Kitty Corp Meow Mix Forums

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     Ever see those really awesome looking CSPs but wonder how the heck the artist made them that way?
    Nice, clean, and uniform; and I'm here to thoroughly show you how to do it!
     I'm sharing this information for a few reasons. One, I have wondered for a very long time how to do what I'm about to show you. I searched and searched for this information but found no guides or anyone sharing this information (it's a lot to explain though, so I don't really blame them). So after much time and experimenting, I found out on my own, and want to share it with you guys. Another reason for me sharing this is because a lot of the good CSP artist are becoming a bit more inactive. I'm giving out this information in hopes that some will take it and open up high quality CSP request "shops" and such. I now know how to make these, but unfortunately, I don't have enough time in my day to actually take CSP requests and things like that. So hopefully I'm passing this knowledge on to those of you who can and will.

But now that I've said all that, let's get into it, shall we?

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In this section I am going to show you how to make the "pattern" for your particular character. This is where you get to have the fun of choosing what your character's CSP pose will be. :D

  ♦ 1. Make a folder somewhere (desktop is recommended―for now at least) and name it "CSPs".

  ♦ 2. Inside your "CSPs" folder, make another folder titled the name of your character (again, "Marth" in my case, but just name it the character you're using. This folder is for your easy access later.

  ♦ 3. Now, open up your Character Hack in BrawlBox and right click on "ModelData[0]" then hover over "New" and click "Model Animation". You just made a new file named "NewCHR" (we'll rename it later) which, in short, is the file that will hold your character pose information once we make it.


  ♦ 4. Click on the (+) next to "ModelData[0]" then do the same for "3DModles(NW4R)". Right click on the regular or trophy (read down) MDLO, and hit "preview".


TIP:
     If you want to use the original character poses (the ones that the characters use in the non-hacked CSPs) then get the trophy model of that character. You can find them here (http://www.mediafire.com/?0s4ddxegj1mce#k76co6mevmghr). Marth's is named "MarthR1.brres" and the other characters' are named "[name]R1.brres" as well. Just note that you cannot edit bones in trophy models (I'll explain it when we get to it).

Just open the .brres file in BrawlBox, click on the (+) next to "3DModles(NW4R)", right click on the MDLO, hit "export", and save it somewhere. Then close out that BrawlBox, go back to your Character Hack in BrawlBox, right click on "ModelData[0]", click on "Import", select the model you just exported from the .brres file and click "OK".

  ♦ 5. Open up the panels in the preview. You'll see the list of bones, polygons, textures and animations. In the animations section you should see that "NewCHR" file we just created in step 3―click on it. Since you clicked on it, that tells BrawlBox that the edits you make to bones and polygons will now be written down on that "NewCHR" file.

  ♦ 6. Here come the fun parts (at least to me anyways). You're going to want to turn off all polygons and textures that just get in the way. In Marth's (and many others') case, his eyes are blocked by his highlight texture. As in other cases, Link has two swords (Marth too, actually) and two shields (one on his back and one on his arm―turn one of them off). Some characters have things like that, so just look out for those and turn them off.

  ♦ 7. Now, the bones. You get to figure out the pose you want your character to be in for the CSPs! To select your character's pose for the CSP, select his main bone (usually the first one in the list) and change the coordinates for the bone using the bottom panel. You can also do this for other bones to move arms, legs, etc.


Once you're done figuring out the pose, click on the "NewCHR" file in the animation tab and click "save" above it.


Then right click the "NewCHR" file and click "Export". Feel free to rename the pose to whatever you'd like.

NOTE:
     Now that you've saved and exported your .chr0 file, you can load it on any character and he or she will assume the pose you just created. To do this, click "load" instead of "save" in the animation tab, and then selcet that file you just exported. Cool, huh?

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Alright, this part can get a little confusing at first but I'll try to explain it the best way I can. It's actually not hard at all once you know how to do it though.
The eye movements are basically just attachments to your pose. Meaning, you have to have a pose (.chr0 / Model Animation) in order for this to work (which we already did, so don't worry). Alright, so:

  ♦ 1. (Close out the preview window if you still have it open) Right click on the BRES ModelData, go to "New" and click on "Texture Animation.


  ♦ 2. Rename both the model animation data and the texture animation data to the same thing (it doesn't matter what you name them, they just have to be the same that way BrawlBox knows to associate the two together).


  ♦ 3. Right click the texture animation data and click on "New Entry". This made a new data file named "NewMaterial". Right click on the "NewMaterial" and click "New Entry" (do this twice--since there's 2 eyes).


  ♦ 4. Now that that's done, go back to previewing your character's model data and turn off all the polygons you don't want to be shown, and well as the eye highlight texture and the yellow eyes texture.

  ♦ 5. In the Animations tab click on "CSP Pose" (I named it "CSP Pose" but just click on whatever it is you named it). Next, click the drop down tab that says "CHR0" and select "SRT0." Then once more, click on the "CSP Pose" (or, again, whatever you named it).

  ♦ 6. From here, we're gonna be doing things in 2's (since there's 2 eyes xD).
In the polygon section, find polygons that are the eyes (there will be two of them). Click on one of them and then click on the eye texture in the textures tab (in Marth's case it's "MarthEyeIris"--other characters' will probably be something similar). Then set the position of the eye in the bottom tab.
Repeat this step except with the other eye polygon selected.

  ♦ 7. Once finished, be sure to save and export it so you'll have it for later.

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So, if you just finished the bones and thought you were done, you are mistaken. xD We still have to fix the lighting for the picture. To change the lighting, first open up the preview again. Next, open the upper panel and click on "Options" → "Viewer settings".


Now, this actually isn't that hard at all. I've generally found that it's best to keep the X, Y, and Z all the same number unless you want to try to get fancy. 8) If you do want to try to get fancy, then by all means, mess around with it and have fun! See what you can come up with.
My recommended light settings are as shown in the example picture. It's simple, bright and has a nice "feel" to it, in my opinion. When the lights are to your liking, DO NOT leave the preview. Click on "File" (while still in the preview―if you don't see it, then pull down the upper panel) then "Save Current Settings" as shown in the example picture below.


After you click this, a pop-up widow will appear asking you if you want it to maximize next time―click "yes".

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Alright, you have the pose, you have lights, you have the power! :D Open up the preview one more time. Make sure the preview is maximized and that all the panels are closed. You should have something with your character that looks like this (except with you character, pose, and lighting):


  ♦ 1. As you may have guessed, you're going to take a screenshot of that and paste it in GIMP (or the program you chose). If it is a "floating layer" when you paste it, then click on "new layer".

  ♦ 2. Then right click on the layer (or select from the "Layer" tab) and click on "Add Alpha Channel". If it was faded out where you can't click it, that just means you already had it, which is good.


  ♦ 3. And now to give it a transparent background. We'll do that by mainly using the Fuzzy Select Tool (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_LIJULS01ZVY/TA99YEzl7NI/AAAAAAAABlI/OZw68fXJTzI/s320/GIMP,+Toolbox+tab,+Fuzzy+Select+Tool.jpg). Click on the background and then hit the delete key. If it still looks rough around the edges, just take a little time to clean up the sides.

  ♦ 4. Click on "Image" then click on "Autocrop Image". This will cut down your image just to the parts that actually have colored pixels to them while all the mass empty spaces get cropped out. You should have something along this idea now:


  ♦ 5. Scale the image. Make sure the links are connected. It doesn't matter what the height is at this point. Just make sure the links are connected and width is set to 128 pixels.


  ♦ 6. Click on your layer and move it down 10 or 15 pixels (that's 10 or 15 taps on the 'down arrow' key.) This makes it so that the face of the character isn't blocked out by the "READY TO FIGHT!" bar. If it's a character like Pikachu where his ears take up the space at the top, then don't worry about doing this step.

  ♦ 7. Once you've done that, get the crop tool. Start from the top, and drag it down to 160 pixels as in the example below.


          Crop it, save it (as a .png file) and you should be left with a 128x160 picture, also known as, a CSP.

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So, you remember that Character Selection Screen File I mentioned earlier? Yup, that's finally going to be put to some use now! Go ahead and open that up with BrawlBox. Open up "char_bust_tex_lz77" and find the character you're looking for, using this list:



Once you've found it, find the color you want the CSP to replace and then right click on it and click "replace".

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And that, my friends, is how CSP are made and installed. I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial and I hope it was useful to you all somehow.
If you'd like to do other CSPs for the same character, remember, you saved the template. All you have to do is replace the textures with the new ones, and then edit it just the same exact way we did it with the first one and they should could out looking like this.


If you liked the texture I used in the examples, you can download it from my vault (http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=28061). The other texture is a texture that can only be found on my site (http://red-93.weebly.com/zip-up-marth.html).

Now THIS is a CSP Tutorial.

Excellent work, Red!

Indeed. A pretty detailed tutorial on how to set up BrawlBox properly and stuff.

I suggest that THIS be the official tutorial of portraits.

Also, may I recommend something? If you want to pose multiple characters in the same pose, I'd save the pose into a CHR0. However, that's just my opinion. Do what you want with it :P

Very excellent tutorial. However I would like to add something to it.

Some Fit(character)EyeHigh textures look like this:

Which make the character look like this:
(http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/9982/examplel.png)


However, if you get rid of the black part and replace it with transparency which should look like this:

The character should look like this:
(http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/5601/examplegt.png)

That way you can make CSPs without the character looking soulless.  :af2:

Thanks a ton guys! :)
I actually would like to include those suggestions when I get the time to. Thanks again, and I'll credit you guys for the suggestions. :D

Your welcome.

Also, perhaps you should mention SRT0 editing to moving the eyes?

Edit: And this tutorial deserves to be sticky. :srs:

Please explain the trophy thing again. It's NOT working for me. I import the trophy mld0 then go into brawlbox and save it, yet, my character is still T-Stancing once I export it as a chr0. HELP!!!!  I'm pulling my hair out! Seriously :srs:

Haha, alrighty. Well first of all, don't pull your hair out. It hurts. :(
Second thing to know is that trophy poses can't be edited. They can be turned, tilted, etc. (I can help you with that, if that's what you need) but the pose itself can't change. If you want to do a custom pose then you're gonna have to work with the regular character model (not the trophy one).
Not sure if that answers your question or not... Does it?
Oh, also, make sure you click the save button before you export it.

No, okay look. Say I have Picolo Over Ganondorf right?  and I don't want to mess up the other regular Ganondorf CSPs. I want to have the default Ganondorf CSPs (From Regular Brawl) and replace Picolo CSP wit (say) red, but I like to stay organized. The trophy pose IS the standard brawl CSP, but how do I get Picolo's texture on the Trophy's pose? :/. Basically what i'm saying is, how do I add Picolo's texture to the Regular Brawl CSP pose so that i stay organized? Makes sense?

The question makes sense, yeah. If its just a texture hack, just replace the textures on the Ganon (or import the trophy model into your texture hack and view it that way).
If it's a model import, then it can't be done as far as I know, since the trophy model itself is the pose (not the bones per se). If you replace the model, you replace the pose. As far as the trophies go.

One idea (though it would take more work), you could make a new CSP pose altogether and make CSP's for all of them (including the original textures).

Yeah, that was my plan B. Oh Well, guess I'll do that then.

Yeah, I've actually wanted that to work, myself. Oh well...

Thanks anyways though

Anytime.

Some help on editing the eye position on models would be nice. I know it involves the .str0 but I don't have the slightest clue. Thanks for the tutorial Red it's extremely helpful.

That's almost big enough to be a tutorial on it's own. :O
I'll try to get that part up today.

Well I'm late, but oh well.
I added how to change the eyes' position. I still need to add a couple more pictures to the part, but I'll do that later.

Cool! I didn't think about costom animations! I also forgot to uncheck polygons. That explains my ugly Peach CSPs.

Thanks. It helped me a lot.

This is lovely. Many thanks.

Oh, I've learned a lot from you Red! Many thanks! ;)

This tutorial is badace! It allowed me to make theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!

(http://i.imgur.com/d8pue8K.png)(http://i.imgur.com/dlxlxdN.png)(http://i.imgur.com/xRMl3a8.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/1WPvUll.png)(http://i.imgur.com/FLBewU6.png)(http://i.imgur.com/PyoJg6Z.png)

Yay! They look great too btw, imo. Keep it up.

I am jsut seeing this tutorail now? its perfect!

Ok, problem with Sonic's eyes. It ALWAYS seems like I can never get anything right. I followed the tutorial step by step and this happens:I added all of the texture animations named it the same as the pose etc. and when I go into model previewer, selct my pose, select srto, try and click the pose again Sonic T-Poses, AND all of the textures diappears. PLEASE, This is getting very frustrating.

ALSO WHICH FRIGGIN BONE DO YOU SELECT?

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Post Merge: March 10, 2013, 12:34:58 PM

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NICE

Thanks, this helped a bunch.

if i want to just use the default pose with my csp do i still need to adjust the lighting and eyes and all that? if not what step do i skip to?

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Post Merge: March 29, 2013, 01:23:21 AM

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also i cant find where to extract the trophies :(

Yo Red93 Great tutorial!
followed your steps better the second time round... Thanks!
(http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a491/Rzpn41/Link%20CSP/Link05_zpsa9f09c85.png) (http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a491/Rzpn41/Link%20CSP/Link04_zps5ba9b899.png) (http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a491/Rzpn41/Link%20CSP/Link03_zps20ad1a90.png) (http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a491/Rzpn41/Link%20CSP/Link01_zps82037a23.png) (http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a491/Rzpn41/Link%20CSP/Link06_zpsd1015486.png)
My 5/6... Can't find a good green link .-. anyway please give me feedback on these.

Thanks to this tutorial, I finally figured out how to move SRT0 eyes :af:

Think you can help me then, my quote's a couple of posts back.

Hey just to point out, in your tutorial you got an image repeating it self twice

Nice work, reminds me of my ganondorf csps

Can you add pics for how to move the eyes part not understanding how to do the eyes.. what's the "bottom tab"

He has pictures :srs:

I don't understand the last part about the bottom tab... .-.

He means in the model viewer.

Can't figure out step 6 n' this is how my ike pose looks like
(http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums/y497/ZpN41/CSP%20n%20BP/Ike/Ike05_zps14d12114.png)

Thx still in training though

Are those his FS eyes? To get his regular eyes, disable the polygons of his FS eyes.

regular eyes i made sure of that

Those can't be his regular eyes. They're yellow...

uh yea i made his regular eyes yellow too xD

Thanks A lot!! ¿Did you have another shader (light) table?

Does red93 even check up on this tread? Anyway if someone knows how to get the eyes to move pm me plz

Sometimes D:

yo red u updating ur intructions cuz of da new brawlbox? N' also can u go through step by step wit me on how to move da eyes?

Ok cool, this topic is dead. Thx for the help I guess.

So you get angry cuz he isn't on?

Besides, the eyes thing is easy as hell. How is it hard to understand?

Red93 you are awesome! I could never get good lighting for my CSPs and the lighting you suggested in your tutorial was great!

Good Job!

I'm not sure about what to do on step 4

I'm not sure if or when I'll be updating for a newer version of Brawlbox. It's been quite a while and I would have to get back into the swing of things. I'm not sure if I'd even be able to actually help out nowadays. All my knowledge is probably outdated by now... =/
There's a section in my opening post that focuses on just the eyes. Which part are you having difficulty understanding?


Which step 4 are you stuck on? "Making Your Character Pose", "Changing The Position of the Eyes" or "Lights, Camera, edit!"?

interesting tutorial o:

It tells me the trophy pose folder on Mediafire doesn't exist?

yeah me too. any alternate downloads?

You can find them here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/p01chjw1j1k4zuz (https://www.dropbox.com/s/p01chjw1j1k4zuz)


Also, does anyone know if it's possible to use trophy poses with vertex edited characters?

as far as I know you can but you must remake the pose. Considering Wolf's trophy pose it will be super hard unless your good at posing. I'm sure theres an easier way tho.

Thank you very much for this tutorial, it save big time since I used the old method of in game screenshots, this is more clean, quick and no need to turn on your Wii  :kdance:

Hmm, think be best to have a video of this tutorial for a better understanding.

Be my guest.

I am guest, Treat us with this content plz.

I can finally make actual poses rather than just rip them off of brawl snapshots or actual pictures. It's a bit more time consuming, though, but the quality in the end makes all the difference.

I made these in just a few hours, and I love how they turned out.(http://i1368.photobucket.com/albums/ag181/Mach_76/MenSelchrFaceB102_zpsebb41940.png)(http://i1368.photobucket.com/albums/ag181/Mach_76/MenSelchrFaceB463_zpscd672773.png)(http://i1368.photobucket.com/albums/ag181/Mach_76/MenSelchrFaceB462_zps41b47b13.png)

Thanks,This Is A Great Tutorial! :D

Can someone help me with the eyes? I click on the polygon and the texture, but there's no option to move them. The "Transform Frames" are grayed out and I can't change them

does anyone know how to make a csp for diddy kong and how to make transparent textures not make stuff behind them disappear? also whenever i put textures into brawlbox the texture ends up looking worse.