Caveblazers

Caveblazers

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Custom Hats for Dummies
By Taake
With 1.5.0 you can make custom hats and add them to the game. This guide shows you how!
   
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Important! Show File Extensions!
The most common reason hats don't work is incorrect file names due to Windows hiding file extensions by default.
  • Open Windows Search (press the Windows key) and enter "Folder Options" without quotes and press Enter
  • Go to the View tab.
  • Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types
  • Click OK



To verify it's working, create a new text document (right click on folder background, select new and text document). If it's called New Text Document.txt, it's working. If it's just New Text Document without the .txt, repeat the steps above.

Left side with extension shown (you want this), right side with extension hidden.
Create the Hat Folder
All your custom hats need to be placed in separate folders in
Steam/steamapps/common/Caveblazers/Custom/Hats/

Navigate to this directory and create a new folder.




You can name this folder anything you like. It's just for you to remember what hat you put in there.
Create the Configuration File
Open the folder you just created. For this guide I named the folder "My Hat". Create a text document by right-clicking on the folder background, selecting New and Text Document. Select all the text, including the .txt ending and rename it to
hat.ini



If you did everything correctly, you'll receive a warning message, if not, you need to enable file extensions (see beginning of the guide).

Confirm by clicking yes.
Edit the Configuration File
Open the hat.ini file with Notepad. (type Notepad in Windows search)

Add the lines
[NAME] English_GB="My Hat" [HAIR] suppress=0


[NAME]
In this section you can add an in-game name for your hat that will be displayed in the outfitter. You can also add different translations by adding the respective lines as shown in the screenshot.
This hat would be called My Hat in English, Mon Chapeau in French and Mein Hut in German.

If you do not specify a name for the language you play the game in, the hat will show as "Custom Hat #", e.g. Custom Hat 1.
The ini file in the screenshot above will give the hat a proper name in English, German and French. It will show up as Custom Hat 1 in all other languages.

Available languages are:
English_GB
German_DE
French_FR
Japanese_JA
Russian_RU
Spanish_ES
Chinese_S_ZH
Chinese_T_ZH

For custom languages that are not on the list, the name has to match the one in the languages.ini file. If you don't use a custom language this does not concern you.

[HAIR]
The suppress tag determines how the hat affects the hair under the hat. You have modes 0-4
0 = no suppression -> hat will not affect hair
1 = small suppression -> massive will become long, big ponytail will become ponytail
2 = short hair -> everything will become short hair except tapered & mohawk
3 = remove all hair and beard
4 = double suppress ->
  • massive becomes long
  • big ponytail becomes ponytail
  • afro becomes flop
  • pompadour becomes flop
  • up becomes short
  • gothic becomes curly
  • bun becomes short
  • mop top becomes flop
  • quiff becomes flop

Save the file.
Create the Hat Sprite
In the Caveblazers/Custom/Hats folder, you find a template.png. Copy this file to your hat folder.


Go inside your hat folder and rename the template.png to
hat.png



Design Your Hat
Now for the fun part. Open the hat.png with an image editor of your choice. The image you see is split in three 16x16 frames:
1st frame = facing forward - when your character is running or standing still
2nd frame = facing back - when entering doors
3rd frame = facing down - when downward stabbing
The 'floating' heads are the position of the head in-game, so draw your hat over/around them.


Caveblazers uses the db32 color palette, which you can find here for Aseprite, GIMP and Photoshop.
http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16247

You're not limited to these colors, but you should use them, if you want your hat to fit in with the rest of the game.
Alpha channels (transparency) are also supported.

Example
A simple red helmet with a green visor that is 50% opaque.

Editor view


In-game view


Download link for the example helmet:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wg1KQt3HNApzK9WIZpoiG0FM_LqZZ4gy
If you found this guide helpful, please rate it so it becomes more visible to others. Thanks!

9 Comments
Taake  [author] 7 Jul, 2021 @ 10:58pm 
Then your hat.ini doesn't have a name entry for the language you're playing the game in. For English you need English_GB = "DP Gold" under [Name]. For French you would need French_FR = "DP Gold". The other languages are listed in the "Edit the Configuration File" section.
Ballistic 7 Jul, 2021 @ 10:43pm 
My hat shows up as Custom Hat 1 even tho it's named DP Gold
YEE 3 Jun, 2021 @ 1:01pm 
@Hèmkadey
Use Paint 3D, it's an upgrade to paint built-in with Windows
zul33 9 Dec, 2020 @ 3:34am 
Thank you :) nice explanation
A Trippy Ninja 8 Sep, 2020 @ 2:29pm 
oh wow had no idea about this thanks to you ill be able to play as mario and megaman. I appreciate it! :)
Hemkadey 13 Apr, 2020 @ 1:33pm 
Thanks a lot
Taake  [author] 12 Apr, 2020 @ 4:42pm 
I don't think you can create transparent images with MS Paint. Use another program like Paint.NET or GIMP.
Hemkadey 12 Apr, 2020 @ 4:30pm 
Hi ! Thanks a lot for your help with this tutoriel
It still juste one problem; the background of my hat is not transparent, so i have a big white square around my hat
I work with Paint, do you have any tricks to me ?
Thanks
(sorry for my terrible english)
Linux Felon 18 Dec, 2019 @ 3:29am 
Awesome! Thank you so much!