Jabbie
Petz Petter
Posts: 43
Petz Versions: 4
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Post by Jabbie on Aug 30, 2020 13:51:23 GMT -5
Hey all! I hope this is ok to post here; mods, feel free to remove and/or move if you think it would go better in another board, or else its just not suited for this forum.
~ Jabbie's Highway to Hex(ing) ~ How I Learned to Stop Breeding and Love the .lnz
Why this thread I wanted a place to document my learning experience as a hexing neophyte, both as a reference for myself, and as a place to share resources, struggles, and weird results. Hopefully it will be entertaining, and maybe useful for others who are just starting out. Eventually if I stick with it I may transfer to an external site, but this will be a good place to share in the meantime! What I'll be postingScreenshots, step-by-step descriptions, and commentary on all my hexing attempts and experiments. Expect a lot of silliness. Like I've said, I'm brand-spanking-new to this, so I'm sure a lot of it will be Hilariously Bad. (Of course, on the off chance I accidentally create something useful, I'll share that too.) Obviously, there are also lots of good tutorials and walkthroughs out there that I'm certain I haven't discovered yet, and I'll link and reference those whenever I can. I'd also love to hear about resources that are still available and that you've found useful in your own hexing journeys. Thank you!I know there are people on this forum with years, if not decades, of experience, whose work is both an inspiration and a testament to what can be done. I know I'm standing on the shoulders of giants here, and to those of you reading this, thank you for paving the way! I humbly welcome any and all suggestions, critiques, tips, and wisdom you are generous enough to offer. So lets get started!
Yeah! Links and resources This list is by no means exhaustive, but I'll do my best to keep this section up-to-date as I encounter sites I've found helpful. If I don't attribute the right person (especially if they're a member here!) please let me know and I will correct it!From around the Web
Carolyn's Creations ( CarolynHorn ) - Needs no introduction, 90% of my reading so far has been a combination of this site and the compilation of it that goes along with LNZ Pro (Pet Editing Manual) Vickie's Pet Zoo Research Center (Archived) - Another one I had to hunt down, but is an amazing resource Filthy Hippie: Petz Workshop 101 - Good intro to Petz Workshop Hexpedia - Collection of resources and tutorials from various authors Cargo ( Amanda )- Has some good tips, tricks, and tutorials for texturing and other hexing things From here on RKC- Will update as I come across them Tools and downloads LNZ Pro PetWorkshop PastyLabz
Thanks! Look for an update soon!
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Post by Audaxity on Aug 30, 2020 18:57:07 GMT -5
I'm honestly so excited for updates on this! I'm also a pretty new hexer, haven't made much, and looking at what I have made... I can't help but wonder how to fix the mistakes I'm making as a beginner! I think this is a great way for newbies like us and experienced hexers to come together and help more people figure out this hexing stuff, step by step (tagline: We make the mistakes so you don't have to! lol).
But first... someone maybe help that poor Dane XD
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Post by Sakura on Aug 30, 2020 23:09:31 GMT -5
This is an awesome idea for not only yourself but for the community. I myself keep grappling with starting the journey of learning to hex. I feel as if this could be quite helpful as well as inspirational. I look forward to following along. <3
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Jabbie
Petz Petter
Posts: 43
Petz Versions: 4
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Post by Jabbie on Sept 6, 2020 16:37:52 GMT -5
Work and life are a little much right now, so I haven't been able to poke around with hexing as much as I'd like, but heres a little something I started with! A note for other noobs
This tutorial goes through all of the tools in Petz Workshop, and here is a quick LNZ Pro start guide. This guide by Carolyn (which is the same text as the manual in LNZ Pro) goes through what each section of the LNZ file does. I suggest you start there if anything I'm writing doesn’t make sense to you, or ask questions if you're not sure what I did!
~ Episode One: What is anything ~ What even is a dog, and Wireframe the Dane
My first hex(es) and why they're terrible I've wanted to try hexing since I first discovered the Petz community. I took a couple tries as a 12-year-old, but despite some interest in programming and a summer class in ... Visual Basic (yes that’s how old I am), I never really figured it out. Coming back, I saw that not only had tools been developed to make it easier, I was more equipped to give it a go. I'm a real adult, right!? I can make a pixel dog!So I thought, lets jump right in with Pet Workshop, LNZ-be-darned. I could learn how to edit the LNZ with LNZ pro eventually, but Pet Workshop has a visual interface! And here was a great tutorial! Might as well just click around and … see… what happens… I literally have no idea which ball that is at the bottomSo I learned two things REAL fast trying to use Pet Workshop for the first time:
- THERE IS NO UNDO BUTTON OR UNDO SHORTCUT. Click a ball while trying to rotate the pet? Bam, recolored! Grab the wrong ball to move it? Too bad, that’s where your nose is now! And don't expect to see a number anywhere telling you WHERE that ball now lives in space - its just there. Forever. Nice going.
- The program provides a means to edit many ball and addball parameters, but the way those things are edited is not always intuitive. Theres no reset, and no visible numerical value to use as a reference. So its hard to experiment without ending up with… well… again, please see above.
My second attempt was slightly better, in that I managed to keep it relatively symmetrical and animal like, if kind of … creepy. But I had no plan and no real concept of whether this guy was gunna work in game. I named him MusclesSo from here I decided: - I need to get to know how petz are put together before I start trying anything "serious". That includes that LNZ file, with all those numbers…
- I guess... I should have at least a basic plan of what I'm trying to achieve before I start.
Wireframe Danes - How Dogz are put together In order to get a good handle on how the original petz files are put together, I wanted a good visual reference... something that would help me really observe what was happening with the animation and build of the pets.I started with my favorite breed. (Yes, I know Great Dane's are the Pumpkin Spice Lattes of dogz but I don't care that I'm basic). After opening the Great Dane.dog files in Pet Workshop, I selected all of the Ballz in the "Balls" tab. Using the "Ball Colour" tool, I selected "Apply tool to balls" to make all the standard balls white. Selecting the balls to recolor in this menu is a lot easier than trying to click on them in the 3D view
White Dane base ballsNext I went through the Add balls under "Balls" and colored them individually (or in pairs if they appear on each side), and finally used the "Outline Thickness" tool to apply a size 2 outline to all the balls in the file.Where the addballs are
It looks like in the Dane, the add balls are being used to shape the ears, fill out the jaw, and to fill out the Dane's extra long tail. Looking at a couple of other breeds, you see the same: Add balls are mostly used to create face and ear shapes in the original breeds. This chihuahua is... not my favorite
Now that I had my sketchy Dane, it was time to meet this puppy! Meet Wireframe the Dane!
. Wireframe I is not a fan of Wireframe II... Much better - I can now see how each ball is overlapping in space. I was surprised to see how important the fuzziness was in keeping some of the shapes believable. Also I hadn't realized that the iris is actually just an outline - since I didn’t recolor the outlines on the balls it still appears its original color, but thinner since I set all the outline thickness to 2.
owever.… well, he's still pretty small. Its hard to get a good look at him in motion, and I know there are linez in there I’m not getting a good look at.
Luckily, theres a section in the LNZ for that, right? [Default Scales] determines both the overall size of the pet and the relative size of the ballz. In the LNZ they look like this:
These numbers are also listed under "Height" and "Fatness" in Pet Workshop. Here you can see the default for the Dane at 157/144.
Im not sure how I feel about "Fatness" but sure Here is what 700 and 800 look like in Pets Workshop (at the furthest zoom setting…)
And here is what it looks like on Wireframe III
Wireframe II for scale You can see I also added an outline color to the lines here. Strangely, apparently the game doesn't like to render the "default ballz size" past a certain number. In Pet Workshop, Wireframe III has a thick belly and legs is pretty skinny in-game.
However, this is good for my purposes! I wanted a visual reference for where all the ballz are, as well as how the add balls are being used in the animations. I made another small adjustment (decreasing the thickness of the linez), snapped some pictures and put this chart together for reference:
If you'd like to keep or share, heres a direct link
Takeaways What I learned about Pets Workshop- Pets Workshop is a great tool for visualizing and recoloring, but takes some practice and patience. Remember your original settings and numbers: there is no undo or reset. Once you've made a change you'll have to remember the original settings to bring it back, or go into the LNZ to copy paste your original numbers back in
- Petz don’t appear the same in Pets Workshop as they do in game. Not only are the colors and textures going to appear differently, but proportions may also
- Selecting and applying color and settings to balls in the "Balls" menu using "Apply tool to balls" is a lot easier than trying to click each ball individually!
What I learned about the LNZ file- All .dog files in the game have the same basic set of 67 balls, listed under [Ballz Info] in the .lnz file. In addition, every breed has additional balls under [Add Ballz]. All of these balls are also listed by name (for balls) and number (for add balls) in the "Balls" tab in Pet Workshop. Balls are connected by lines (under [Linez] in the .lnz), which have their own parameters but will often derive them from the ballz they are connected to.
- The standard balls in the dog are numbered in 3 groups: Left, Right, and Center. Left balls are 0 - 23. Right balls are 24 - 47. Center balls are 48+. You can figure out number of the corresponding ball on the opposite side by adding 24 to your left ball number, or subtracting 24 from your right ball number.
The order in which the body parts are numbered follows no obvious logic at all that I can tell. Wait - Ankle, eyebrows, ears, elbow, eye, finger… ITS ALPHABETICAL ORDER!
- Balls and addballs derive their number from the number of coded lines in the LNZ they are from the bracketed header (not including comments!). So ball 0 (the left ankle) is always the first line after [Ballz Info]. This means if you copy-paste those code lines around in a different order, you'll get some… results. Since the numbers are based on the basic dog build and the change in sizes is relative, you'll get something that still mostly looks and acts like a dog except for the colors and textures will be all swapped around and - well…
Eyes for toes
Sorry
Weirdness- For some reason I couldn’t recolor all of the ear addballs in Pets Workshop - You'll notice in the Wireframe Danes that 2 of the terminal ear balls are still the original Dane color, and weirdly its not even the same ball on each side!
- The way the game interprets the Default Scales numbers is not entirely clear to me - The ratio is clearly important (as Carolyn specifies in her guide), but there also appears to be a ceiling after which the balls will not grow in size. Worth investigating further.
If you got this far... WOW, I'm impressed! But I think that’s enough for one day. Tune in next time for more of… this? Goodnight!
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Post by Thor on Sept 6, 2020 16:53:40 GMT -5
I loved reading this :) thank you for sharing and these visuals are STUNNING! Do you have a job where you make clear instructions and visuals? Because if not, def show off your work and get hired somewhere!! Hahaha basically trying to say this looks professional and amazing! Thank you :)
Bookmarked this ^^
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Post by gingerade on Sept 7, 2020 13:14:03 GMT -5
Thank you so much for taking the time to write and post this! This is an invaluable resource! I love your wireframe Danes *o*
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