Custom Avatar Editor Solutions

While its great that My Avatar Editor is open source and available for anyone to download, use, and/or modify at will, the solution it provides is primarily targeted towards recreating the Mii channel editor on the Nintendo Wii. The approach to the application's design and how it works with data makes it a little difficult to repurpose the editor for other situations. Before releasing My Avatar Editor, I did my best to make it easier to change that, but in the end, it didn't make too much difference.

Realizing this, I thought it would be a good idea to create a more generalized framework for developers that could be easily manipulated to match various requirements - this especially with the recent interest the My Avatar Editor source. And last week I started doing exactly that.


So far so good.

What I have, which is very limited, can produce some simple results on the avatar definition side of things, but sadly (I think), I may have made the process more difficult than it needed to be. In a way this is good because it means more features and flexibility, but it's also not very good in the fact that if people really want to use this thing, they're going to have to be able to understand it. I can say, however, that because I was using My Avatar Editor as a model, I'm pretty sure that this new framework could be used to easily and completely recreate My Avatar Editor from scratch. And hopefully its flexible enough to be extended to do much more.

A run-down of the features and what makes it so complicated (and, really, it's not that bad, I mean I've only been working on it in my spare time for a couple of days ;) includes:

• Constraints for avatar features including position, scale, and rotation
• Control over feature arrangement, including having one feature consist of multiple visual assets that can exist both above and below other features at the same time
  
• Feature-specific color transformation groups
• Everything defined in a flexible XML format

The last bullet point I think is the most important one, and really the others revolve around that. The importance here is that anyone can completely define avatar features in XML - not just the avatar itself (though it is also defined in XML) - but the actual features that are possible for the avatar to use and what they look like. These collections of features are known as a library, and you could potentially swap out libraries with each other to completely change an avatar visually without modifying its internal definition. And because they're all managed by XML, they can be easily changed outside of the context of the actual editor/avatar viewer applications.

Ok, ok, ok. You want to see where it's at right now? I wasn't going to show anything, but since I talked so much about it, you're probably curious. Ready? Here's an avatar it can show on the screen now:



WOWEE! I know you're floored. Maybe more interesting is the XML used to define this. You can find that here. Of course keep in mind that all of this is subject to change.

The idea is to hopefully release this along side My Avatar Editor as open source under MIT. I have a lot more work to do, and my day job has me busy at the moment, but I'll continue to post updates to the project on this blog. Also, as you might have guessed, the target platform is Adobe Flash Player, though I will not be targeting Flash Player 10 specifically as I did with My Avatar Editor. I'll be making this one also Flash Player 9 compatible.

Minor Update: Version message and Character updates

I pushed a minor update to the editor, one which should gracefully fail character SWFs for Flash Players below 10, and which allows more frequent updates to the local shared object (flash "cookie") and URL links of avatars. This new version is 1.0.5.0. I think I've updated all the files in their correct locations for downloads.

Beta 2 Posted [Update 2]

The current transitional beta page has been updated with beta 2 of My Avatar Editor. Changes include (but may not necessarily be limited to):

• Fixed lower hair for 8th style (row 3, column 2) on page 6
• Some interface reshuffling (tab reordering)
• Titles over avatar characteristics/options
• Shadow is a semi-transparent solid; this should cause less problems exporting
  
• Option to remove shadow from export
• Transparent backgrounds for exports show as a checkerboard
• Client-based (as opposed to server-based) save/load
• Binary files saved with the extension .mae
  
• New XML format (NOT finalized, see this note)
  
• New randomizer algorithm
• Flash Player 10 required
• and a whole, heck of a lot of code re-writing

Known issues include:

• The avatar link will not work
• Users may experience problems saving using Internet Explorer on Windows Vista
  

Report additional issues as comments to this post. With any luck, I'll be able to clean it up enough this weekend to make it available for download... actually, the "big game" is this weekend, isn't it... make that next weekend :)

Update:
As noted by Tommy, the eyebrow rotations in the latest editor beta were off. This was the result of a copy-and-paste typo where I accidentally had the maximum number of possible rotation values set to the number of possible colors ;). This should now be fixed. The new build version is 1.0.1.31t which you can check for in the top right of the File menu. If your number is lower, clear your cache and reload the page.

Update 2:
As reported by Mapi, I've included a known issue that users using IE and Vista might have troubles saving files.

Random just got less... Random

I just finished up a new random generator that takes into consideration visual appearance over pure randomness. So, for example, it's less likely that eyes will be sticking out the edge of a head, or that a mouth will be above the nose. It also takes into consideration some other factors such as not having beards for girls. You can always add them later ;) but the random option won't be doing it for you. Below are examples of 6 random characters created, in sequence (i.e. I didn't do a bunch and pick out the best - I only did 6), by the new random generator.



You may note that boys can still have makeup. I'm going to go ahead and let that pass...

I'll probably update the beta with a new drop soon (once I clean up a few more things).

Status Update; Plan Changes

Originally, I had intended on completely overhauling the editor interface for a new and unique look that not only changed what you saw, but how you interacted with the various features of an avatar to change them. Those plans have been dropped. Due to time constraints and the already delayed release, I instead decided to leave the editor much as it is now, as seen in the Transitional Beta.



But interface isn't everything. There is still a lot of work to be done under the hood.

So far, all Big N references have been removed. Additionally, the new Flash Player 10 save and load features have been implemented allowing for the editor to save and load avatar files without requiring an interaction with the server (making it easier to use on your own site or when offline). I have taken some time to do some code refactoring, but it's still very messy.

In fact a lot of what's left is cleaning up the mess. When I first started the editor, focus was put entirely on parsing the Mii character binary files as saved on a Wii remote. Providing a preview was an afterthought (and by far, the hardest and most time consuming portion). Since the preview was built around the Mii file parsing, there really isn't much wiggle-room in terms of extending the editor to do more than what's supported by the Wii. And I can't tell you how many times people have requested to add a hat, or a new hair style, or something else that is not Wii Mii-compatible. In order for the editor to be useful outside of editing Miis, that will need to change. And it is on that which I'm currently working.

Oh, and I haven't done anything new with the XML format I proposed earlier. I guess I'll have to work on that too ;)

My Avatar Editor - Transitional Beta

For those of you who haven't already noticed, a transitional beta of My Avatar Editor is now online. This is not what My Avatar Editor will ultimately look like, but its different enough from the Wii's™ Mii™ Channel to get it back on the streets (methinks).



Some of the GUI changes include:

• A change in the color scheme
  
• A change in the button (and other control) styles
• Characteristic buttons (tabs) have been moved to the bottom of the screen
• All characteristic tabs are represented at the bottom rather than having some in sub-tabs (for example face shapes and facial features now are each given their own tab)
  
• Arrows for paging through characteristic variations have been moved to the bottom
• There is no longer an avatar URL

In addition, there were a number of general fixes to the editor. These include changes that would have made it into the original version of the editor but hadn't yet been pushed live before it went offline. These include:

• The character shadow is now correctly behind/below the character's feet
• The eyes on Page 4 Col 1 Row 2 were given the missing eyelashes (the icon preview had them but they were not seen when on the avatar)
• Character names should now end when a null character is reached; this prevents new short names possibly revealing characters from long names used before the short name was set
• Fixed mole size range. It was incorrectly going to 15 (steps) when it should have stopped at 8

This version should also be the last version that will work on Flash Player 9. The next release will target Flash Player 10, currently in beta from Adobe. This will allow a lot of the hacks in the current release to be removed and allow for the updated save and load feature mentioned in a previous post (which supports offline saving and loading). Additionally, the next release should have a new look and feel that is more unique to My Avatar Editor.

There's no telling when this new version will be released, but it will be a while. I'm currently going through a code review now cleaning things up and taking out the aforementioned hacks where necessary. There will be some other architectural changes that could delay this process not to mention the fact that I still have to figure out how to implement Mii™ compatibility within the new feature sets that are to be added. I might provide more detail on that situation at a later time.

Editor Wireframes

So far, there has been no real development done with My Avatar Editor. It's still early and most of the changes being made from Mii Editor are conceptual. I have yet to decide on a layout for the interface. Mii Editor's interface mimicked that of the Nintendo Wii™s Mii™ Channel interface. Afterall, that's the interface people were most familiar with (and the latest update included a step by step control the mouse tutorial on how to create your characters on the Wii, but unfortunately it never made it live).

The My Avatar Editor layout will be different. In fact, I had always planned on making an "enhanced" version of the interface with better control, especially given the precision of the mouse on desktop computers (compared to the Wii™ remote). My Avatar Editor will not be this enhanced version, but rather, a "reimagination" of the classic interface into something less indicative of that used by the Wii™. The goal is to maintain the functionality (as well as eventually add more) but still maintain the compatibility for those who want to create or edit Mii™ characters.

One of my ideas is to have a centralized character with controls to the bottom or side. In fact, unless I think of anything better, this might be what My Avatar Editor will end up looking like.