HyperKreator - a Way to make impossible costumes!

[Purrfekshawn]

Made by Our Imperial Majesty Empress Elaina Inversonia von Heidi de Nibeashe la Lerella Linda Celia Dimensina the First.

 

HyperKreator is a tool that makes possible creating costumes those usually can't be made because of restrictions costume editor puts on certain styles. Right now it might be pretty complicated to use, especially a part with manual editing of "***.COSTUME" files, but l'm working on it. At this moment HyperKreator has an issue with certain parts (like capes), those can be put, but cannot be removed while HyperKreator is running, it needs to be closed for that, and doing so will validate costume. This can be worked around by loading clear "basic" costume of your character from file. Or by saving costume into file, putting "none" strings in unneeded pieces geometry, texture1 and texture2 and loading costume back. l haven't found a way to fix that yet, but it may come in some future update.

 

There was said somewhere that in CoH 90% time you spend on making costumes, 9% planning builds, 1% game itself. For me it's not quite true, I don't spend that much time on costumes. But I would agree that it's big part of the game for making unique and fabulous outfits. And these costume contests, initiated by GM's... And it happened that I came up with an improvement, that could raise their diversity dramatically.

 

It's not a secret that not any part in Costume Creator can be matched with any other. It was done to prevent clipping/invalid costumes at first place, but it also places unneeded restrictions those cripple players' capabilities to create diverse, unique and theme-matched costumes. For instance: "Bowtie" shoulder style can't be applied to "Tops with Skin" category, "Roman Sandal" - on "Pants" category, for male characters - "Headband" can be used only with "Full Masks" category, but not "Standard" heads. Despite none of these styles clip with anything. I believe there are tons of other examples.

 

There is a game "Champions Online" (that's currently is at really bad state of developement, but nvm), and there was a hack, that allowed players to increase diversity of their characters. It allowed them to mix and match pieces, those couldn't be put together by normal means and moreso, because of the fact that server doesn't check everything, these costumes could be seen by others. It was called "Super Creator". After a while that hack became the game's feature, which improved costume making process even further, and made it "legal"!

 

Both of CoH and CO were made by same Cryptic team initially, and (oddly enough) they both share a part, because of which server may allow you to submit invalid costume sometimes. I managed to discover a way to stop costume validation made by client and called it "HyperKreator". HyperKreator allows to make costumes, those cannot be made other way. However, the restrictions caused by server-side validation (it's more liberal than client-side one, but still rejects a lot of stuff, like placing NPC parts), can't be bypassed this way.

 

This .GIF will bring you a glimpse of how it works and what it can be used for (unfortunately it doesn't show properly on this forum, on old forum did):

https://imgur.com/cSvTACC

 

Newest version:
HyperKreatorMK2
Known current issue - inability to delete some bones once they're placed (like Capes).

 

Older versions:
HyperKreatorMK1
Has issue with body tab in starting character creation screen, body sculptor NPC (inside shops, they have body height/gender editing option) and AE NPC editor (yah, HyperKreator generally works for AE enemies too), after editing body in that tab character texturing gets whitened, and dealing with it may cause client crash.

 

Information for Devs: if stuff like that (which is essentially hack) is prohibited or non-desirable, feel free to remove this thread. Also: l found an exact way to make costume combination valid from viewpoint of server. It's really all inside file "costume.bin", placed in "%gamepath%\data\bin\" folder. That file contains, among other things, a number of records, starting with 0x44 DWORD, each has size of (72 (0x48) bytes, including first DWORD which determines record's size), and these records have a byte on position of 48 (0x30). If it's set to 1, then a style is available only to NPC, but if it's set to 0 - the style is available for playable characters. In order to make a style available to player on private server need to replace "costume.bin" file in both "%gamepath%\data\bin\" and "%serverpath%\data\bin\" (note that it's NOT "%gamepath%\data\server\bin\" as you could expect). If "%serverpath%\data\bin\costume.bin" is not replaced - a client may attempt to submit a costume with NPC parts, but the server will reject it, so it's worthless to try doing this for Homecoming for a player, since mere players don't have access to serverside, that's why it isn't included in packages.

 

l would like to make mah Main as close to that from Champignons Online, and this dress seems to be pretty close.

It's "V_Hips_Talons.GEO/GEO_Hips_Ragged_Talons", but with replaced texture. Crown is "V_FEM_Eyes.GEO/GEO_Eyes_Wedding_Veil_02". It's weird the game doesn't have long dresses down to the floor available to players, just how common they are in comics...

I did that on Private Server, but can't do this on Homecoming ATM, because don't have access to serverside, and putting random styles got rejected from server. But We reilly wish n.n.

Edited August 3, 2019 by Cipher
Removed download links: Executable file(s) unverified & read/write game memory

[Purrfekshawn]

HyperKreator project is suspended right now as I'm arranging it with Homecoming team.

[1gecko]

Please Devs - add this!

there are a number of costume items that are already in game with the only reason players can't use them on characters is the NPC only setting!  While I can understand wanting to keep some things 'reserved' for Lord Recluse (or whoever) - even in our beloved comics heroes and villains often have similar (if not exactly the SAME) costume parts with no loss of impact (ex: Reverse Flash)

 

It would also be great if more costume parts were added - and yes, I completely realize how much work that encompasses; but with the number of talented users that would be thrilled to do that work for FREE for you to review before you add it to the game (for obvious reasons), it is not insurmountable by any measure.

[RoseClaymore]

I'm 100% behind anything that adds more variety to the costume creator. My longtime request has been to remove the gender restrictions of costume pieces. Everyone deserves to have a bow in their hair if they want one, or wear a Mars or Venus symbol, or whatever.

 

I'd also love to help with designing new costume pieces, just as soon as I learn how to make them. Anyone able to point me in a direction where I can learn this stuff? I did it for a bit for The Sims 2 but that I feel is considerably different.

[Purrfekshawn]

On 11/28/2019 at 1:05 AM, 1gecko said:

Snip

On 12/18/2019 at 12:27 AM, RoseClaymore said:

Snip

Let alone Lord Recluse, but for some reason e.g. Roman Sandal style is available for FEMALE skeletons only, not for MALE, despite the fact that this style is commonly used for NPC's in Cimerora and Roman Tunic (Unique Tops) is a possible style for Males, whilst Romal Sandal isn't. Does that make any sense for you? For Me that doesn't make sense and l think it's probably done by some mistake. Enabling this on Serverside aforementioned way would fix this issue in a blaze. l was crippled when making Archvillain Beatdown - Past Edition by this inability to use Roman Sandal part for Males.

 

Besides that there are a lot of styles with nonsensical restrictions from both client and serverside, like displayed above Crown for Veil and Talons Dress (down to the floor, there's a model of it present, why don't make it available then? A lot of games have dresses down to the floor, and they're extreamly extreamly beautiful anyway!). Bow Tie shoulder style isn't usable at any chest style, except shirts, and so on.

 

l propose enabling lots of styles those are currently locked for NPC at serverside by setting to 0 its NPC-only flag, as suggested above (this will definitely work for enabling Roman Sandals for Males, Crown Veil, Talons Dress etc; for instance ROMAN SANDAL can be enabled by searching bytes "16 2A 02 00" in current costumes.bin file (need to do that on Serverside's costumes.bin, not just the clientside), and then setting to 0 flag that is placed 32 bytes after that, right now it's 0 for Females 1 for Males, it's exact NPC-only flag).

 

After this also wouldn't be excessive to make some ingame piece of code for cilent that would be linked to checkbox in costume editor and disable clientside verification (like actual HyperKreator hack does), it would make possible e.g. setting up Bow Tie shoulder style for Tights, or Roman Sandal for Pants category as demonstrated in GIF.

 

Hopefully enabling MOAR costume Options is coming someday in future as a huge bulk update, because it would make Costume Contests ALOT, LOT, LOT more funnier, making possible to make new/copy existing player's imagined costume (theme of certain Contest) with even more precision. Not being able to make a Princess ala disnay with Large Dress hurts a lot.

[VileTerror]

I look forward to seeing this level of customization make it in to Homecoming.

[Purrfekshawn]

On 3/4/2020 at 3:53 PM, VileTerror said:

I look forward to seeing this level of customization make it in to Homecoming.

Alas, HyperKreator has been wrecked beyond its restrictions back before Costume Creator Updates, because the server now rejects costumes, that were not rejected initially. l can't update some of my characters' costumes, because they're now considered to be not valid. How to make these costumes socailly responsible even now, when l can't update!