thing in openbor so that's why there isn't really a standard way, adding a playable character has to declared in model and can be player type even a none type if it's a weapon for example, openbor isn't really a pick n' mix type of engine, it can be done that way but generally the engine doesn't work like that, other people's mods should be used as examples in your creations not as drag and drop bits and pieces. There's lots more to be said but I'll leave it at that.
To be fair Danno, I DID say that the tutorial I was writing was flawed, and that my understanding of how to do things while writing it needed improvements from more knowledgeable users like yourself. I wasn't trying to come off as Mr. Know It All, and if I've rubbed you the wrong way, then apologies. Now, just because there are varied ways to do something in OpenBOR, why shouldn't we standardize the best method? It reduces confusion and frustration, and would be great for new devs!
Also, I intended to apply the source material for the Tutorial when it was fully revised, reviewed, edited, and completed. I needed YOUR help to get this going, that's why I posted this thread in the help section, NOT tutorials.
Damon Caskey said:
Zexika,
Friend, I admire your enthusiasm, but you need to change your tone. Firstly, there are good reasons why such a guide does not exist any more (there is an old one but it's totally defunct), and why the engine works the way it does. I'm not explaining it all again for the 9,000'th time.
Also, at this point you are simply not qualified to write such a guide. You need a much better understanding of the engine and how to use it first. Almost everything you wrote was misleading or wrong to the point it would be more detrimental than helpful. So much so I had to scrub your post because it would take me all day to correct it piecemeal. You'll find the contents sent to you in a PM because you worked hard and wrote a lot of stuff. I would feel bad to just erase it from existence - but it does not need to appear in public again without a complete rework.
DC
Damon, I admire someone in your position as to be responding to threads like this. It says a lot about how much you care about your community. As for tone, you're probably right. It was also about 11pm and I had spent 6+ hours writing this tutorial so I was frustrated by the end of it after being exhausted. I'll keep the community expectations in mind going forward.
As for correcting the guide, that's EXACTLY what I was wanting. I was asking for help to revise and complete this tutorial for new guides. I did the best I could with the knowledge I had, and at least I tried. I am definitely aware I lack the knowledge to write a guide like this on my own, it's why I asked for everyone's help. I like working with community members more than I like reading books or manuals, though I assure you I happily read those too. It's actually quite useful when you want to add a function to the game.
In a general response to all: I'll be the first person to admit I'm stumped on character creation. And trying to forum search, google, and manual surf has done no good to find recent, modern, helpful information on how the heck to get this done. I've spent 20 hours playing around with trying to import a mugen character into BOR and get it up and running without crashing the engine to no avail, yet.
So, I'm not trying to be lazy. Rather, I am asking for everyone's help, because I admit when I do need it at this time. Maybe I just don't understand palette editing as a concept and so it's difficult to understand why you can't just copy and paste and image, then strip the transparency out and viola. I will continue to learn, grow, and adapt. And then, why not help others in the process? I will complete my Tutorial regardless at some point, but I'll either need to dump a lot more hours into a project and come back, or obtain more info from the community. It's more than welcomed by me if others want to.
Thank you to those so far who have given insight!
