I don’t get it… What would be benefit of having less keys? The way it is you can easily manage any character.
Well, I find it difficult to remember the key mapping for all 25 characters. Of course, it is possible to check with a simple alt+tab, but I find it less “classy”. I understand your position too, maybe is there a way to propose both solutions in the tool ?
Since it is already possible to clear all key mappings, adding two key mappings (cycle through characters + cycle through costumes of selected character) could allow the user to choose between the two solutions, or even use both ([cycling through characters + cycling through costumes] AND/OR [directly cycling through costumes for a given character]). However, I have no idea if this idea is easy to implement and I don’t even know if such a functionality could interest people…
It is an interesting idea. I had already thought about it when developing the first prototype, but then I came to the conclusion that having two character cycle keys would be a worse setup than having the 25 keys, because (1) you won’t use all 25 chars most of the times, but just a reduced portion of the roster, and (2), because if you use Abel and Sakura (ordered alphabetically, and you have to cycle all the way from one to the other, you’ll end up just picking a char in between 
I can’t honestly see any advantage other than the not having to remember, but people tend to have favorite chars, and I think it’s just a matter of time until you get used to the key setup;)
Hm… I see…
Did you noticed the pattern? It really helps if you understand it. Each row of keys correspond to a row of characters going respectively from the top to the bottom. If it doesn’t help, then you really have a point, but it sounds like a really hardwork to cycle all characters with just one key and then cycle costumes. My point is - your opinion sounds right but your suggestion doesn’t seem a good option. Let’s think about it together!
I made a reference shortcut map for the default keys to give people an idea of the pattern used in the program. I know it isn’t good at all (now you guys know why I don’t do mods), but i think it will help until a more skilled friend from the forums design a better map.
Here it is.
Great work, gore;) But I’ve got to remind you that with the new key grabbing system, I had to change the layout just a bit, because I cannot have the Tab key grabbed, so, I pushed Seth to Q, and the QWER became WERT. All of these are now hit with Ctrl pressed, in order to minimize actual game key interference.
Oh crap… What if I had tested the new release before making that… hehe
Can you close the program without errors now? Because I still get an error message when I quit.
Hi again!
Yesterday I tested the 0.4a version and it worked flawlessly (not even a problem when closing the program). A real good work there!
For the key mappings part, I didn’t realise that there was a pattern! So thank you to let me notice. I changed it to my convenience, something like that : my mapping (no, my keyboard is not such an antiquity :p)
Concerning my proposition, I now agree with you that with a proper mapping, keys to cycle through characters may be overkill. So let’s forget about that 
However, after importing manually around 30 costumes, I was thinking about something else : could’nt it be possible to have a “fast costume import” functionality? By that I mean just providing to the tool a directory containing in each subdirectory a different costume (color (s)+ costume if needed), then the tool would automatically create the appropriate costumes with the label corresponding to the name of the subdirectory. That way, the import part would be much easier, I guess. Of course, this is just a proposition, I am not forcing anything
Anyway, thanks again for your great tool, Leogansky!
Can you please post me that error message? I cannot seem to replicate that bug…
Glad to hear it;) What’s you system’s specs, by the way? OS? 32/64 bit? RAM?
Hmmmm, it’s another great alternative layout;) Tell me something, doesn’t Ctrl-B conflict with the in-game back key (B)?
Deal;) On to other improvements;)
Hmmmmm, that’s a tricky one, because it would require you to name the files properly (at least the VFX ones, because I cannot find any relevant file info inside the VFX file, like I do for color (col.emz) and costume (cos.emz) files), and positioning them into tidy subdirs.
So, instead of having all the work inside SF4CMM, you would have it outside the tool, in the file system, and with a major drawback: the tool guides you on how to properly import the files, the file system doesn’t.
I’m still not convinced that this is a good solution, because a costume can depend on up to three files, so you can’t just point the tool to a dir that contains everything and expect it to import everything automatically.
What you can do is to backup your Chara dir after you did the SF4CMM importing. That way, even if you format your PC, you just have to paste the Chara dir over the original one and it’s all good;)
The bulk import feature is a nice idea, but I still don’t know a good and practical way of doing it without forcing people to have the costumes in a predefined format that I control. Any ideas on this will be welcomed;)
You’re welcome;) Thank you for using it and for the feedback;)
Today, since the dreadful memory leakage seams to be gone for good, I’m going to select a few improvements that you guys have been suggesting, and I’m goind to implement them. I’ll have a list for you posted here shortly;)
Here are my system specs :
Windows XP SP3 32 bits
C2D E8500
2 Gb PC8500 RAM
Radeon 4870 (1Gb RAM)
Shame on me, but Seth is the only character I still have to unlock :D. But on a previous mapping test, I used Ctrl-B to validate the costume and it didn’t conflict with the ingame back key.
To be honest, I am not acquainted with the vfx files, for now I have just imported colors or costume+color pairs. I saw that a vfx config button appeared in the SF4CMM menu, but I still don’t know what it’s for…
If you explain me how the vfx files work, maybe I can come up with an idea. For the costume and color associations (with no vfx), a solution could be to place in each subdirectory only one costume and its associated colors. If a single vfx file can be used for different costume colors (this is just an assumption), then maybe duplicating the vfx file into each directory needing it could do the trick. Unless there could be more than one vfx for a single costume color?
Anyway, thanks again!
PS : I was wondering, what happens if I press the Abel costume cycling button, then the Blanka cycling button, then the costume selection button? Is there going to be a costume change for both characters? Or just for Blanka?
Great;) Another satisfied XP user:P
Check this one out: http://hornyyoshi.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Hadou-Pack-130967527
VFX files are, from what I understand, Visual Effects Files, that control the way Ryu’s fireball look, for example. This Dark Hadou pack makes use of this feature. When I saw this, I added preliminary support (because I don’t know the VFX format that well, still) to VFX files, and they seem to work just like costume (.cos.emz) files, only the VFX file is global to each character. Normal or Alternate costumes, and whatever color, they all share the same VFX file.
So, in SF4CMM, a costume mod is now composed of three entities:
- color file (.col.emz) - mandatory, the most important one
- costume file (.cos.emz) - optional
- vfx file (.vfx.emz) - optional
Nope, just the last one, Blanka;)
If I understand correctly, a VFX is not directly connected to a costume (something more like fireballs etc) but you would like to “include” it in a costume, that is to say to change the visual effects when you load a costume. Am I right?
If so, I can imagine a solution for the auto import thingy:
- SF4CMM automatically creates a “costumes” directory somewhere (maybe a child to the SF4CMM directory) with 25 subdirectories corresponding to the different characters
- in each character directory, a subdirectory = X costumes (where X=number of colors) with the following scheme
If there is a VFX directory, then the fast import could use it (or not, depending on a start option, something like “use vfx when possible”)
The only thing the users would have to do then is to put their costumes and corresponding colors (often downloaded in the same zip file) in a (correctly named) subdirectory of the appropriate character, with a VFX directory if they want different visual effects for the costume…
With such a solution, I think the program would have everything needed to create automatically all costumes: with my example, it could generate two “costumes” corresponding to the two .col.emz files, named “Urien_costume_1” and “Urien_costume_2” after the subdirectory name, with or without the visual effects, according to the “use vfx when possible” option selection state at the beginning.
On a completely different subject, I had some difficulties with the 3 characters Bison/Balrog/Vega, whose names are switched according to the place where you live. Maybe naming them Boxer/Claw/Dictator in the tool could help?
hello
I downloaded 0.3 and it worked fine with the same bugs as others reported: it worked, but after some minutes it stopped working. It was not a problem, I changed the costumes as I wanted and from then on I went on using the normal game.
Now I just downloaded the 0.4a version and I get an .NET Framework error in an XML document.
See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.
************** Exception Text **************
System.InvalidOperationException: There is an error in XML document (7, 8). —> System.InvalidOperationException: Instance validation error: ‘Oemplus’ is not a valid value for Shortcut.
at Microsoft.Xml.Serialization.GeneratedAssembly.XmlSerializationReaderConfigFile.Read1_Shortcut(String s)
at Microsoft.Xml.Serialization.GeneratedAssembly.XmlSerializationReaderConfigFile.Read3_htHelper(Boolean isNullable, Boolean checkType)
at Microsoft.Xml.Serialization.GeneratedAssembly.XmlSerializationReaderConfigFile.Read4_ConfigFile(Boolean isNullable, Boolean checkType)
at Microsoft.Xml.Serialization.GeneratedAssembly.XmlSerializationReaderConfigFile.Read5_ConfigFile()
— End of inner exception stack trace —
at System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer.Deserialize(XmlReader xmlReader, String encodingStyle, XmlDeserializationEvents events)
at System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer.Deserialize(TextReader textReader)
at SFIV_Costume_Mod_Manager.Code.Helpers.Constants.loadSettingsFromConfigFile()
at SFIV_Costume_Mod_Manager.FrmMain.FrmMain_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)
************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3074 (QFE.050727-3000)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework64/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll
SFIV Costume Mod Manager
Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/Giochi/CAPCOM/STREETFIGHTERIV/SFIV%20Costume%20Mod%20Manager.exe
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
System
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
System.Xml
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3074 (QFE.050727-3000)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
System.Configuration
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll
99antfmc
Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.3053 (netfxsp.050727-3000)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.
For example:
<configuration>
<system.windows.forms jitDebugging=“true” />
</configuration>
When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.
Thiese are the error details.
It says “There is an error in XML document (7, 8)” and I can choose to continue. If I do, and I choose the directory for the game, I get the same error again and I can’t click anything but “about” and “browse”.
My OS is windows vista business 64bit, is it the first report of this case?
OK, PROBLEM SOLVED
Had the old .cfg from 0.3 in the directory. Deleted it and… tadah, it works.
Sorry for the nuisance! Hope it helped
Where to d/l costume file ?
Hi can anyone tell me where to download the costume ?
Glad it’s working now;) It’s true, and I forgot, the config files are not compatible between 0.4a and the previous ones. I’ll update that info in the FAQ. Thank you very much for your info;)
Going to have lunch now, but before I go, here’s what I already did for the next version:
1 - improvement: remove a color/costume/vfx and the previous list item is now selected instead of selecting the first item on the list.
2 - improvement: tried to improve character name pronunciation with the voice synthesizer
3 - improvement: skip costume announcement - now you don’t have to wait for the announcer to end what he is saying in order to select the next costume
4 - improvement: added suffixes Boxer/Claw/Dictator to Balrog/Vega/M. Bison, so they won’t be confused when using SF4CMM with the alternate Japanese version
5 - improvement: double click for bigger size preview picture
And here is what I expect to do until the end of the day:
6 - Edit button (edit costume, edit vfx, edit color)
7 - Restore original costumes (per character and globally)
8 - Select original costume key
9 - Voice check button (in order to hear what our costume description will sound like)
10 - Assigning costumes to Alternate costume slot (in order to enable a vs battle between two costume mods with the same character)
11 - Normal/Alternate costume selection key (replicate the functionality of the Alternate Costume Toggler from RanShak - GameVixenZone, in order to give voice synth sound feedback to the user)
As for the bulk import, I think I’ll keep that one as a TODO for the next version, as it requires deeper thinking;)
Wow, you’re the man! :rock::tup:
Thanks man