Custom Builders: What Do You Customize?

[SmashBroski]

To anyone that has made custom builds, to what degree do you customize Project M?

Do you only replace certain parts of the game (i.e. stages, SFX) or do you customize everything? Do you use the stage expansion pack? Have you restored any vBrawl stages?

If you install skins, do you use skins based on the character (i.e. Shadow Dragon Marth over Marth) or do you go a little extreme and have something such as Hitmonlee over Fox?

Do you include proper CSS, SSS icons, etc.?

I'm simply curious as to see what everyone customizes in their own personal builds. Feel free to share as much as you want!

 

[ShadowGanon]

I pretty much just customize my music due to the fact that I do not have the software or the technical know how to do anything else.

 

[Xermo]

People who compile packs with Patrick Star over Luigi shouldn't exist.

When it comes to P:M at least, costumes are related to the character. Music is the highest priority. Stages are competitive in some way or another, unless I like a particular imbalanced stage and utilize the stage expansion. CSPs are only changed when there's unity between the other portraits, like with SJS's collection of multi-posed costumes.

And most importantly is that I don't put up my pack for download / start a new thread because I'm not a total *****. Not to mention anybody who composes a pack will almost always have the same content, save music, as another pack, because there's only but SO MUCH good content out there.

 

[TheLippyLapras]

I keep everything the way it should be, I'm currently working on my own custom pack and making sure it's unique.

It only uses cBliss, I don't use the SEP because I find it to be wayyyy too buggy and visually unappealing, as in, it doesn't look professional at all.

When it comes to costumes, I have to set a boundary of course, as in what Xermo has said up above, no Patrick Star over Luigi stuff, it's completely unprofessional and should never be used in a publicly released custom build.

For instance, my build is making sure that every character in the game has a Purple costume to fit with Project M's theme, also, when it comes to alternates, I have a bit more of a wider limit than the PMBR; as the build, of course, uses Alternates such as Mega Lucario, Mega Charizard, and Dark Samus. HOWEVER, the costumes also need to be somewhat visually appealing, and not like some really old vertex hack abomination.

As for stages, you have to make sure the stages work well, don't lag, look good, and just feel like a P:M stage. No omega-huge stages like the Halberd one out there.

Music, same thing, try to keep recognizable, enjoyable music that the players will enjoy, not just yourself. You don't want to have an entire Soundtrack filled with Eminem music, because guaranteed someone will get sick of it.

Essentially, keep your pack unique, and not too obscenely customized, keep to original costumes as much as you possibly can, and, if adding alts, make sure they aren't ridiculous: (Like Spongebob over Lucas).

If your pack is unique, fun, and not too alienated, then people will enjoy it! And the more who download, the more that will play, from then on, there's nowhere to go but up!

If you want somewhat of an example on how to manage it correctly, here's an early look at what I have in progress.

http://smashboards.com/threads/help-with-my-custom-build.352798/

 

[Sandfall]

My personal build is vastly different from all of the other builds out there. I don't play competitively (and neither do my friends), so I could care less about whether or not a stage is competitive I really only care if it's fun in four player matches. My friends and I dislike most competitive stages because we find them extremely boring. For me, randomness is a plus, so I reverted many Project M Stages back to their vBrawl equivalents and restored ones that were cut entirely (like Spear Pillar). I also use the stage expansion template to completely fill my build with stages from the Vault that wouldn't make it into any other build (like Planet Namek or Tetris). I've made minor edits to many of those stages so that they play better. I even make my own stages for my build (many of which I haven't posted onto the Vault yet).

My music selection is pretty different too. My taste in music is... not the same as those who made some of the more popular custom builds, so I decided to approach it differently. My rule is that the music MUST be from a video game (preferably one the stage is based upon). I do make exceptions for games that have no representation though (such as Xenoblade).

As for the costumes, they are pretty similar to other builds. In fact, I mostly took them from other builds! I did find some random fun-looking ones from the vault, and made a CSP or two when the costume didn't have one. My only rule here is to make them relevant to the character (i.e. no Master Chief over Snake).

Overall, the goal of my build is to follow Sakurai's original goal for Smash: to be an extremely fun party game. This includes the randomness and the craziness that made me love the series in the first place. While there are plenty of competitive options available, if I made competitiveness the sole focus of my build, It would be just like any other build out there. I'm still making stages for it, but my build is pretty much done. I put way too much time into this build, so I'll probably be releasing it at some point in the future so that casual smashers can get a fun build too!

 

[Smash John]

my build has a 12 stage expansion, cbliss to give characters 9 costumes each (10 costumes each ended up being fairly buggy for many characters), and custom music over every song for first page stages. as sandfall said, songs are all video game music, but i tried to not have more than one song from a game on the same stage just to add more variety to each stage.
my textures are fairly tame as to not screw with hitboxes too much, so model replacements are used sparingly. the most extreme one i have is probably black shadow over ganondorf

 

[210stuna]

-Music (Uniform ingame song title and My Music title)

-Stage Expansion (Balances vBrawl stages + Balanced Melee + Smash 64)
All stages include uniform icons and previews with correct titles

-Mix of Vibrant/Smash 3 textures (All uniform to include CSPs and BPs)

-Also includes a custom Character Selection Screen with the new character models

-Smash 3 HUD

-Melee SFXs (on select characters)

-Custom loading screen

 

[Patt Anderson]

People who compile packs with Patrick Star over Luigi shouldn't exist.

When it comes to P:M at least, costumes are related to the character. Music is the highest priority. Stages are competitive in some way or another, unless I like a particular imbalanced stage and utilize the stage expansion. CSPs are only changed when there's unity between the other portraits, like with SJS's collection of multi-posed costumes.

And most importantly is that I don't put up my pack for download / start a new thread because I'm not a total *****. Not to mention anybody who composes a pack will almost always have the same content, save music, as another pack, because there's only but SO MUCH good content out there.

Tickle me offended.

 

[WinterKirby]

In short, anything I am capable of. That would be music, skins, stages, and the usual. What's setting off my pack from the rest, however, is my use of a red menu, which I haven't seen in any other build.

While it's great to have a conservative building style, Patrick Star over Luigi and the like are acceptable in casual builds. Patt's build, while obviously not designed for tourney play, is great when playing with friends who just want to have fun.

 

[Sol0ke]

I didn't change anything atm since my buddies aren't that interested in playing Smash with me, but I used to have custom music and a character texture.

 

[Xenozoa425]

Right now I just use vanilla 3.02 since I'm not very active lately, but I would normally add tons of textures, SJS portraits, stages, and music.

 

[8B-dindinmaster]

Most of the work that I put in goes to music, with matching song titles (in-game and in my music menu). I've got SJS's CSP's, BP's, and RSP's. And I have a custom logo in my CSS. I'm OK with putting in custom stage textures for the competitive stages but only if they're high quality and don't affect gameplay, although I don't have any right now. I stay away from anything more than that because I don't want to give anybody reasons to john.

 

[Lakitwo]

I'm fairly active in my local competitive scene, so I try to keep my build tourny friendly. I never replace character costumes. I always add more costume slots with Mewtwo2000's cBliss tool. My alt costume rules are a little more lenient than the PMBR's, but still not crazy. I have things like Louie on Olimar, Mega Charizard X/Y, Mega Mewtwo X/Y, ect...

I completely change the second page of stages however I want (since no one plays those at tournies), but the first page is relatively unchanged. The one thing on the first page that is changed is that I replaced WarioWare with Mewtwo2000's Temple of Time, since it plays exactly the same, but looks a trillion times better. The stages I change all have matching menu stuff.

I use SJS's CSPs for the most part, but I always make sure that while all palette swaps share the same pose, all alt costumes have a different pose, just like Vanilla Project M.

Music wise, I only replace stage music with music from the same series. Menu music is a little more lenient. I replace that with songs that I think fit a menu. I have a few non-video game songs on stages, but only on Final Destination and Battlefield.

 

[Amazerommu]

To anyone that has made custom builds, to what degree do you customize Project M?

All

 

[Juken]

I've made a big build that I share with my friends. It started out as a thing I wanted to do where I combined Theytah's build with a 78 stage build, but then I ended up doing that and adding some other cool maps, replacing some really silly skins from his build, and adding some cool sound mods like Bowser's and Diddy/Donkey Kong's actual voices, and Sonic Unleashed voice. As for skins, I tried to make them into cool recolors, or other versions of a character, or just another character from the same (or another character in the game's) series who's similar to the character.

Also added a ton of custom music, with some borrowed from the respectable builds. I've pretty much completed it now, and it's tons of fun to just have all these cool stuff. I also made it into an ISO so that I could netplay with my buddies who I share it with. I'm probably gonna start adding a few extra characters if I can find a moveset PSA for someone like Shadow or Waluigi or Greninja that is made for Project M physics.

Edit: Speaking of PSAs for Project M, there apparently is a new Shadow one:
http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=35674

How easy would it be to get this into non-Riivolution?

 

[Mewtwo_2000]

I got different cards with Project M. My most customized one is the one I use for the developers build of the game, where I got the stage expansion with all my stages, released or not. I'm filling my character roster with rim lighting versions of the original characters, with some exceptions like Melee Ganondorf or Mewtwo. I got custom music that my brother put together years ago, and I've only been changing some to fit with the stages I'm using in video showcases. I'm expanding all the characters I got in my game to 10 or more, even though I've not filled many of the spaces yet and they're just the standard costume. Apart from the stage expansion, I'm using the ASL code, so my stages show different versions of the same thing depending on the buttons pressed.
There's another card with PM 3.02, which was originally the vanilla build, but I've been placing custom wifi-safe stages in there. I've also played with some people online and included some custom stages or even character PSAs for when I play with them. Their choices, not mine, I'm just getting what they use. Also expanding characters on this one, though I don't use the extra ones in wifi for obvious reasons (they'd freeze for my opponent).
And there's another card with the vanilla PM 3.02. Nothing custom.

Also, I'm using USB Loader CFG to load the game from an iso, and that iso has all the extra costumes, characters and stages that may freeze the game if I extracted the SD card and forgot to put it back. There's also a modified brsar in my iso that makes the game play melee sounds (hits, slashes and all that) instead of the vBrawl ones.