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Editing Character Data

By Angeblow

A quick guide exploring the playable character traits, and how to "create" your own characters! :D
Matt hinted at having a character XML somewhere but I finally got bored enough to look through the files and have found some awesome stuff!

Keep in mind this does modify the game, so please back up your stuff and it's nobody's fault but yours if something goes wrong!

Have fun everybody!
:tf_pink:

Award

Created by

Angeblow
Offline

Category: Characters, Modding or Configuration, Walkthroughs

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

Jul 23, 2015 @ 7:53am

Dec 22, 2015 @ 12:12pm

1,108	Unique Visitors
25	Current Favorites

Guide Index

Overview

Foreword/Disclaimer thing

A link to an actual comprehensive guide!

Need help editing the Sprites? Use TowerForge!

How to find the XML (WIN)

How to find the XML (MAC)

Editing the XML

Character Tag Reference

BONUS SECTION

Comments

Foreword/Disclaimer thing

A) I don't promote y'all sharing the base TF files. Thats rude. Keep custom stuff to yourself unless you and your buddies can manage the sprite sheets and the character data. I'm not responsible for y'all breakingany EULAs or anything.

B) Back up your stuff. Don't complain when things don't work otherwise.

C) Feel free to share GIFs of your new archers! I think it's a good way to keep Towerfall going!

D) I'm writing this just to get it out there, I would expect this to be cleaned up by people or myself. I am writng this on a mac and on my free time so yeah.

A link to an actual comprehensive guide!

TheVortex made this cool guide to help people make their own archers! (He beat me to it :/ )
Use this guide to help make your archer, and reference my guide to help solidify them! :D

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=547678761

Need help editing the Sprites? Use TowerForge!

Reddit user /u/Tellous has created an easy to use tool to help you find and edit sprites - it's especially useful for when you have difficulty finding the right ones! It's simple to use, and makes the changes to your Atlas for you, you just need to upload your changes properly!

http://tellous.github.io/towerforge/

How to find the XML (WIN)

1) Right Click on Towerfall and click properties.
2) Go to "Local Files" and browse local files
3) Go from"Content" -> "Atlas" -> "GameData" -> "archerData.xml"

Credits to The Vortex for the help with the section!

How to find the XML (MAC)

1) Right Click on Towerfall and click properties.
2) Go to "Local Files" and browse local files
3) Right Click on the Towerfall app, and the select Show pakage contents
4) Go from "Contents" -> "MacOS" -> "Content" -> "Atlas" -> "GameData" -> "archerData.xml"

Editing the XML

1) BACK UP YOUR STUFF

2) Open with a text editor.
-Look at the archers and compare what's available, and mess with those. Keep your edits in the tags, and refer to the reference part of the guide if you need help!

Character Tag Reference

<Name0> : The first name for the character
<Name1> : The second name for the character
<ColorA> : Controls the colour of the lettering of the name, the border when the character is selected, the "name" of the gamepad setup, the colour of the character on the pie chart, some particles, etc.
<ColorB> : Controls the colour of the "Swap Skin button", the "selected name" for the gamepad, the fletchings, the character's ghost, etc.
<LightbarColor> : DS4 support is weird. The DS4 driver for Mac doesn't let TF control the lightbar, how about windows? :/
<Aimer> : Tag sets the colour and the type of aimer the character uses. The colour and type of aimer is actually a set thing, so you might have to work around it somehow or edit some in!
<Hair> : A default for the white archer, you can add this in to get the flowing hair for your character, if you really wanted it ;)
<SFX> : The sound effects obviously. I'm probably gonna have to expand on this later, and if I do a seperate guide for that I'll link it here. <3
<Corpse> : Uhh, the dead body sprite. :P
<PurpleParticles> : Value for the purple archer's aura!
<VictoryMusic> : Duh. But see the SFX tag above.
<Gender> : Probably has to do with "Comeback King/Queen/Whatever the puppet would like to be idetified as." ;)

<Body> : The character's body sprite set. Refer to the Atlas for locations if ya wanna edit that :)
<HeadNormal> : The head with the hat on. You can mix and match heads and bodies if you're silly.
<HeadNoHat> : Head when hat is off.
<HeadCrown> : Do I really need to explain this?
<Bow> : The bow the character uses.

<Material> : How the hat moves when it gets shot off. I'm glad this is a tag. :3
<Normal> : The Normal hat.
<Blue> : The hat if the character is on blue team.
<Red> : Red team always wins.

<NotJoined> : The character's portrait when not selected, but hovered.
<Joined> : Same, but when you have the character selected.
<Win> : The little win picture.
<Lose> : The picture for losers. Literally.

(I'm not messing with statues. Not sure they do anything anymore)

<Menu> : Gem selected for the menu
<Gameplay> : Gameplay gem!

<Offset> : Where the breathing starts. Red archer is weird, so this is appreciated. :)
<DuckingOffset> : Same, but for ducking.
<Interval> : How often they breathe??? 0_0

BONUS SECTION

You know how the Assasin Prince and the Ancient Exile both have secret characters? You can add a "Secret character" to any other archer to make your very own archer! Super cool stuff! Thanks Matt!

8 Comments

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Pinpin ♥ Nov 4, 2015 @ 6:37pm

Pc master race :P

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the ''details'' and ''process'', but I'd say our guides don't cover the same topics. While yours covers the all-important ArcherData file's inner workings and how to edit/create characters out of existing sprites, mine covers how to add in new sprites and make them usable in the game. Maybe when the update finally hits up mac you could add a little section about adding in more characters, but even if you don't I'd say both our guides have good and distinct reasons to exist :)

Let's keep exploring!

Angeblow [author] Nov 4, 2015 @ 10:45am

You've already got a fav from me, and beat me to it! (Darn macs and having to make a separate build!!)

This specific guide will probably go into more of the "details"(orange archer apparently always has a red cape, I'll confirm that later with my update), I'm leaving it to you to make a really comprehensive guide on the process, sound cool? :)

Pinpin ♥ Nov 3, 2015 @ 9:34pm

Hey, just made this guide on making new characters, might interest you :)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=547678761

Angeblow [author] Jul 30, 2015 @ 8:09pm

Uhh. Rather that the ArcherData.xml that is, edit the Atlas.xml

Angeblow [author] Jul 30, 2015 @ 8:08pm

What do you mean by "use team coloured sprites"?

If you want your character to use a set of different sprites, you could either edit the XML like shown above, or mess with the Atlas.xml , and change the little parameters for your characters' main sprite to the location of the team sprites, rather than the XML.

Look for the subtextures along the lines of "player/body[x]" and make them the same location as either "player/body[x]_red" or "player/body[x]_blue".

If that's not what your asking let me know and I'll look into it.

Pinpin ♥ Jul 30, 2015 @ 6:09pm

Thanks for this guide! I've been having much fun messing with things! If someone manages to use team colored sprites without making the game crash, please let me know how you did it!

Also, for windows it's quite simple, steps one and two are the same, then you can directly go into content -> atlas -> GameData -> AcherData

Angeblow [author] Jul 28, 2015 @ 10:04pm

Yeah, I was really excited when I saw that because it pretty much meant custom characters. So far, I can't add new characters any other way but I haven't played around enough with it yet so idk.

DizzyDee123 Jul 24, 2015 @ 2:25am

Didn't adding additional secret characters was possible. Going to have to try that. I assume that way we can sort of expand the roster without overwriting existing archers. Nice.

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