Character Creator 2D - Editor & runtime character customization

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Available on Unity Asset Store
Web Demo
Online Documentation
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Hi, everyone! So we've been working on this for the past couple of months, it's called Character Creator 2D. With this, you can create anything from simple peasants to epic heroes.

All equipment and parts are colorable, allowing more freedom and creativity when creating your characters. You can also equip and color parts at runtime. It also comes with a UI to create and save your character in the editor, or you can modify and use the UI as character creation in your game.

Here's a quick feature list of the asset:

• Create custom 2D characters
• Adjustable body sliders
• Colorable equipment
• Animations included
• Character creation UI
• Save character as ready to use prefab
• Runtime character customization
• Add your own parts and equipment

More details on the features in the next post.

Additional Contents
On top of the fantasy theme, we also have other themes as additional pack/add-on for the Character Creator 2D:

 

Customizable Parts

There are 17 slots/parts that you can mix and match to create your character. These slots are categorized into several categories that you can access from the top menu.

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Here is the list of all the customization slots:

• Body type (male/female)
• Skin details
• Body sliders
• Hair
• Ear
• Eyebrows
• Eyes
• Nose
• Facial hair
• Mouth
• Helmet
• Armor
• Pants
• Gloves
• Boots
• Cape
• Main hand weapon
• Off hand weapon

Coloring Parts

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Most of the parts can be colored. Depending on the part, it can have up to three color slots. This will allow you to create more diverse and unique cast of characters.

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We've provided a wide range of color palette to choose from, but if the color you want is not on the palette, you can also pick a custom color and then save that color for later use.

And all of these customizations can also be changed through code at runtime.


Edit: keeping post up to date to the latest version.

 

Just finished writing the documentation, and also submitted the asset for review. Hope it'll come through soon!

 

There's always a need for developers to have character generators, looking good hope it does well.

 

Thanks, @astracat111 ! That's what led us to create this asset, and also we are a big fan of character customization in games, so this was a lot of fun to made.

And here's a short video previewing current animations, gonna capture some more video as well, soon.

 

Great stuff, your art is flawless.

I think that for your sword swinging animations you could bring her other arm back as to make the action more dramatic and have more of an impact, right now when she slashes she doesn't balance herself out so it looks rather stiff.

 

Looks pretty darn good. One thing I think would be useful is mouth animations and hand gestures, so they could be used in dialog animations. Other than that, this could be a thing with endless add-on products

 

yeah, I agree, and the slash fx also could be better. It's something that'll we keep reiterate upon in the future.

Dialog animations definitely sound like a good idea. We do have open and closed hand sprites, haven't used that yet in animations though, as I'm not really sure how to go about it, with the weapons and stuff.

 

And it's live on the asset store! yay!

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#!/content/111398

gonna do a short trailer video soon!

 

Congrats, hope you do well on there. : )

 

Made a quick overview video of the asset. Music and video might be a little bit choppy, sorry about that.

 

It looks good. Not the genre that I'm looking for, but I'm in for one if it's easy for us to replace all the assets. Typically these assets have issues when we start replacing the artwork or need to add additional animations. For example, I have an educational project that I'll probably toss this into for kids this summer. However, they will likely want to create futuristic characters and other animations.

 

Hi @gregorypierce

We do provide template/guide textures in the asset to easily add a new part on your own. We also have a tool so the new part can be recognized by the asset. For more information, you can look at the documentation that covers that particular topic here.

As for the animations, technically you can create and add new animations as you please, but it's undocumented. The thing that'd probably confuse people is the hierarchy of the characters. Basically, you'd only want to animate game objects with 'bone_' prefix in their name to make sure it doesn't break anything.

 

What body types are available in this?

 

Hi @barge489 , currently there are only 2 body types available; male and female.

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Are more updates planned for this tool? Such as more body types or more modern outfits and looks?

 

Yeah, certainly. We do have more features planned, but it's still too early to show.

 

Good work it looks good =)

 

Honestly, if you made other expansion packs like modern clothes or sci do clothes etc... I would probably make the purchase.

But i do think a chubby and child body style is a definite need as well as a tall and short for each style.

I would love to see head variations too as well as capes, coats and dresses. I'm sure all this is a ways off. But in the meantime, this is a great tool!

 

Hi, @jdiperla
Thanks for your feedback!

We do have a plan for sci-fi pack, but it's not in the work yet. Currently, we're focusing more on adding more features and functionality to the asset.

I'm still figuring out the best way to do capes. As for the body types, anything that's too different from the current ones probably isn't coming soon, we'll see. But we do have something in the work that could be used to further customize the body shapes. I'll post it here once it gets closer to completion.

 

Also, a small update to the asset, while we wait for new features:

v1.01
- Added new tattoo options
- Added more weapons (axe, war hammer, dagger).





PS. How do I move thread out of WIP forum?

 

A little preview of an upcoming feature, body slider. This should add more possibilities in customizing your character. Bear in mind, It's still in prototype stage. Might need a bit more time to flesh things out.

 

Until now you had my greatest interest ...
Because this package have good ideas and good result

But now with your last upcoming features : I WANT TO BE A PART OF IT
So I'm in !!!

Good Job !

 

Thanks, @Ateam_Studios ! Glad that you like it

 

Wow that looks great! I know i already paid for the asset. But i would love to continue to donate if possible so you are encouraged to continue to develop this further.

 

@mochakingup
Are you planning to add the ability to change the facing direction (left/right)?

 

Thank you for your kind words! And don't worry, we're still working on it.

Hi @Szaruga you can flip the characters with the usual way through script. You can either flip them by changing the scale to -1 or rotate it on Y axis by 180 degree. Unless I misunderstood something?

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On body sliders update, it's pretty much almost done!
Just need to do a bit more testing to make sure everything's good.

 

I understand, but this switches the left and right halves of the body, and offhand becomes mainhand. I meant a change of direction that works like viewing the character from the other side.

 

Ah, I see, sorry for the misunderstanding. Unfortunately, that's not in our plan. I think most of 2D games can get away with simply flipping the characters.

 

It's a problem, but not that big. Everything else looks very good.
Do you plan to add coats? And if so, will it be just scraps of material? Any bigger covers?

 

So essentially I would love to use this asset to create a point and click adventure game. As best as I can tell, the asset uses a system similar to Spline or Live2D to animate the characters. I am judging purely by the cover and not the code. If so, I am thinking that some more custom animations are not out of the question. Perhaps even allowing us to create our own some how? In the meantime though, I would need some other animations that can help in achieving the goal of creating an adventure:



-Some talk and talk and gesturing animations would be great.

-A picking up off the ground animation

- A give animation

-A push and pull animation

-A gun holding animation

-Waving hi

-Idle Standing animation.



What is the likelihood of a walking up or down animation?

Also, if we create our own custom graphics, can we sell that as an addon in the asset store?

 

If you don't mind asking, kinda curious why you need changing direction? we are planning on adding capes, coats would be difficult with the current setup, and what do you mean by bigger covers?

We're using the standard animation system in unity. It is much simpler than Spline and Live2D. Technically, you can create and add your own animation if you're familiar with Unity animation system. I'd love to write/make a video guide on how to do this at some point.

All except gun holding animation are good suggestions that I'd do down the line, they are all generic enough and could be useful in any kind of game. Talking animation would require a bit of tweaking on the current setup so it'll probably take a bit longer to achieve. We do have idle animation, (check the animation preview video on the first post) unless you're talking about something different?

Do you mean like walking up and down the staircase? The main issue with that is that different game would have different size of stairs/steps.

Yes, absolutely! As long as you don't include any of the original assets and code, it should be fine.

 

Good news! Version 1.1 is up on the Asset Store!

What's new on v1.1:
- Body Sliders

You can start messing around with it. Also added randomize button on the body sliders, and it could lead to pretty bizarre results.

 

Nice job! Will need to mess around with it after work!

 

@mochakingup
It's a game with turn-based tactical combat on a hex map, so it happens that characters change direction, and it bothers me a bit that their hands get switched. But I can accept it, it's no big deal.

In most games capes are just rectangular pieces of cloth hanging on the back, and it would be nice to have something bigger that covers the shoulders. But I understand it's hard and I can accept any kind of a cape.

Anyway, I like your asset.

 

Thanks for the explanation!
And yes, that's probably how we'd do capes. we're also still trying other approaches too.

 

Why? It's too bad!

It is probably not very difficult, and such things as muskets, shotguns, revolvers - steampunk climat - it's a great thing

 

I use and enjoy this asset, and btw just to share, here is how i flip

Code (CSharp):

1. public void Flip()
2.     {
3.         Vector3 localScale = transform.localScale;
4.         localScale.x *= -1;
5.         transform.localScale = localScale;
6.  
7.         if (localScale.x > 0)
8.             Facing = Facing.Right;
9.         else Facing = Facing.Left;
10.     }
11.  
12. [Serializable]
13. public enum Facing
14. {
15.     Left,
16.     Right
17. }

Works good for me

 

Baldrics would rock

 

Hey man i wonder how u make the parts bigger.
I understand that you change the scale, but how it looks good after that?

 

Here is how i grow and shrink

Code (CSharp):

1.  public void Grow(float byValue)
2.     {
3.         Vector3 size = transform.localScale;
4.         if (size.x < 0)
5.             size.x -= byValue;
6.         else size.x += byValue;
7.  
8.         size.y += byValue;
9.         transform.localScale = size;
10.     }
11.     public void Shrink(float byValue)
12.     {
13.         Vector3 size = transform.localScale;
14.         if (size.x < 0)
15.             size.x += byValue;
16.         else size.x -= byValue;
17.  
18.         size.y -= byValue;
19.         transform.localScale = size;
20.     }

Then i call

Code (CSharp):

1. Grow(.0001f);

 

So i guess it depends on the graphic it self.
I thought you were doing something with the edge of the part to fit it.

 

main reason is that we currently have no gun. But you bring up a good point, when I read gun somehow I assume something like sci-fi rifle. There's totally gun for fantasy setting.

Thanks! glad you like it.

Hi, we do scale the sprite, but also reposition other parts that are affected by the scaling. For example, when we scale the upper arm, we also reposition the lower arm so it goes to the correct position.

 

Thanks for your answers.
Really liked it, keep going!

One last thing if can i ask is how can i make this sword swing particle effect?
Looks smooth.

 

Thanks. I'm not quite sure which particle you're referring to. Did you mean the slash effect when the weapon swing? It's just a simple sprite faded in and out. No particle used.

 

Hi everyone!
Just submitted version 1.11 to the Asset Store. If everything goes well it should be up soon.

What's in v1.11:

Bugfix:
previously, the weapon fx slash wasn't affected by the body sliders, resulting in wrong position of the fx. this is now have been fixed.



New animations:
- give
- receive
- push
- pull
- talk 1
- talk 2



Edit:
It's now live on the Asset Store

 

This is now hands down my favorite asset!

 

I really like this asset, and have a few requests, first off for your part enums, can you add a None slot, so i do not have to set a body part via code ? I attempted to add these myself, but it screwed up the charData and i did not want to spend the time to track down why as i am working on a ui using your images, also, can we get item icons for all gear ? i mean i can use some, but objects like the pants i need to build into a single image for inventory purposes, eventually i will get to all of this if you do not, but thought i would ask. Sorry about the profanity on the pic, i have to keep myself interested so while coding i get a little silly during build stage

 

Aand version 1.11 is finally live on the Asset Store! make sure to update to get the latest animations.

Thanks a bunch!

Hi, I'm a little bit unclear on the first one. Can you elaborate more on the 'None slot'? and how can it help in setting the body parts without code? Can you tell me more about what are you trying to do, and how are you planning on to do it?
(English isn't my first language, so I'm terribly sorry if I don't understand you right away)

As for the icons, It's not on the plan right now. My suggestion would be to use generic icons for each category, kinda like how Skyrim did it. Or you can break it down into subcategory, such as light armor, medium armor, heavy armor, etc. A lot of games did this, and this way you don't have to do tons of icons.

Oh, and your menu & UI are looking good!

 

Also, made a bunch of random characters to show off what the asset could do