Alright, can we skip intros? No? Fine.
Howdy there, if you’re here that means that you want to give your stages some shadows the easy way. And since all other tutorials are outdated or too complex to understand. I might as well show you guys my bootleg method of shadow placing that I called “Shadow Rip”.
Pros and cons:
+ Easy
+ Takes Minutes to do
+You can have as many separate shadow models anywhere as you wish per platform, easy for moving around when you have to edit
+ Can easily be reshaped if there’s no need to add sides or curves.
- You are limited to the shape of the shadow you find
- This tutorial won’t show you how to make your own shadow model
- The shadows are disconnected from the platforms, meaning these will have to be animated as well if the platforms are moving (If you know about animations, you can rename the bones accordingly to follow the animation)
Stuff you need:
-> Your custom stage that works to your liking
*For this tutorial I’ll be using this stage:
http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=208213
-> A shadow model, here I’ll offer a “rectangular” model… I’ll mention how you can acquire other shaped shadows or this one if the link ever breaks:
http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=208216
-> A shadow texture, you can find this in any of the brawl files:
-> Brawl Box v0.70- 0.73b (Im gonna use 0.73b, as it’s the best for stage making)
If you got the stuff, let’s move to the good stuff.
1- Ripping your shadow model:
Let’s say your stage is not rectangular or squared, or the link of my shadow model is dead. What now? Well this is the part where you have to dig deep on the vaults, the brawl vaults: foru
Once in, you have to find a custom stage that already has shadows on it, say like this one:
http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=207659
Cookie Country has excellent rectangular shaped shadow models, shaped like the stage I’m about to shadow, which means this stage has a perfect shadow model we can use. (In your case, since you got this from my stage I prefer you not to give me credit for it).
Grab the stage and open it on Brawl Box, search through the files until you find a shadow model:
If you are wondering why I label mine differently, it’s because it helps me classify shadows to find it easier. MShadows are the main platform shadows and PShadows are for platform shadows, but they are all the same, just a different name. What you do now is export it:
Also, export the texture if you don’t have it:
You can name it whatever, but just be sure to update the model information with it. If you don’t know how to do it, keep the name the same. And done, you got your model, now let’s apply it to the stage.
2- Import
Import the model just like you do with any other anywhere on your .pac (but I prefer to place them near the platform models they are connected with, but that is if the models are placed correctly here as they are in game like it occurred in Cookie Country. In my case, the models are not in the same place so I have to use the collisions instead to place them as its more accurate), depending on how many different sized surfaces you have, it’s the amounts of shadow models you need to import, the stage I’m working with has 3 floors, then 3 are required, one main platform and two platforms.
Lets do one at a time:
Again, you can place these any modeldata you like, and the shadow texture too. It’s invisible for now, but that’s because we have to edit some settings. Now, let’s open the model viewer (preview Mshadow by right click and preview or ctrl+P). First off you need to restore its location to normal:
Make sure it’s those exact values. After that, you had successfully put a shadow on your stage.
3- Apply
Exit the viewer and right click the main arc data and select “preview all models”.
When you do, clear all the clutter by clicking multiple times “bones and polygons”, until you have a blank stage, make sure the tiny windows says “all” and the collisions are on (no worries, this will hide it in Brawl Box, it won’t delete or hide it in-game, to revert the effect, do the same until all reappear):
The once in, select your shadow model you gonna edit, activate its polygon, bones and enable the texture, be sure to have the bone selected:
You can see the shadow now! All you gonna do is relocate the shadow just like you would with any other model to be just 1 pixel above the collision. And resize it any way you like to fix the length and the width of the collision!
Save the location in any of the existing CHR (animation files) by pressing copy, selecting the CHR, paste the values, then save.
Done! Your main platform has shadows now! Now just rinse and repeat with the rest of the surfaces.
Be sure to rename the models and bones accordingly.
Go and test in game! While ingame you see that the shadow crops midway when your character jumps, you need to expand the shadows to fully fit the floor, like I did on Cookie country:
I don’t have ingames yet, but that’s because I can't set up dolphin, pictures will be up later!
Have fun!
Oh! Almost forgot, the angle and cast distace your shadow does is dependant on your stage lightning, remember that!
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