In this guide I will explain how to create your own Mint Dodgers character and upload it to the Steam Workshop.
Create your own Mint Dodgers Character
Instructions on how to create your own Mint Dodgers character and post it onto the Steam Workshop.
Making Your Own Custom Skin
Getting Started
Making a custom skin should be pretty easy, the hardest part about it will most likely be drawing it. You’ll need to be prepared to be able to navigate File Explorer, extract a zip archive, and have some type of photo editing program ready. Throughout the entire process, don’t rename or exclude any files.
Extracting The Template
In your steam library, right-click Mint Dodgers, hover your mouse over “Manage,” then click “Browse local files.” A file explorer window should open to the game files. Open the “Character” folder and then find the “Template.zip” archive in that folder. If you accidentally deleted it, you can verify integrity of the game files and it will get re-downloaded.
All you need to do is extract the zip file into one of the Player folders. This is the location where the game grabs the custom player images, anyone who installs the mod can choose what player the skin gets installed to.
Making The Sprites
Browse to the folder you extracted the zip file to, and you’ll see 5 png files and an ini file. You can now directly open each png file in the photo editing software of your choice and create your character. How you do this is entirely up to you, but I highly recommend keeping the image dimensions the same.
When saving the images, make sure to keep filenames the same, or else Mint Dodgers won’t recognize the mod.
Changing The Hotspots
If you didn’t drastically change the character, then there’s no need to change the hotspots.
What are Hotspots?
Hotspots tell what position the image should be relative to the origin of the image in pixels, and the image origin is 0, 0, which is X and Y offsets. 0, 0 is the top left of the image, so when you increase the X hotspot, you’re moving the anchor point to the right, which cause the images to shift to the left relative to the origin. Increasing the Y hotspot moves the anchor point downward, causing the image to shift up relative to the origin. Putting the hotspot at half the size of the image file will result in the hotspot being in the center, making whatever coordinates you put the character at always being in the middle of that spot.
If you changed the size of an image, keep track on how much it’s changed relative to the original. The relative hotspot will shift when the dimensions of the image get changed. If the hotspots are set incorrectly, it will be very noticeable. If animations switch between each other seamlessly, that’s how you know you’ve done it right.
How do I change the hotspots?
In the player folder, open the “hotspots.ini” file and adjust each hotspot accordingly. For each image, there are 2 number separated by a Vertical Bar. The first number is the X hotspot, and second one is the Y hotspot.
Uploading to the Steam Workshop
Now that your skin is done, uploading it to the Steam Workshop is really simple. Open the game, click “Start,” then click the “Workshop” button at the top of the screen.
You’ll be taken to a page with a list of buttons. Click the button on the bottom that says “Upload Skin.”
From here, you can input the Name, Short Description, and Tags. Then select the preview image, choose which Player folder to upload to the Workshop, and you can change the visibility if needed. Now click publish and if everything goes well, there will be text saying “Success!” as soon as it publishes. It should then be out there ready for people to download it!