Neopets Wardrobe Generator v2! (500 pets!)
Posted: 07 Jun 2009 05:51 am
A lot of work, a lot of hashing, a lot of screwing around, and a lot of patience from a dear friend have brought you the wardrobe generator v2. The new version should not only be far easier than the old to update and maintain, it uses the raw files off the Neopets servers, which should alleviate (if not solve) the hosting issues that plagued v1.
If the update details would have you tl;dr'ing, v2 can be found at syntactictariff.net23.net. Warning: Nearly all the images are broken/missing at the moment, for reasons explained below. Play with the Desert Kacheek for now, or help add some more.
What's changed
The major point is that instead of using pngs saved locally (i.e., on my server), v2 uses zone images directly off the Neopets servers. Basically, the change allows me not only to escape the issues that a lot of you had problems with in v1, but also implement redraws and find and add clothing much, much more easily.
[*]Since swfs are resizable, it will be possible to add options to view pets at the dimensions of lookups, sidebars, or userlookups (though as noted above, the smaller sizes will not be exact.)
[*]v2, unlike v1, is totally extendable - it keeps track of its data in ways that can easily be added to, accessed, and used for new features, in ways that v1 would cause migranes over. The reason I'm going ahead and putting this up with practically all the images missing is that, well, I can add them about a hundred times more easily than I could last time. Basically, you'll be seeing a lot more updates.[/list]
To do
Grabbing URLs off Neopets is, as I mentioned, a tad more difficult than getting at their compressed images. The first step is to add a web inspector to your browser (you'll only have to do this once, and you can get rid of it afterward if you so choose). For Firefox, get the Firebug add-on (I assume you know how), and you'll get a bug icon in your status bar; for Safari, open Preferences, go to the Advanced pane, and check the box labeled "Show Develop menu in title bar". IE, as of 8, has 'Developer Tools', but I don't currently know if this includes resource tracking.
Once you've got your inspector, clear or disable your cache and head to Neopets' customizer, the NC Mall, or any pet's lookup. While that's loading, if you have Firebug, click the bug icon; you'll get a menu at the bottom of your screen. Find the tab that says 'Net' and click it (you may need to enable it - it's pretty clear) and click 'Flash'. If you're using Safari's Develop menu, click on 'Show Web Inspector' and click on the 'Resources' panel (the flash files are at the very bottom). From here, you'll be able to find the URLs of the pet and clothing images being loaded in the customizer (or mall preview, or lookup). Load up whichever pet you choose and, if it's yours, have it wear all the clothing you've got - it doesn't matter if it's all at once or one after another or what.
Pet URLs take the form of something like "images.neopets.com/cp/bio/swf/000/000/0xx/xxxxx_xxxxxxxxxx.swf"; clothing URLs are "images.neopets.com/cp/items/swf/000/000/0xx/xxxxx_xxxxxxxxxx.swf". Tada! Once you've got those, post them here (mentioning the species of the pet and/or the name of the clothing item), and I'll add them to the generator in due haste.
New: You can now put pets into the generator yourself! PM me if you'd like to help. (I recently cleaned up the pet storage, so this is easier than ever.)
Have fun, and as always, feel free to question/comment/criticize/whatever.
[Go >]
If the update details would have you tl;dr'ing, v2 can be found at syntactictariff.net23.net. Warning: Nearly all the images are broken/missing at the moment, for reasons explained below. Play with the Desert Kacheek for now, or help add some more.
What's changed
The major point is that instead of using pngs saved locally (i.e., on my server), v2 uses zone images directly off the Neopets servers. Basically, the change allows me not only to escape the issues that a lot of you had problems with in v1, but also implement redraws and find and add clothing much, much more easily.
- - Cons:
- Swfs - that is, flash files (which are Neopets' chosen filetype) are larger and as such load more slowly than pngs.
- Overlaid swfs don't look exactly the same as the compressed images Neopets uses around the site - pet lookups are the same, but images in the sidebar and on userlookups may appear significantly blurrier.
- The raw swfs on Neopets' servers are somewhat harder to get at than their compressed images. (This is why most of the pets are currently missing - instructions on how to help remedy this below.)
- Pros: - Neopets' swfs load faster than anything saved to my server would.
- The images on the Neopets servers are of single zones only - that is, of just the pet's hindquarters or just their head, as opposed to v1's image of the whole pet. This means that: [list]
- items that make parts of a pet's body disappear (such as many wings, for winged pets) can be safely handled
- and redraw colors (where parts of the pet's body vary in shape) can use the same clothing images as the rest of the colors without causing trouble.
[*]Since swfs are resizable, it will be possible to add options to view pets at the dimensions of lookups, sidebars, or userlookups (though as noted above, the smaller sizes will not be exact.)
[*]v2, unlike v1, is totally extendable - it keeps track of its data in ways that can easily be added to, accessed, and used for new features, in ways that v1 would cause migranes over. The reason I'm going ahead and putting this up with practically all the images missing is that, well, I can add them about a hundred times more easily than I could last time. Basically, you'll be seeing a lot more updates.[/list]
To do
- Migrate backgrounds &c to the swf architecture - they're still saved locally at the moment - completed
- Sort clothing by zone - completed
- Applied items in bold - completed
- Add unconversion option - completed
- Multi-layer item display - completed
- Make clothing storage less sucky
- Support for redraw-only clothes
- Add zone exclusivity, or at least a warning if more than one item is occupying a single zone (above updates make this fairly clear; still necessary?)
- Add that scale option (?)
Grabbing URLs off Neopets is, as I mentioned, a tad more difficult than getting at their compressed images. The first step is to add a web inspector to your browser (you'll only have to do this once, and you can get rid of it afterward if you so choose). For Firefox, get the Firebug add-on (I assume you know how), and you'll get a bug icon in your status bar; for Safari, open Preferences, go to the Advanced pane, and check the box labeled "Show Develop menu in title bar". IE, as of 8, has 'Developer Tools', but I don't currently know if this includes resource tracking.
Once you've got your inspector, clear or disable your cache and head to Neopets' customizer, the NC Mall, or any pet's lookup. While that's loading, if you have Firebug, click the bug icon; you'll get a menu at the bottom of your screen. Find the tab that says 'Net' and click it (you may need to enable it - it's pretty clear) and click 'Flash'. If you're using Safari's Develop menu, click on 'Show Web Inspector' and click on the 'Resources' panel (the flash files are at the very bottom). From here, you'll be able to find the URLs of the pet and clothing images being loaded in the customizer (or mall preview, or lookup). Load up whichever pet you choose and, if it's yours, have it wear all the clothing you've got - it doesn't matter if it's all at once or one after another or what.
Pet URLs take the form of something like "images.neopets.com/cp/bio/swf/000/000/0xx/xxxxx_xxxxxxxxxx.swf"; clothing URLs are "images.neopets.com/cp/items/swf/000/000/0xx/xxxxx_xxxxxxxxxx.swf". Tada! Once you've got those, post them here (mentioning the species of the pet and/or the name of the clothing item), and I'll add them to the generator in due haste.
New: You can now put pets into the generator yourself! PM me if you'd like to help. (I recently cleaned up the pet storage, so this is easier than ever.)
Have fun, and as always, feel free to question/comment/criticize/whatever.
[Go >]