General Discussion

[DarkTl]

Update about packs. I used mega so long ago that I forgot password, and you cannot restore it there, only start a new account with the same e-mail. It's not a problem for us, all packs need deep retagging anyway, but looks like I no longer support wm ex packs.

For packs I'm trying to make as many portraits for various emotions as possible. At worst I have 3 per character: positive (happy usually), neutral and negative (sad usually). When possible, I make more, for every our emotion. However, there are cases when we only have 3, keep that in mind.
And I use 1 neutral sprite.

I finished two packs, Ar tonelico and Arcana Heart. You can find links both in my thread and db. I retagged them (that's why we have a small update for tagger  ), made new jsons according to new concepts and tested them in game.

Arcana Heart I found accidentally when I was looking for pics for possible random demon pack. It has only one character with enough pictures for a pack, but she is hot enough to get my attention back then. Ar Tonelico is an example of fan made pack. Under normal circumstances I would never use those characters for packs, they don't have enough various pictures. So it's a good pack for testing our wiles for replacement of missing pictures 

[Xela]

Right, I forgot that I've only left auto-emotions for the pics tagged with profile. I'll add portrait there as well.

[DarkTl]

Update for tagger.
- Added another check for delete function. Before it used to select a file with the same index that had deleted file after deleting it. That's why file list keeps its position during deleting. However, if you delete last file, there will be no files with such an index anymore.
Now it checks if index is no more than amount of remaining files.
- Added mask control. You can select types of files shown in file list (all pictures, jpgs or pngs). Since hex indexes for files calculated separately depending on extension (thus you can have 65000 jpgs AND 65000 pngs), it makes sense to separate them during tagging too.

[Xela]

Have fun messing with it. I am thinking about adding items logic to allow for unique items for characters, adding the text we were talking about as well as the quest items category.

[DarkTl]

In terms of convenience for modding unique items probably should be inside character's folder, I mean both json and icons. Maybe in a separate folder, like \content\chars\Arcana_Heart\Lilica_Felchenerow\items.

[Xela]

In terms of convenience for modding unique items probably should be inside character's folder, I mean both json and icons. Maybe in a separate folder, like \content\chars\Arcana_Heart\Lilica_Felchenerow\items.

No, we have a label to create them with python script and that's what's gonna be used. JSON is just for the general stuff so it does not slow down game-starting process. What I am going to take care of is in-game logic, so these items cannot be equipped on every character and etc.

[CherryWood]

Well, I planned to start rettaging, but when I looked at my packs I was horrified by the number of bad art pics there (what I was thinking?) so I'm updating them to more reasonable state (reducing the number of pics by a lot) first.
I hope I can get it all done in a month or so...

[DarkTl]

That sounds vague to me. Where modders should write their unique items exactly?

[Xela]

That sounds vague to me. Where modders should write their unique items exactly?

CW got examples I think but I'll write some guides.

[DarkTl]

I suppose you do know that quest items should not be sellable or tradeable. Ideally, unique items for girls should have such options too (when needed).

[Xela]

I suppose you do know that quest items should not be sellable or tradeable. Ideally, unique items for girls should have such options too (when needed).

Yeah... either new if/else checks or a separate system, I am thinking about the best way to handle it. If checks are prolly a better bet. Maybe I'll unify shopscreens while at it if we haven't already done so.

[Xela]

I am not entirely sure how we want to handle it. Obviously we do not want either time to be sold. But both could be given to other characters (could be a part of a quest)? In such a case, if a character leaves you employment, item is lost (unless we add even more checks), until character can be recruited again...

[DarkTl]

Why would you want to give some important item like a key from a dungeon or, I don't know, unique scripted summoning talisman to some girl if you can keep it in your inventory in a separate category and use when needed?

Theoretically there could be stuff like quest armor or weapon, I guess. However, characters can disappear from the game completely while not hired, so items could be lost forever, so we have to track if quest is failed because of it.

[Xela]

Why would you want to give some important item like a key from a dungeon or, I don't know, unique scripted summoning talisman to some girl if you can keep it in your inventory in a separate category and use when needed?

Theoretically there could be stuff like quest armor or weapon, I guess. However, characters can disappear from the game completely while not hired, so items could be lost forever, so we have to track if quest is failed because of it.

Yeah, well, both are sh!tty options. One doesn't allow quest items to be transferred to other characters and the other leaves open a possibility to never be able to succeed in some quests.

I guess since the game is MC centered, we should go with options #1. I've disabled both kinds to be sold btw.

[Xela]

Completely forgot about the dark/light backgrounds... we'll prolly need some new graphics for that. For now I'll use some placeholders. Texts are not done either.

Overall, think that quests and unique items will work but the code is getting (really) messy. There are too many checks all over the place, I'll have to do some sort of rewrite after next release.

There is little point in pushing tonight. I'll try to wrap the system up tomorrow and push then.