Skip to content

Add a hat, an accessory or a pattern

A cosmetic is one Data Asset, plus one line in the catalogue. By the end of this page your piece has a tile in the Customization screen, a price in credits, and shows on the robot in the menu and on every player in a match.

If you have not read How cosmetics work, start there.

  • The Data Assets: Content/MPFriendslop/Blueprints/DataAssets/Cosmetic/Childs/
  • The meshes: Content/MPFriendslop/Meshes/Characters/Cosmetics/
  • The icons: Content/MPFriendslop/Textures/Widgets/Cosmetics/
  • The catalogue: Content/MPFriendslop/Blueprints/Misc/BP_FriendslopGameInstance

Step 1, the mesh

  1. Import your static mesh into Meshes/Characters/Cosmetics/.
  2. Remove its collision. No shipped cosmetic has any collision, so a hat never blocks its own player's traces.
  3. Set Collision Complexity to Use Simple Collision As Complex.
  4. If a part of it should take the player's colour, give that part a material slot named M_Robot_Shell and use MI_Robot_Shell on it. The colour and the pattern are applied by slot name, not by slot index, so the slot can sit anywhere in the list.

Parts with a fixed colour keep their own material. The traffic cone does this with MI_Cosmetic_ConeOrange next to its shell slot.

Step 2, the Data Asset

  1. In Blueprints/DataAssets/Cosmetic/Childs/, duplicate DA_Cosmetic_TopHat for a hat or DA_Cosmetic_Backpack for something on the back.
  2. Name it DA_Cosmetic_<Name>.
  3. Fill in the fields below.
Field What it does Shipped in DA_Cosmetic_TopHat
Display Name The name on the tile Top Hat
Slot The tab it is listed in, and the slot it equips into. A player wears one item per slot Hat
Icon The tile picture. Draw it white on a transparent background T_Icon_Cosmetic_TopHat
Price The cost in credits. 0 means free 350
Locked By Default Shows the tile faded, with no price. It cannot be bought off
Static Mesh The rigid piece attached to the character SM_Cosmetic_TopHat
Skeletal Mesh A piece that follows the body instead, driven by the character's own animation. None of the shipped cosmetics uses it empty
Attach Socket The socket on the character mesh the piece is attached to HatSocket

There is no offset field. The socket is the offset: to move the piece, move the socket or the mesh pivot. HatSocket (on the head bone) and BackSocket (on spine_04) are on the skeleton SKEL_Mannequin and on the mesh SKM_Robot_Courier.

Step 3, the catalogue

  1. Open BP_FriendslopGameInstance.
  2. In Settings|Cosmetics, add an entry to Cosmetic Catalog.
  3. Pick your Data Asset in the new entry.
  4. Save.

Warning

Cosmetic Catalog is the only list. A cosmetic that is not in it has no tile, cannot be bought, and the server refuses to equip it. There is no error message.

A pattern

A pattern is a cosmetic with no mesh. It paints a motif over the player's body, on the M_Robot_Shell slot only. Six ship: Plain, Bands, Dots, Checker, Grid and Hazard, indices 0 to 5.

  1. Duplicate DA_Cosmetic_PatternBands.
  2. Set Slot to Pattern and leave Static Mesh and Attach Socket empty.
  3. Fill in the pattern fields.
  4. Add it to Cosmetic Catalog, like any cosmetic.
Field What it does Shipped in DA_Cosmetic_PatternBands
Pattern Index Which of the drawn patterns: 0 Plain, 1 Bands, 2 Dots, 3 Checker, 4 Grid, 5 Hazard 1
Pattern Color The colour of the motif set per pattern
Icon Material The tile picture as a material instead of a texture MI_Widget_PatternBands

The same index with another Pattern Color is a new pattern already: nothing else to do.

The tile icon is an instance of M_Widget_Pattern in Materials/Widgets/. For your own, duplicate one of the six MI_Widget_Pattern* and set its PatternIndex.

A seventh pattern, index 6, has to be drawn first. The body patterns come from M_Prop_Master, group Robot Pattern, and a new index needs a new branch in its pattern selection. M_Widget_Pattern draws the icon from the same PatternIndex, so it needs the same branch.

A new slot

The tabs of the Customization screen are built from E_CosmeticSlot, which ships with Hat, Accessory and Pattern.

  1. Open Blueprints/Enumerations/E_CosmeticSlot and add an entry. Its display name is the tab label.
  2. Add a socket for it on your character mesh.
  3. Make Data Assets with that Slot and that Attach Socket, and add them to Cosmetic Catalog.

The new tab appears on its own, and a player can now wear one item in it next to the hat and the accessory.

What you get for free

Once the Data Asset is in Cosmetic Catalog:

  • It has a tile in its tab, with its icon, its name and its price.
  • Buying it takes credits and saves it in the player's profile.
  • The robot in the main menu wears it while the player looks at it, before buying.
  • It is attached to the player in a match, and hidden from the player's own first person view.
  • Its M_Robot_Shell slot takes the player's colour and pattern.

None of that needs a line of Blueprint.

To add a gesture or a face to the emote wheel, see Add an emote or a face.

Join the Discord