Creating new Thangs - rules about reusing content?

Looking into creating Thangs I was wondering if there was any rule about reusing content. For instance in the Kithgard level there are backdrops that have a few interesting features on them, can we photoshop off a feature and turn it into a Thang to reuse on other levels.

In particular I was thinking of using a skull light from “Dungeons of Kgard Background”

.

  1. Are there any limitations on what can be reused?
  2. What format is the standard Thang graphic saved as? PNG, JPG, SVG?
  3. Also can anyone point me in a good direction about adding animations to Thangs.

Thanks,
HW

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I have an idea to add lava monsters, lava shamans and other different thangs for the lava world. Also on an alien spaceship you could have aliens, and also add other alien creatures. For a storm world, we could have monsters that strike lightning on you and you could create a character like Zeus. I’m getting the world ideas from this post.

Unfortunately, the Thang Editor is very complex and hard to use, and we haven’t had time yet to make documentation for it, improve the UX, or add a permission system. So for right now, we don’t open it up to create new Thangs for Artisans.

That said, since you asked what format the art is in, for raster assets (some static backgrounds), you can upload a .png. Most of our art is in vector format as exported directly from Adobe Flash (which is now Animate, but we use the HTML5 CreateJS export format of the older Flash authoring tool now). So if you had access to the Adobe Flash/Animate authoring tools and were proficient in animating using them, we could talk about how you could contribute new animated Thangs to the game.

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ok thanks for the info. I am not, but if you know anybody else who can do it, can you ask them?

@nick if I provided a list of images and posted them to the forum in .PNG format taken out of the backgrounds, would they be considered for uploading as assets for creating new Thangs?

Or do they need to be SVG?

Are they static doodads (like decorations, terrain, and other non-moving objects)? If they fit the art style, it might work. For animated sprites, they definitely need to be made in Adobe Flash/Animate and delivered as .flas so we can export in our format.

What are you thinking of making?

@nick

Like this

Static doodads.

There is a lot of really cool items in the backgrounds like lava and such that would be nice to use for decorating the levels.

Before you start pulling them out, can you make a Google Spreadsheet? Then we can all vote on which ones we want to use and import those ones.

Here is a quick pull from the Cupboards of Kgard background, will that do?

I can continue to go through each background and list items.

I don’t use google tools much so let me know if it linked properly.

-HW

I can see it but I can’t edit it? Is it set to by editable by anyone with link?

Of the assets in the background of Cupboards of Kithgard, the ones I see being most useful are:

  • NS Keg
  • EW Keg
  • Dining Table (without plates)
  • Plates
  • Dining Bench
  • Single Candle
  • Triple Candle
  • Cauldron
  • Arch + pillars near NS kegs (separated for layering)

The rest are too skewed to be reusable outside of their spots in the level. (E.g. look at the crates around the covered statues, they wouldn’t fit on the right side of the map)

@nick it should be editable now. (I believe I added the permission)

I also added more Kithgard Dungeon maps

I moved content around a little on the spread sheet to allow names to be added to the right of the current columns and one can place an X to vote etc. I added Serg’s comments.

Kithgard dungeon backgrounds are all up there now. I am going to start on the Kelvintaph Glacier ones next, as there is a need for more “cool” levels. :slight_smile:

Awesome dude! I can’t wait to see new levels with these thangs incorporated.

Sorry, I just realized that these posts also seem to be emailed to the email on file. I created a new thread for the completed Thangs from “Cupboards of Kgard”. Once a thread is started should we always stick to replying to it to ensure that the correct parties are listening?

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@nick what’s the file format should i upload in the upload animation file choose dialog?

Well, it’s .js files exported from the older Adobe Flash content authoring tool for HTML5 Canvas, but unless you do it just right, it probably won’t work. Plus, we don’t currently let you add new Thangs without admin permissions. What kind of things did you want to upload?