Progress Report 12/30/2022

Ah, once again we come to the final Friday of the year! Here's what I got done this week:

• Made sure the colors only apply to the parts that *should* be colored (i.e. eye whites should always stay white)
• Made the default color buttons work with accessories
• Made secondary sprites optional; clothes, hair, etc. may now have only one sprite without breaking anything.
• Made eye sprites optional; eye sprites may now have *zero* sprites without breaking anything (good for closed/scarred eyes).
• Made the secondary color buttons hide themselves when a sprite without a secondary is selected.
• Made both accessory color buttons hide and unhide themselves when an accessory is equipped or unequipped.
• Made the heterochromia checkbox and primary eye color button hide themselves in case of one/no eye sprites, respectively.
• Added a new category for eyebrows
• Started writing instructions on how to add sprites and categories for future reference (for myself and any potential modders)
• Made the customizer UI look a little more condensed and sleek
• Set up randomize buttons for each category (currently only randomizes colors)

BEAST. MODE.

How's that for one last hurrah for the year! So, where to begin... Well, might as well start at the top!

The separation between parts that should be colored and parts that shouldn't was actually pretty easy. I just kept the different parts as separate sprites, added the sprites that should be colorized into a "colorizable" group, and worked with that to make sure parts like the eye whites don't get affected by the player's choice of color(s).

Let's see... accessories, secondaries... Ah, optional secondaries! Getting categories like "Hair" to work with primary sprites without secondary sprites was surprisingly easy. It... just kinda worked already. Look, there are some things that you just don't question, and functional programming is one of those things!

Anyways, the hard part here was getting the color buttons (and in some cases, checkboxes) to hide themselves when a sprite without a secondary is selected, and then re-show themselves if a sprite *with* a secondary is selected afterwards. It's a small touch, but one that will hopefully help avoid confusion with coloring.

And then I applied a similar concept to accessories. If an accessory isn't equipped, I wanted the color buttons hidden; I figured this would make it even easier to tell whether an accessory is equipped or not. Well, as simple as this sounds, this step was particularly tricky to accomplish. Buuut that may have been in part because it was late when I started it, I was tired and hungry, and my brain was practically mush by that point.

In other news, hmm... Ooh! New category! I added "Eyebrows" into the mix. At first I had it under the Face tab, but later moved it under Hair since people would probably want to modify those at the same time. Plus, eyebrows are, you know, hair. Anyways, I took notes of all the steps as I created the new category in case I need them later, and also to make life easier for anyone who wants to mod the game and add categories of their own. ^_^  It was pretty easy to make a new category, all things considered. I have my previous cleanup work to thank for that, and now consider it time well spent!

Lastly... huff... puff... We're almost there! Hang in there a little longer!

Lastly, we have the randomize buttons! As you'd probably guess, these bad boys will randomize the colors and sprites in each category! Currently, I've only managed to get colors working, but it's been smooth sailing so far! The Default buttons laid the groundwork that the randomize buttons are now following, so once again the time spent is paying off!

Randomizing sprites with the colors are next on my to do list, followed by just a handful of small items and two larger tasks: the customizer save system and an outfit combo system. I'll be refraining from explaining the latter; I'm looking forward to everyone's reactions to it!... Plus I'm not 100% sure it will even work. Baby steps. ^^;

Phew! We did it! We survived the progress report! I don't know about you, but all this reading/writing has made me famished! I'm gonna go unfamish myself with some Taco Bell. In the meantime, you guys have a fantastic New Year's celebration! I'll see you guys again next year!