Creating a Stage
Create a folder named _append in your mod's main directory, then add another folder named data in it.
Create a folder named data in your mod's main directory, then add another folder named stage data in it.
Create a folder named stages in your mod's main directory, then add another folder named images in it.
Add a folder with your stage name into stages/images in your mod. Then put all your assets for the stage in that folder.
Copy-paste the default stage's JSON from [BASE GAME ASSETS]/data/stage data/ and rename to your stage's name (CASE SENSITIVE).
The file will look something like this:
If you want to create new sprites, just add one of these into the objects property in the JSON (make sure to have commas after each one except the one at the end).
{
"position":[0, 0],
"scroll_Factor": [0.9, 0.9],
"scale": 1,
"antialiased": true,
"file_Name": "Sprite_Name",
"is_Animated": false
}The layering of each sprite is determined by where they are in the list of sprites (top means it's behind the rest, bottom means it's in front of the other sprites).
color this is an array [] of the R, G, B color values of the object.
uses_Frame_Width this is a true or false value, that determines if the object uses the frameWidth property for scaling rather than regular width (can be helpful for scaling objects in a big spritesheet).
object_Name this is the name that object uses in a modchart (by default its set to undefinedSprite[INSERT LIST INDEX])
layer this is the layer the object is on, if it is set to foreground it goes above all characters, if it is set to gf it goes above gf, and no one else (v0.5+), otherwise, it's behind them.
alpha this is the transparency value (1 = fully visible, 0 = not visible) of the object. (version 0.4.0+ only!!!)
updateHitbox disables or enables the hitbox from updated when the sprite is scaled (by default is true!!!) (version 0.4.0+ only!!!) (only use if you know what you're doing!!!)
To have a sprite be animated, set it's is_Animated to true.
This is what an animated sprite looks like in JSON:
(Example from VS Noob)
One thing about Animated Sprites, is that if you name an animation beatHit it plays that animation every time the game detects a musical beat being hit (basically whenever the health icons bounce, or character bob their heads).
To get your stage loading in game, you must add a file named stageList.txt to _append's data folder. Then just add a new line containing each stage name for each stage you want in your mod.
An example of one:
