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Creating Character Modpacks

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nikkiwritescode edited this page Dec 7, 2024 · 11 revisions

Written by nikkiwritescode

Summary

This guide covers the process of taking a Fortune Street-compatible custom character and making a CSMM-compatible modpack from it. The process is not incredibly complex, but it's also not incredibly intuitive. No tools exist to assist with this, so it is a manual process for now.

Note

Please note that this is NOT a guide for creating characters. Several Custom Street members have discussed writing such a guide, so when that happens, this document will be updated to link to it.

Warning

Character modpacks are NOT compatible with versions of CSMM below 7.1.0.

Table of Contents

Commonly-Used Terms

  • <character_code> = three-letter code of the character whose slot you are replacing. (e.g. snd = Stella)
  • <character_name> = the human-readable name of the character you are importing. (e.g. Rosalina)

Steps

The first step is to grab the character modpack template. There are a number of edits that must be made in order to create a usable character modpack, which are as follows:

  1. Rename the character_<character_name>.py and character_<character_name>.json files with the human-readable name of the character you are importing. (e.g. character_rosalina.py and character_rosalina.json)
  2. Copy your character's .brres model to the chara subdirectory, changing its name to ch_<nt or dq>_<character_code>.brres. (e.g ch_dq_snd.brres)
  3. Copy your character's icon, in .png format, to the game/mg_darts.brres subdirectory, and change its name to dart01_<character_code>1.png. (e.g. dart01_snd1.png)
  4. Copy your character's icon, in .png format, to the game/ui_game_f_<character_code>.arc subdirectory, and change its name to facewdw_<character_code>1.png. Be sure to also change the name of the subdirectory to include the same character code, as well. (e.g. facewdw_snd1.png and ui_game_f_snd.arc)
  5. Open manifest.json and update all the instances of <character_name> and <character_code> as described previously. Update the last_updated key to today's date in YYYY/MM/DD format, as well. Also, replace <character to replace> with the human-readable name of the character this mod should replace. (e.g. Stella)
  6. Open modlist.txt and update the +character_<character_code> line with the human-readable name of the character you are importing, in lowercase. (e.g. +character_rosalina)
  7. Open character_<character_name>.json, and update <character_code> and <nt_or_dq> accordingly. (e.g. chara/ch_dq_snd.brres and files/chara/ch_dq_snd.brres)
  1. Open character_<character_name>.py. There will be several items in here that we will need to modify.

Items to modify in the character_<character_name>.py file

  • UI_MSGS is in the format of CSV line number: "text of line", so make sure to cross-reference with the dialogue ui_message.<language>.csv file to ensure you are editing the right lines. At a minimum, you will want to change the character name and description lines. (Each language has the same line numbers, so you only need to reference one of the files.)
  • When you see a line similar to mainDol.seek(mapper.boomToFileAddress(0x80000000), modify the address (beginning in 0x8000) and the value on the next line with the character color data in hexadecimal format.
  • The address to use is the Boom Street Virtual Address, prefixed with 0x. If you have a five-digit file address, use the Fortune Street Modding Address Calculator to find the correct value.
  • When updating the write value, be sure to change any spaces to \x. Place \x between each byte, following the format the template uses. (e.g. \x00\x01\x02\x03)
  • Modify the remaining <character_code> and <character_name> instances, being sure to change anything with a # MODIFY THIS comment near it. You can remove the comments once done.

Troubleshooting

  • MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that you are using the latest version of CSMM. Character modpacks are NOT COMPATIBLE with CSMM versions below 7.1.0.
  • Be sure the entry in modlist.txt matches "+" followed by the name of the .json and .py files, minus the file extensions. (e.g. +character_rosalina)
  • Make sure that if you remove one of UI_MSGS or UI_MSGS_ALL, that you leave braces behind. Otherwise CSMM will likely crash, as leaving the equals sign hanging is invalid in the Python language. (e.g. UI_MSGS = {} )
  • Be sure absolutely everything that has a # MODIFY THIS comment near it in character_<character_name>.py gets modified. If you don't, the mod won't work, or worse...CSMM may crash.
  • Make sure to remove any brackets ( <> ) from the various filename entries.

Conclusion

Happy modding!! If you need further help with this, feel free to drop a message in the #modding-general, or #modding-issues channels of the Custom Street Discord server, depending on the nature of your question.

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