f9account

Engaged Member
Mar 20, 2020
2,318
2,118
UndertaleModTool definitely allows you to do all of that easily, although there are two minor asterisks:

1) If you have the original game, UMT will crash when you try to open it, you need a special patched version of the data.win to make it work. I don't remember where it was first shared but I think it was around pages 50-60 of this thread by user jerglekakan. Alternatively, all the mods in the thread are based on the patched version, so you could simply start from a modded data.win from one of the various mods here that will also work. Be aware in general it is hard to extract the changes from a data.win and merge with another one, so choose carefully the one you decide to start with, and try to always keep track of the changes you have rather than just rely on the data.win file. For example, sprites can be kept on disk and batch imported all at once in UMT, so if you keep track of your images in a folder, then that can easily be merged with other mods.

2) Editing sprites/backgrounds is definitely straightforward, but audio might be more complicated, it is possible nevertheless, you can ping me if you get crashes.
Sounds like it'd be easier to just make a fresh sidescroller than to modify this one.
 

JoeTermin

Member
Dec 24, 2017
260
1,244
Not to sound rude, but most of the fan made stuff looks kinda bad... Justman's fanmade project's sprites as well...

The main thing that makes this game stand out is the quality of hand drawn animation, which no other games of this genre has seen. If you cannot draw, let alone create animation loops, your art is not going to look good.

I am interested in trying to create some quality animation loops myself potentially to have them added to the game using the undertale mod. Would anyone at all be interested in sponsoring this animated sprites? Creating somethimg like this is time consuming, so ideally, I wouldn't want to be doing this just for fun, even though I kinda want to...

I have almost no experience with hand drawn 2D animation, but think I could pull off something similiar to the quality of the OG game.

I'd post a sketch of the animation loop before bringing up any compensation to see if it's even good enough to develop any further or not.
If you manage to draw decent sprites then I can offer to add them and write code in the game for you, at least. Sponsoring is not entirely out of the question but you will have to share some seriously good art first, keep in mind all modders in this thread do that as a hobby and get 0$ in return, so it is very unlikely that anybody would be willing to pay something, let alone pay something fair. Animations of this style are typically worth several hundreds $ per animation which I doubt anybody would offer.

The good news is that if you become able to replicate PIC's artstyle, then you will probably be able to live of your art anyway because this kind of artists are very rare. It seems like you're just starting though, so probably better to keep your hopes low. If I can give you one tip, I think nowadays artists don't draw that kind of animations by hand, they first render it in a 3d software like Blender, then pixelize it and manually edit it. Also forget about AI, it is both bad at replicating someone else's pixel art, and bad at animating it.
 
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JoeTermin

Member
Dec 24, 2017
260
1,244
Sounds like it'd be easier to just make a fresh sidescroller than to modify this one.
Not sure where you got that impression. This game is easy to mod by most standards and is a good way to start. Download UMT, open any modded version of PIC, and import your sprite, that's it. Several people have made mods here adding new sprites. I shared a wave zombie mod with new weapon and sounds about 20 pages earlier.
 

f9account

Engaged Member
Mar 20, 2020
2,318
2,118
Not sure where you got that impression. This game is easy to mod by most standards and is a good way to start. Download UMT, open any modded version of PIC, and import your sprite, that's it. Several people have made mods here adding new sprites. I shared a wave zombie mod with new weapon and sounds about 20 pages earlier.
Thanks for that. But changing the backgrounds and SFX sound hard?
 

Gear Is Solid

Newbie
Jan 24, 2022
18
80
Thanks for that. But changing the backgrounds and SFX sound hard?
It’s really not. The backgrounds are in the sprite sheets, so you just need to export the sheets that contain the backgrounds you wanna edit, work on the extracted PNG file then reimport it back all with UMT. Same thing with the SFX too: extract, edit then reimport, or maybe just import directly without extracting if you already have something to replace it.

Now except if you’re looking to actually add things and not just change already existing stuff, then you might need to modify the code a bit (not really hard but that might scare beginners)
 
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_nlm_

New Member
May 11, 2025
3
18
If you manage to draw decent sprites then I can offer to add them and write code in the game for you, at least. Sponsoring is not entirely out of the question but you will have to share some seriously good art first, keep in mind all modders in this thread do that as a hobby and get 0$ in return, so it is very unlikely that anybody would be willing to pay something, let alone pay something fair. Animations of this style are typically worth several hundreds $ per animation which I doubt anybody would offer.

The good news is that if you become able to replicate PIC's artstyle, then you will probably be able to live of your art anyway because this kind of artists are very rare. It seems like you're just starting though, so probably better to keep your hopes low. If I can give you one tip, I think nowadays artists don't draw that kind of animations by hand, they first render it in a 3d software like Blender, then pixelize it and manually edit it. Also forget about AI, it is both bad at replicating someone else's pixel art, and bad at animating it.
I want to give it a go.

I am not on the level of PIC's artwork, but reckon it is not impossible to create a few animation loops at the game's level of quality with the right setup and enough time.

I already tried setting up references in Poser and can export them into blender to get accurate lighting and shadows (I suspect Pixel Factory did something similiar with a 3D editor, as you pointed out, as their shadows are on point).

Once happy with the animation loop in 3D I will redraw the frames in Photoshop. The 3D models will serve as references, but, obviously, clothes, hair and other bits will be drawn from scratch. I've used this method before for digital art with results that would probably be decent enough for the low res sprites.

The most challenging bit will be the animation itself... A single animation loop in PIC is 4 frames, so it's not too massive of a commitment, but is going to take time and effort. I was thinking of trying a couple of animation loops but let's see how things go...


I have no interest in doing something like this professionally, just wanted to see what else can be accomplished with this animation style / method in a side scroller.

Regarding compensation, I was not expecting hundreds of $, just wondering whether anyone would offer amything, as from experience, doing this properly takes me ages... But I am OK with just trying it on my own. Will not be feeling any pressure from outside this way.

Here's a link to my old other Pixiv account. I haven't posted there in ages and ther's not much o there, but will give a rough general idea...







I was not planning on using AI for this, as I've never gotten round to learning the tools and just want to draw it all myself. It may actually be very beneficial if done properly and enable single perso projects of this calibre. But we're not there yet.
 
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kilabound

Newbie
Dec 31, 2018
19
0
can we get a discord server or modding thread for this game? i am thinking of making some new stuff for it
 

VEHX

Active Member
Jun 14, 2018
536
410
The devs really did us all a nasty by dropping this one hit wonder and then disappearing off the face of the internet afterwards.
 
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Dickie323

Newbie
Jun 26, 2022
46
198
I want to give it a go.

I am not on the level of PIC's artwork, but reckon it is not impossible to create a few animation loops at the game's level of quality with the right setup and enough time.

I already tried setting up references in Poser and can export them into blender to get accurate lighting and shadows (I suspect Pixel Factory did something similiar with a 3D editor, as you pointed out, as their shadows are on point).

Once happy with the animation loop in 3D I will redraw the frames in Photoshop. The 3D models will serve as references, but, obviously, clothes, hair and other bits will be drawn from scratch. I've used this method before for digital art with results that would probably be decent enough for the low res sprites.

The most challenging bit will be the animation itself... A single animation loop in PIC is 4 frames, so it's not too massive of a commitment, but is going to take time and effort. I was thinking of trying a couple of animation loops but let's see how things go...


I have no interest in doing something like this professionally, just wanted to see what else can be accomplished with this animation style / method in a side scroller.

Regarding compensation, I was not expecting hundreds of $, just wondering whether anyone would offer amything, as from experience, doing this properly takes me ages... But I am OK with just trying it on my own. Will not be feeling any pressure from outside this way.

Here's a link to my old other Pixiv account. I haven't posted there in ages and ther's not much o there, but will give a rough general idea...







I was not planning on using AI for this, as I've never gotten round to learning the tools and just want to draw it all myself. It may actually be very beneficial if done properly and enable single perso projects of this calibre. But we're not there yet.
We think similar, I was able to make a couple bucks from a comission animation but I didn't commit much after that one
You can probably figure it out with your skill level, having the obvservation skill to notice the quality difference is the first sign
I recommend using your pixiv or setting a new account and posting the works there for diffusion
 
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ncquolopow

Newbie
Aug 17, 2018
23
58
Not sure where you got that impression. This game is easy to mod by most standards and is a good way to start. Download UMT, open any modded version of PIC, and import your sprite, that's it. Several people have made mods here adding new sprites. I shared a wave zombie mod with new weapon and sounds about 20 pages earlier.
Hey. I just found out about your wave mod and tried it. Like others have said, it's impressive and thanks for your work. However, I haven't seen anybody talk about the difficulty of the mod so I would like to leave some feedback in case you ever work on it again.

Personally, I've found that it's too difficult on "Normal" difficulty. Sometimes seemingly impossible. The highest I've gotten so far is Wave 6. I'm sure it's possible to go higher but I'm not sure how to do so reliably. Specifically, I'm really not sure how the player is supposed to deal with enemies spawning simultaneously and sometimes very close to the PC on both sides. Due to the very limited rate of fire of the gun/kicks, the high HP of the enemies, and not having invincibility frames after getting fucked to escape being surrounded, there doesn't seem to be any way to counterplay. Magnum does help against certain enemies, but is also blocked by many enemies. Also, another problem is that worms and crawling flies often get hidden among the bodies so the player doesn't have a fair chance to react to them.

My suggestion is some combination of:

- Decrease spawn rate
- Increase minimum distance from the PC that the monsters can spawn
- Decrease HP of enemies slightly (not so it's the same as "Easy" difficulty, but somewhere in between current "Normal" and current "Easy")
- Clear bodies after each wave
 
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JoeTermin

Member
Dec 24, 2017
260
1,244
Hey. I just found out about your wave mod and tried it. Like others have said, it's impressive and thanks for your work. However, I haven't seen anybody talk about the difficulty of the mod so I would like to leave some feedback in case you ever work on it again.

Personally, I've found that it's too difficult on "Normal" difficulty. Sometimes seemingly impossible. The highest I've gotten so far is Wave 6. I'm sure it's possible to go higher but I'm not sure how to do so reliably. Specifically, I'm really not sure how the player is supposed to deal with enemies spawning simultaneously and sometimes very close to the PC on both sides. Due to the very limited rate of fire of the gun/kicks, the high HP of the enemies, and not having invincibility frames after getting fucked to escape being surrounded, there doesn't seem to be any way to counterplay. Magnum does help against certain enemies, but is also blocked by many enemies. Also, another problem is that worms and crawling flies often get hidden among the bodies so the player doesn't have a fair chance to react to them.

My suggestion is some combination of:

- Decrease spawn rate
- Increase minimum distance from the PC that the monsters can spawn
- Decrease HP of enemies slightly (not so it's the same as "Easy" difficulty, but somewhere in between current "Normal" and current "Easy")
- Clear bodies after each wave
Glad you enjoyed it. There isn't anything new after wave 5-6, once the tentacle spawner boss spawns, so the difficulty steps up quite a lot past that point since there's no reason to go higher anyway.

It is possible to reach wave 10 and higher though. But not by playing normally. You have to figure out that
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I haven't planned to continue this mod unless some other modder comes with new enemies/anims. But if I end up updating it, you can expected the difficulty to be balanced like that. The starting place is probably not gonna ever be holdable after wave 10, but I'll add new parts of the building and weapons which will allow to survive past wave 10. I will likely not make enemies easier as I want the solution to be challenging. I'll consider adding invincibility frames though as it can be sometimes frustrating (it's not intuitive though but if you let the heroine gets sex'd instead of mashing, you have invincibility and no-collision for a few frames already, while mashing seems to still keep collision, and the sex itself doesn't do much damage, so it is better to not mash sometimes).

FYI, around waves 6-7 the AI of the monsters is also improved, it's not just more of them, so I expected to fail around this point if you play normally.
 

ncquolopow

Newbie
Aug 17, 2018
23
58
Glad you enjoyed it. There isn't anything new after wave 5-6, once the tentacle spawner boss spawns, so the difficulty steps up quite a lot past that point since there's no reason to go higher anyway.

It is possible to reach wave 10 and higher though. But not by playing normally. You have to figure out that
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I haven't planned to continue this mod unless some other modder comes with new enemies/anims. But if I end up updating it, you can expected the difficulty to be balanced like that. The starting place is probably not gonna ever be holdable after wave 10, but I'll add new parts of the building and weapons which will allow to survive past wave 10. I will likely not make enemies easier as I want the solution to be challenging. I'll consider adding invincibility frames though as it can be sometimes frustrating (it's not intuitive though but if you let the heroine gets sex'd instead of mashing, you have invincibility and no-collision for a few frames already, while mashing seems to still keep collision, and the sex itself doesn't do much damage, so it is better to not mash sometimes).

FYI, around waves 6-7 the AI of the monsters is also improved, it's not just more of them, so I expected to fail around this point if you play normally.

I did manage to reach Wave 9 not long after my previous comment by finding out about that position that you spoilered. But yes I would prefer to reach higher level waves by playing normally instead of cheesing :p

Yeah I also did notice the waves don't actually get harder after Wave 6.

Invincibility frames would be great! I just gave rather basic suggestions because I'm not sure what can be feasibly accomplished through modding.

Another suggestion would be adding more moves, possibly special/emergency moves that have their own resource (separate from the ammo used for the pistol) that you have to manage. Like being able to barrel roll though enemies to avoid being surrounded. Or shooting in both directions for a limited number of shots/limited amount of time. Or being able to block/parry/negate damage for certain number of attacks/limited amount of time. Lots of possibilities. But they would probably require separate, new anims.

Not related to balance, but powerup items, weapons, and ammo spawning in random locations might be a neat idea too? To encourage the player to move around instead of finding the best spots to camp.
 
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