Creating new skins for Skulltag is simple. Creating skins dedicated for MM8BDM pretty much the same, but you have to keep a few things in mind. This tutorial will show you how to make a new skin for MM8BDM
You will need:SlumpEd (or Slade if you already have it)
An image editor that can correctly set PNG translucency
Creating the sprites:First you will need to create your sprite sheet.
Click here for examples. MM8BDM uses specific colors for in game colour translations (for weapons), so you must use the exact same colours as the sheets features in MM8BDM. These colors are
black (0, 0, 0),
cyan (0, 248, 252),
blue (0, 120, 252),
white (255, 255, 255) for non-eye whites, and
off-white (252, 252, 252) for whites used in eyes. Skins can have more colours if required (usually white), but you want to put as much cyan and blue on them as possible so it’s easier for opponents to know what weapon you’re using.
This template shows you what frames you will need to produce for the skin. The frames can be any size you like, but their hitbox in game is the same size as Mega Man. You will notice there are only two hurt frames, this was initially to save time but you can create them all if you like. Once you have all your sprites ready (make sure all the colors are correct!), you will have to change the background to transparent. Photoshop is a good choice if you have it, but any program that allows PNG transparency is fine (I think GIMP is a popular pick for this).
Now things get a little bit techie. You need to save each frame as a PNG with a specific file name. It works like this. The first four characters define the sprite set, and the last 2 or 4 define the rotation and frame. So let’s look at Proto Man’s front frame.
PROMA1
“PROM” is the sprite set, “A” is the frame (standing), and “1” is the rotation (facing forward). So this would be PROMA1.png. You can rename these later in SLumpEd later if you mess up, so don’t worry. Use the following reference to understand what’s what.
These are the different frame letters:
A - Standing frame
BCDE - Walking frames
FG - Firing frames
H - Pain/Death frame
And here's the different numbers to accompany the frame letters above:
x1 - Forward
x8x2 - Forward/Left
x7x3 - Left
x6x4 - Back/Left
x5 - Back
So with these in mind we can produce the filenames for importing. As an example, here’s a complete list of Proto Man’s sprites:
The pain frames are copied for the rotations as I only use two, so PROMH1, PROMH8H2 and PROMH7H3 use the front pain frames, and PROMH6H4 and PROMH5 use the back pain frames. When these are all saved as png’s, they are ready to import into a new pk3 file.
Choose your sprite name wisely! It cannot conflict with any other sprite names in the game or any other skins you’re using. To avoid such conflicts, try to keep your name unique. If it was Battery Man for example, use BATM or BTYM.
Importing into a PK3:Open SlumpEd and create a new zip/pk3 file (
). You will get a blank column on the left. The first thing we want to do is create a new folder (
) and call it “sprites”. Save the pk3 as whatever you like, and enter the sprites folder. Hit the import lump button (
) and browse to the folder where all your ready sprites are. You can select them all and import them in one nice big batch. They should show up as blue, which means they haven’t been saved yet. Hit save again.
Now we need to edit the offsets, which can take a few seconds or to a number of minutes. The first thing I tend to do his highlight all the sprites, right click on one of them and hit modify offsets. Then click the drop down to “Monster” and apply the offsets like this:
This automatically corrects them to an extent, but in game their feet will be in the floor. Select the lumps again, hit modify offsets and this time check “Relative” and type 3 in the second box like so:
Your sprites will now be aligned properly, so hit save once more. Scroll through the sprites. You will want to make sure the character’s body is in dead center with the line going down the middle (at this point, you also want to check if the PNG transparency was successful). You can drag the sprite as you wish to align them, but make sure you hit save at the top of the window after each time you do this. Make sure your sprites don’t jitter around too much during their animations (you can do this by simply clicking on each frame).
When you’re happy, make sure all the frames are there (including pain frames) and hit save. Should there be any problems with the filenames, you can rename them here too (press F2).
The last thing we need to do is define the skin so Skulltag knows what it is. Go back a directory (
) and hit create a new lump. Call it SKININFO. Clicking it should give you a blank text box on the right to type stuff in. Copy the template below and edit it accordingly to match your new skin.
Here's the code:
{
name = "Protoman"
sprite = PROM
class = Megaman
dsnoway = LAND
dsoof = LAND
dspldeth = MEGADEAT
dspdiehi = MEGADEAT
dsplpain = MEGAPAIN
dstaunt = dsnone
gender = male
}The only things you need to change are the name (the name of your skin) and the sprite (the first 4 characters of your sprites). You can customize it a little bit by changing the filenames of the sounds. You can change LAND to FATLAND for heavy characters if you like. You can also change MEGAPAIN to MM2PAIN, MM3PAIN, MM4PAIN to give different pain sound effects. When you’re done, save the pk3.
Testing the skin:The only thing left to do is to put the skin in your skins directory, which should be in the same folder as Skulltag. If one does not exist, simply create it. Once the pk3 is in, launch MM8BDM. If you get a sprite rotation error (regardless of what sprite it tells you), you’re missing a frame. Do a thorough check of all the file names in the pk3, there should be at least one problem. When you’re done, save it and try again.
Be sure to try out different weapons in the mirror. If your colors don't change when cycling through weapons, it means the palette is wrong. DOH! Unfortunately this means you have to fix it and extract the sprites from the sheet again, which is a pain! (trust me, I've done it a few times)
You won’t be able to select it through Dr. Light’s lab but you should be able to see it via the player setup menu. If you can’t, retrace the steps above to try and find where you went wrong. If you can select it in the menu, congrats! Check in Roll’s mirror to make sure all the rotations and offsets are okay. If they’re not, go back into SlumpEd and tweak them until you’re satisfied.
Notes: In order for other players to see your skin, they must also have the same skin in their skins directory. If they don’t, you will appear as Mega Man.
Your sprite should follow the 8-bit law, which is colors, amount of colors, size and style. If your sprite doesn’t look 8-bit enough, it will look bizzare in game and less people are likely to install it.
You can indeed create more than one skin in a pk3. Just add a new line in SKININFO and paste the template again, editing the required fields.
I will be creating and hosting skin packs based on decent skins. Just a little something to motivate you!
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