Advanced modding: Changing orbs and any other sprite

This guide helps you change the way orbs look so you can differentiate between them easier.
This guide also explains how you can change any sprite in the game. Difficullty: advanced.

Introduction

This guide helps you change the way orbs look so you can differentiate between them easier. This guide also explains how you can change any sprite in the game.

Difficullty: advanced.

The end result will look like this:


If you just want to use the orbs shown in the pic and don't want to bother with all the decompiling, editing and compiling steps, go to the last paragraph of chapter Compiling your sprite sheet

Required programs

The following programs will be required for this guide:

• A Windows PC
  
• XNB Exporter[www.terrariaonline.com] (mirror[darvit.nl])
  
• XNA Formatter[sourceforge.net] (mirror[darvit.nl])
  
• XNA Game Studio 4.0[www.microsoft.com] (mirror[darvit.nl]) (If you are having trouble installing this on Windows 8 or higher, try doing these steps[stackoverflow.com]). You need this program to compile back to .xnb.
  
• An image editor tool like http://www.getpaint.net/index.html, or any other image editor program that supports transparency and layers. (So you can't just use regular Windows Paint).

You must also turn off full-screen mode in Melody's Escape; this mod does not work in full-screen, it will show you a white screen where you can only move your mouse. Try using no-border mode if you still want a full-screen experience.

What kind of files are we going to work with?

Melody's Escape uses .xnb files for the images/sprites used in-game. These files are a weird kind of container for files like .bmp; .dds; .dib; .hdr; .jpg; .pfm; .png; .ppm; .tga.

We will also be working with .png files.

Backup files

The path to the file we are going to mod is:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\MelodysEscape\Content\Particles\obstacles.xnb

MAKE A BACKUP OF THIS FILE BEFORE YOU CONTINUE!!

Extracting the sprite sheet

Copy "XNB 4.0 Exporter.exe" to the same folder as obstacles.xnb (This should be C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\MelodysEscape\Content\Particles)

Run the program and type in the text box: obstacles
You should now have a new file called obstacles.png in your folder.

(The sprite sheet at the time of writing (01-dec-2015) should look like this[darvit.nl])

Editing the sprite sheet

Melody's Escape has 2 options for displaying an orb: full circles or not full circles.
You can access this option in-game at Help & Options -> General -> Use full circles for light orbs art.
When this option is set to No the game will use the top-left 185x185 pixels on the sprite sheet for displaying orbs. When this option is set to Yes the game will use the top-right 185x185 pixels on the sprite sheet. So you can make 2 separate designs for your orbs.

You can download this Paint .NET project file[darvit.nl] containing these edge markers that can help you figure out the limit of your orb size.

Put a new layer below your sprite sheet (from here on called mask) so that you can see your masks easily. Make it a solid color like red or green or blue.
Make a new layer above the mask layer in which you will draw your new orb. White = Use full color in game; Transparent = transparent in-game. Anything inbetween is partly transparent, depending on how transparent your pixels are in your mask and new layer.

Delete from the mask layer the area where you made your new orb, so that only your orb is visible in that area, and not the original orb. Disable your bottom layer, we don't want a solid color as a background in our new sprite sheet. Save the project and then save your new sheet as a .png.

Compiling your sprite sheet

Have you backed up your obstacles.xnb yet? YOU SHOULD DO SO!

Open XNAFormatter.exe.
In Source File browse to your new sprite sheet.
For Output Directory choose the folder which contained your original obstacles.xnb. In most cases this path will be C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\MelodysEscape\Content\Particles

Check the box for Compress Output and click Convert.

The window should freeze for a few seconds and when it's done it should display Build Completed next to the Convert button.

If the compiling does not work, I can't help you. You can download the compiled obstacles.xnb file from the preview image here[darvit.nl]. Make sure to backup your original obstacles.xnb first!

Testing your new orbs

There are 2 ways to check if your orbs work:

Testing in ModStudio: In your game root folder there's a file called ModStudio.exe; open that and check your orbs. ModStudio can only display orb type 1.
Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\MelodysEscape

Testing in Melody's Escape: Open the game and play a song, you should see your new orbs.
As stated before you can change orb type at Help & Options -> General -> Use full circles for light orbs art.

If your screen is white but you can still move your mouse, congratulations, you did not read everything in this guide. The mod does not work when you set the game to full-screen. Close the game and go to %appdata%\MelodyEscape and BACK UP your settings.xml file. Then delete the original settings.xml file. Relaunch the game.

If your game still does not work, something went wrong compiling your new obstacles.xnb file. Remove your new obstacles.xnb file and copy back your old one. I can't help you with this problem.


Thank you for reading this far, I hope this guide has helped you!

[Minivan]

@Vexxar yes you can use any shaped image. Just open up Paint .NET and edit to your own liking!

[torahuntris]

Thanks for this! I'll toss my hat into the ring of people who are recommending PNG to XNB converters with one I found easy to use: https://github.com/sullerandras/png_to_xnb

Would recommend it for how simple it is!

[VexTary]

Is there a way to change the arrows entirely to letters? Like DFJK for example?

[Ð⍙︎ℕ︎ ♎♂]

you made this crap playable, you're great. the author of the game should give you a part of the income since I didn't make the refund thanks to you and who knows how many other people like me. Before I couldn't even play the first difficulty level and now I can play the third. The programmer doesn't know what "intuitive gameplay" means ... those crescents were just shit

[Minivan]

Yes you can do that.

[ShishKebab - Real good taste]

Can you make some where the orbs are just a normaly colored full circles? The arrows inside them is annoying as hell when playing intense

[Minivan]

Nice, thanks for the tip! That tool is probably easier to install and use than the one in this guide.

[nextdoormat]

Thanks for the guide - extremely helpful.
To note - someone made an open-source xnb unpacker/packer utility, it works like a charm for this and no need for any other utility: https://github.com/LeonBlade/xnbcli
You may find how to use following this Stardew Valley modding guide: https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Modding:Editing_XNB_files

[Dr. Shitdip]

I can't get any of this shit to work so i guess I'll be using the one you made. thanks m8. and I;'ll make sure to backup the obstacles

[Minivan]

Absolutely no problem, man!