posted
Welcome to the WoS Skinning FAQ. Here you will find the most common skinning questions asked.
Please note that this topic is not for spamming, nor for posts not within the topic tittle. It's strickly only for reading, asking questions, and answering.
Before you go on asking any questions, make sure it's not already in this FAQ. And don't answer to any questions, unless your 100% sure it's the right answer.
One of the fun things you can do in Well of Souls, is design your own skin. Your skin is what other people see when you are walking around inside the game.
A skin is just a bitmap file (you could make one with the Microsoft PAINT program), which follows certain layout rules. Inside your Well of Souls folder is a folder called 'skins.' If you add a file with the proper layout to this folder, then you will be able to select that skin for use by your characters inside the game.
Plus, the game will automatically share skin files with other players as you encounter them (unless you disable the option). So, over time, you will build up quite a library of skins to choose from.
posted
"I can't make skins with 'Paint', how does everyone else make them?"
A lot of people use Mugen Character Maker- It is a program that allows you open character images from Capcom, Samurai Shodown, games like that. From them images, you can paste them into skin frames.
posted
"How does Josh make his skins so good? Can I make similar one’s?"
JOSH:
Save yourself the headache and fire up MS Paint- we're making the whole skin in there. It is possible to make skins in other graphics programs, but MS Paint has the benefit of being included with virtually every version of Windows, and is incredibly easy to operate. Download a set of empty skin forms and a copy of WoSViewer before you start, while you're at it. You probably already know that WoS stores skins in their own folder, so you might want to save your skins into a new folder, so that you can save your work at various intervals under different filenames, and not have to search through a hundred skins to reload them. You're probably already familiar with the skin form: skins are made up of five (and two optional) square frames, outlined in one-pixel thick guidelines The COMPASS ROSE frame is the first, and controls how your character looks on the main map, the READY frame shows your character in a state of inactivity, the ATTACK frame shows your character in mid-attack, the WEAK frame shows your character being attacked, the CHAT frame is used when talking, the CREDIT frame displays the skin's credits, and the MAGIC frame (not shown in this example) shows your character executing a magical attack. Pretty straightforward. You'll notice that the guidelines and the background (transparency) color get removed in game. The first pixel of the skin (at coordinates 0,0) sets the transparency color, although teal (RGB 0, 128, 128) works best for clean cut transparency. Select the line tool for the MS Paint tool bar, and pick a color that shows up well against the transparency color- any color but black. Draw up a rough sketch and work on getting the posistioning right, don't worry too much about shape here.
At this point you'll want to draw over your original outline (I like to use black for this, hence not using black the first time). Use the line tool to draw with, connecting small lines so that the character's outline doesn't look too geometric. Once you've got the final outline traced how it's going to look in the final product, select the transparency color as your second color, and whatever you used on the first outline as the first. Select the eraser tool, rightclick, and erase- only the first color will be erased, leaving the black outline. Use the fill tool and add some color: don't worry about getting the correct colors now, you'll be able to change them later, it just helps to be able to conceptualize the character. Copy and paste the READY frame into the next three frames, keeping all the guidelines matched up so that the images won't jump around between frames. Depending on your ATTACK and WEAK frames, you may actually want that- a shift forward while attacking, a shift backwards when getting hit. Now's the simple matter of editing the other frames to make them look like what they're supposed to be. Attacking in the ATTACK frame, getting hit in the WEAK frame, etc. We've all seen skins whose creators seemed to think that this step was unecessary, so you'll already know that this is most certainly an important step. WoSViewer saves the day here. Use it to make sure all your frames line up during animation, and make changes accordingly.
Now all the colors get rounded out, adding more shades to create texture and dimension. When you're content with all the frames, copy the READY frame and paste it over the COMPASS ROSE frame- you don't even have to position it there, MS Paint will do that for you automatically if you just hit Edit, Paste- and keep it selected. Resize the selection by clicking the lower righthand corner, and dragging it diagonally up to the upper lefthand corner. What you're trying to do here is resize the READY frame to the first box in the COMPASS ROSE frame (or northeast, if you prefer). Once you're ok with that, maybe clean the image up a little- it's going to be blocky- and then copy it to the other 8 boxes in the COMPASS ROSE frame, horizontally reversing the image as necessary. Remember that the smoother animation you have here, the more impressive. You might want to use the copy/paste/resize method on the FIGHT frame to use in the middle box, which is the image that displays on the map screen when you're character is in a scene. You'll need to zoom in and do a little work on some of the boxes to make the rotation a little smoother, but it won't take that long because they're really small images. Add the shadows at this point too, since the skin is almost finished, and it's unlikely that you're going to be adding something radical to any of the frames now and then forget to add it in the shadows. Make the shadow for the READY frame first, and then copy the shadowbox to the other frames. Now it's just a matter of tweaking the first shadow to suit each of the other frames. It's also a good idea to throw in your credits at this point, along with any additional information (mod, assisted by, design by, etc)- this step should take a whole twenty seconds if you already have a CREDIT frame made up somewhere. BAM, you're finished!
FAQ IN FAQ:
Sadly, I already have a day job. Most of these requests get turned down.
Dithering is near impossible in MS Paint, hence the various shades of some colors in some skin. The pants in the above skin have like three or four different greens in them.
Scanning images almost always results in horribleness. I've seen a few cases where it hasn't, but for the most part it's hard to pull off.
You'll probably want to scan in your image, use a program like PSP or something, and gradually bring the colors down from 24 bit or whatever to black and white, and then smooth out the jaggy spots.
Using the tutorial above, you will never have problems with converting the skin to RLE (run length encodement), unwanted color changes (WoS uses a specific palette), or large filesizes (WoS won't share skins over 25k). If you do have problems, they're most easily solved by A) opening the skin in MS Paint, B) Copying the skin, C) opening a skin that is known to be WoS compatible, D) pasting your skin overtop of that skin, and E) saving the file under the original skin's filename.
When making villagers, keep all like images together. WoSViewer cannot help you view animation if you've got two frames of one character at opposite ends of the strip. The transparency color can be changed, but some in-game features (one monster death animation comes to mind) don't appreciate it at all. It's probably just easiest to stick with the original color.
Use the CREDIT frame. Indicate when you've modified someone else's work, and use it to advertise your own. No one wants to claim responsibility for someone else's actions, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to either. And if someone needs to contact you because of your work, they'll just be able to check the CREDIT frame for and e-mail address or IM screenname. Use the smallest skin form you can. Many skins could be drastically reduced in filesize had they just used smaller skin forms, cutting down on wasted frame space.
Remember that skins get flipped in scenes, according to the direction you're moving in. You might want to leave out text or images that look odd when flipped for that reason.
1) If your skin is larger than 49KB, then people won’t be able to download your skin. 2) In WoS, make sure ‘Send skins, when asked’ under FILE is checked. 3) They have a powerful firewall that doesn’t allow skin transfers.
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"I made a skin, I put it into my skin folder, & when I incarnate the skin shows as an Adventurer, what's wrong?"
1) The skin is 2 small. Make it larger. 2) This can also occur when your skin is the wrong dimentions. most often this happens when you try to resize the layout by hand and not using the attributes.
This is mainly your choice. Most skins people make, are available for others to use. Make sure you read the credits section of the skin before you use it. If It say ‘Personal’ then don’t use it.
You know that upper left pixel which defines the transparency color? If you also set the bit just to the right of it to the same colour, then your character will not float. It will sort of 'glide along the ground.
quote: "I made a skin, I put it into my skin folder, & when I incarnate the skin shows as an Adventurer, what's wrong?"
The skin is 2 small. Make it larger.
this can also occur when your skin is the wrong dimentions. most often this happens when you try to resize the layout by hand and not using the attributes.
to add a magic frame to a standard 6 section skin layout, in paint, go to attributes and divide the length by 6 (no. of frames) then multiply that by 7 (new no. of frames) and you have room for a magic frame on the end.
to take off an unused magic frame, go to attributes again, and divide the length by 7 and multiply by 6. as above only in reverse.
Simply add one frame to the end of the original set of frames.
A simple way to do it; Open paint... Open the Skin Goto Images, then Attributes (or press Ctrl+e) This will give you a menu to change the files total size. Next... Add the height to the width. The total is how big the image would be with a magic frame. Then simply change the width to the new number and draw in the lines for the magic frame. -naus
posted
Mistake in one of your post.. It's 256 colors not 254.
"Why doesn't Dan (the creator of this game) allow animated sknis?" They will be large files, it creates more lag, harder for people to recieve skins.
[ 04-13-2003, 05:13 AM: Message edited by: HeAd ]
-------------------- I drew the cute little pig in my avatar. You don't have a cute little pig in your avatar. I win! Posts: 10782 | From: Spammely Hills | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
"Why do the colours change when i paste from Mugen into Paint?"
basically, Mugen works using 8 bit (or higher?) colour palettes, where as the WoS works in 256 colours. the best way to try and solve this problem is to find an existing skin from your skin folder that has, for example, the skin tones you want. that way you can use those tones in your skin instead of leaving the colours warped from transfering straight from MCM.
as is pointed out above, you can't save your files in paint in any format better than 256 because they come out at around 600kb instead of 25kb, and the game doesnt support the colours anyway, so it'll just look bad.
quote: Hello skywalker! My computer is behide a firewall, is it possible to download my firends skin via wos? could I fix this problem by indirecting the port? if yes, where can I find the port for wos? thanks for you looking my post
There is a way to get skins onto your WoS game, without downloading skins from the actual engine.
Simply, ask your friend to go to his 'Skins folder' in his 'WoS folder' usually found here:
C:\WoS\skins
Tell him/her to send the skin over EMail, AIM, MSN, anything that you can recieve files on.
After you've recieved the skin, simply go to:
C:\WoS\skins
And store the skin there. This way you should be able to see your friends skin on WoS.
quote: My file is under 25kb, i have my thing set to send skins when asked, its the right pallet, BUT IT WONT SEND! Please help me! No-one can see my lovely skin!
Hrmm, that's odd. Here are the possible reasons:
1) Make sure your skin is saved under .BMP, not .GIF or .JPEG or any format other than .BMP
2) You might have an EXTREMELY powerful firewall that wont even let you send skins.
3) Your friend/friends have firewalls that won't let them recieve skins.
Since you have 'Send skins' activated, I have no idea why it isn't working.
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"Where is my skins folder? Where do i store skins?!
Your skins folder is always in your WoS folder under 'SKINS'. Your WoS folder will usually be in the C DRIVE, under the name of 'WoS', unless you in-stalled it as a diffrent name.
Where can i find skins from the " fist of the north star" anime ( kenshiro, Rei, YUDA, )
Final Fantasy 7 ( Zac, Vincent ,) or Star ocean 2 story (dias Flac)
i mean is ther aplace where i can find rpg skins
thnks and sorry for posting here
There are many places you can get these image's.
If you go back up this Topic, you'll see a post about 'MCM' 'Mugen character maker'. Download it, and, read how to do stuff, download the RPG game characters (Or what have you) from http://www.mugenguild.cjb.net
posted
Hey everyone, if anyone can remember what the images were that no longer show up in this topic, it'd be great if they could tell me. I'll host them and edit the post so the faq actually works. Seems that Luke's hosting gave out on him.
[EDIT] Ok well Luke if you can remember what they are and email them to me or describe them to me somehow I'd take care of it. Thx much and take care.
-------------------- "yes. stop ignoring fox." -Samsyn Dead Geocities site is Dead. Posts: 4148 | From: Northern California, USA | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
Is there any way to find pictures of the dead images and upload them elsewhere, and have Fox relink them? It looks bad with the dead pictures.
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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Fox, mind changing all the links to my site to Syn-Real.com?
Thanks, and the pictures that were there are gone forever now I think, But I remember what went there, that was where I learned how to do the originals in Josh's original post, I can re-draw some?
Posts: 3361 | From: Midland, TX, USA | Registered: Nov 2001
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posted
I've been trying to replace those pics for a long time SK and if you could remember what any of them were I'd greatly appreciate it.
-------------------- "yes. stop ignoring fox." -Samsyn Dead Geocities site is Dead. Posts: 4148 | From: Northern California, USA | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
I'll tell ya what, over the next few weeks I'm going to kinda re-write Josh's way and I'll get make new picks and put them up on my site, and then you can take them if you want to at that point.
I'll keep you updated
Posts: 3361 | From: Midland, TX, USA | Registered: Nov 2001
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posted
#1 For all of those people who Don't have Graphics cards in there computer Systems There "is a MCM zip out there that does work" On computers with less then 16 bit graphics, I had it before my reformat. The sight I found the zip at is no longer working so that zip is gone.But I will keep looking! "Luke you didn't use the force". #2 Next If you need images or want to Know how to make Camp or map images or Signature frames Please visit: http://www.freewebs.com/nightrider1962 My site was created March 2003, So it has been up a bit longer then this thread And I just updated it Sept. 19 2005......... So no offense to Josh Or Luke, the idea was right. You two were just able to convince Dan to allow it in the forums. Where as I was unable to back then. So good job! Hope to see more NEW skins out there.
Life isn't measured by how many cups of sugar it takes to sweeten up your friends but by how many friends are still alive after they eat your cooking! Posts: 114 | From: Northern California | Registered: Oct 2003
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