kunderthunt said:
and the more I think about it it would be pretty hot to have the shark snout/muzzle as well
I'm not interested in working on the snout and I don't want you to get your hopes up. It promises to be a big pile of fine-tuned literals, additional drawing layers (which will causes potential conflicts with fancy hairstyles, various clothing mods, and with animtools), and anatomical proxies (for instance: moving the "hinge point" of the jaw, adding stretchable cheeks along the posterior section of the jaw, writing new logic for speech and new geometry for spit, etc).
#1: The work itself promises to be both difficult and tedious.
Little of this work would be directly reusable (e.g. for a catgirl face or ponygirl face or whatever) because the coding would be tightly coupled to the dimensions of the sharkgirl-snout artwork.
#2: The work doesn't usefully expand the SDT modding codebase or offer much to the SDT community.
And, at the end of the day, it would still look silly because the snout isn't physically compatible with deepthroating -- she's going to bonk into his pubis before he hits her tonsils. And we'll need to either remove the teeth (which subtracts from characterization) or cringe whenever her mouth closes around his penis.
#3: The end result probably would probably include visual flaws which would cause the modder to regret the time and effort spent on the project.
The third point is debatable - feel free to post additional reference images which depict a sharkgirl performing fellatio. Or even side-views of a sharkgirl talking, eating, etc in a way that suggests the jaw
ought to be able to comfortably accommodate a penis. I'm willing to be proven wrong on this point.
The second point is relevant for many modders (who try to focus their efforts on popular requests) but you can freely ignore it. If you're really into sharkgirls, and you're willing to spend your own time on the project, then you can ignore the fact that most SDT players would prefer to see anime characters (or movie stars or whatever).
But the first point still stands. The work involved in rigging and animating this thing
will be technically-challenging. Veteran modders can offer technical support but they probably won't be willing to do the work for you (because of point #2). You'll need to learn ActionScript, and then learn the esoterica of SDT modding (there are a few tutorials, but much of it comes from reading through decompiled SWFs and sparsely-documented mod code), and then go
beyond the existing codebase to build something new. Even if you have unlimited free time, this isn't a good way to spend it -- there's a major risk that you'll simply get frustrated and give up.
Note: learning ActionScript is a good thing. But it's better to learn it in the context of a modest "hello world" project which you can actually complete.
kunderthunt said:
and the prehensile tail too
I'm willing to help you with this one. We can setup a simple animation loop in which the tail-base wiggles back and forth. The distal portion of the tail can be rigged as a semi-rigid physics object so that it will mimic the motion of the tail-base in a delayed fashion. If the tail-base wags lazily back and forth then the tail-tip will trace out a sinuous curve; if the tail-base makes harsh or rapid movements then the tail-tip will exaggerate them - flicking or whipsawing back and forth. Because the motion is physics-based it will exhibit chaotic interference -- we can give the tail-base a very simple 1-second animation loop, yet the tail-tip will move unpredictably (which is good, because a repeating pattern attracts the eye and annoys viewers).
Once we have a basic proof-of-concept implementation, I can post some animation samples (and the WIP version of the SWF) and we can decide how to proceed:
- creating a longer or more complex animation pattern (or possibly a set of different animations based on the girl's mood)
- scene composition. We can cause the tail to rest against the floor, or we can allow it to fall through the floor (e.g. because she's kneeling at the edge of a pool and splashing her tail in the water?). Or we can curve the tail-base upwards so that the tailtip tends to hover the in the air behind the girl (or above her head).
- physics tweaks. Experimenting with different levels of mass, ridigity, etc... in order to make the animation more convincing (or more dynamic, or less distracting, etc).
First step: we need
artwork. Find a really good side-view reference of a sharkgirl tail (which has the "correct" set of fins, coloration, scale details, etc). Trace it and then upload your work in or .FLA or .SVG format. Don't worry about getting it to fit and align perfectly with the SDT reference body; I'll take care of that.
I've looked at the source code and I honestly have no idea what the hell I'm looking at. Are the mods written inside SDT or outside in a separate program, any help would be apprecited
Mods are created in Flash. The SDT game (more accurately: Loader.swf) is used to view the results - to determine whether things show up correctly, whether they animate and scale properly, whether your mod is compatible with others, etc...
If you want to create mods then I'd suggest reading the tutorials, especially
this one. It's concerned with clothing, but the same techniques are used for body/skin modding. And you'll need to acquire some general familiarity with the working environment and the drawing tools; the tutorial will help. As an initial project, I'd suggest trying to draw/trace a shark-skin pattern onto one of the reference bodyparts (e.g. the right thigh). Let me know if you're having trouble getting your work to show up in-game.
Once you're comfortable with that, we can move onto more complex stuff - such as adding fins and incorporating them into the game's visual hierarchy, or replacing the feet.
Please don't feel rushed on the "tail" task. I don't expect you to start work on it immediately; spend some time messing around in Flash and drawing/tracing simple stuff. Feel free to post WIP screenshots if you run into trouble or need feedback.
