Elements Generator Update (Patreon)

Hello! I have some info to share with you today for the upcoming Elements release!

I mentioned in a previous post that I was looking into options to expand the Elements generator to include different skin tone variations. Well, thanks to the hard work of my pal Locke, who programmed the generator app, we got it working!

Unfortunately I don't have the updated download available just yet, because there's one small bug I need to fix (my fault, not his). So this is just a preview of the new feature, and a progress update.

But here's the preview of how it looks now in action:

You can see that a skin tone selector has been added in the top corner. It uses a set of pre-defined color palettes to replace the one found in the default assets. These are the colors that I listed in the post linked above.

It's also managed using data from a json file, so that it should be easy to extend with additional skin tones as needed later on.

I wanted to share this with you earlier in the week, but... I had to put aside some extra time to recolor a bunch of existing pieces. 

See, I never imagined that the generator would be full of features like this, I thought it was going to be a lot more basic, so the original set of released assets (the ones from the patron beta) didn't play well with this new feature-- the skin tone feature would recolor some of the shirt or hair for example, where colors were duplicated across layers.

So I spent a few hours last night messing around the existing assets, cleaning up stray colored pixels, etc-- working to get everything into its final form. Right now I have all of the assets in their final form, so that's exciting!

While I was doing that, I expanded on some of the beta pieces a little bit. The full release of the Core Character Set will include this new stuff in addition to the pieces from the beta release:

• The Hood, Masked Hood, and Helmets (add-ons from patron suggestions)
• Two new recolors for the sword: wood and gold (visible in my preview image above)
• A couple new recolors for all of the heads (just for different eye colors)

The set will also include the standalone Child Sprites that I released here last month, and I'm also going to include the Emotion Animations that are designed to match the style.

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At the pace we're at right now with this project (last thing to do is finish up the PDF guide), it makes sense to just share it with you when the whole set is finalized and ready. Could be as early as next week (but we'll see 🤔).

I hate that this whole project has taken much much longer than I originally wanted it too (it's been like 2 years!) -- and THEN after the beta released I had to sit on it for a while (for reasons that I've talked about in previous posts 😪) -- but we're finally in the endgame.

Thanks so much for your patience and support on this long journey.

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Okay, I'll be back tomorrow with the regular Friday release. 

It'll be some new tiles based on a patron request. See you then.

Thanks!