The Layered Spritesheet Tool

[DerVVulfman]

A SERIOUS TOOL UPDATE

The Layered Spritesheet tool now has new features.  So many, that its version number has been updated to version 3.0.

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GENDER AND HAND ORIENTATION BUTTONS

You may have a lot of resources.  However perhaps you may wish to sort them out.  Sure, the list of heads, bodies or the like are sorted alphabetically. But perhaps you want to just use graphics for a male character.

The Gender and Hand Orientation buttons allow you to re-list the graphics within your image lists. It does so by referencing "Male" or "Female" folders in your resources, and/or the "Left" or "Right" folders... or a combination of both.  I worked to make the system intuitive so the subfolders may be in Left\Female or Male\Right subfolders... or none at all.

These buttons were made for convenience sake, but I recognize that some may not wish to be as organized.

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THE REVISED HUE AND COLOR BALANCE PANELS

Rather than merely clicking on the Hue adjustment button and hitting simple +/- buttons in the main panel, you will now be zoomed to a separate Hue Adjustment panel that can handle an image made of  (up to) three individual Png files.

Likewise, the newly added Color Balance button takes you to a Color Balance Adjustment panel where you can increase or decrease the Red, Green and/or Blue intensity of any resource. And these resources can also be made of (up to) three individual Png files.

Along with that, there are pre-defined Color Preset buttons for the layers.  As seen above, a set of color preset buttons can change the chroma of an Iris to either Gray, Green, Blue, Hazel or Brown. Likewise, there are color presets for the Sclera (or the whites of an eye) and the lashes.

I have to warn you that the routine that changes the RGB Color Balance of an image can take a long time depending upon the size of the resource bitmap and speed of the computer.  This because it was a scripted system and not a feature native to RPGMaker for bitmaps.

Of special note, this is a feature I had included within CharGen Extended. Essentially, the resources of CharGen Extended could be converted for the Layered Spritesheet tool.

Even more, there is a feature within the tool that links similar resources together when adjusting either the hue or color of an image.  Changing the hue of a character's body will likewise adjust the hue of  separate ear resources.  Likewise, changing the color balance of a character's hair will affect his beard and eyebrows.  The links are built into the INI, so they can be adjusted or removed at will.

But why remove em?

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THE HELP FILE

The original instructions to use Layered Spritesheet was presented in an .rtf format document file that was a massive 5.4Meg file.  Now, the instructions are just over 450 KB in size.  A massive change in size, it should be easier to handle and navigate.

Remember, it is not a file made by a major software producer (Microsoft, Bethesda, Silicon Software), but privately.  So you may find the help file 'BLANK" upon running it.  This is not a flaw with the help file, but a lack of permission.

For any help file that appears to have no text, you merely need to right-click the file to open the file's properties window.  And at the bottom of the properties window, you should be able to see a button marked "Unblock".  Upon clicking the Unblock button, the help file should be completely legible.

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INI UPDATES

There were changes made to the LayeredSpritesheet.Ini file to accommodate the new features.  These would include the gender and hand orientation buttons,  and some new alert texts that appear upon the first time you open the help file.  But with these were additions made to the layers system, adding new layer options and the linked-layer system.

But that is not all.  The Colors.ini file is now included with the package, an .ini file that stores partition names for the multi-image resource option and values for preset color buttons for the new Color balance window.

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POSSIBLE FURTHER UPGRADES

DANG RIGHT I HAVE PLANS...  But they would require some extensive rework of some systems.  So they may not be forthcoming.  Granted, it took almost a year before this update.'

So you have time.


Still has the same resources accompanying it as version 2.0