CTK-GUI for VX (beta)

[OysterMug]

CTK_GUI (Beta) - An easy-to-use GUI shell for the CollaTKane CLI for turning DAE files into Addons.

 

CTK-GUI: Is a Graphical User Interface for the "CollaTKane" v3.2 CLI utility for converting properly configured Blender objects into VX addons (NOT compatible with TK17 v7.5.)

 

I am releasing this BETA of my "CollaTKane GUI" (a "LoversLab" exclusive) early because I have yet to receive enough source material from volunteers to complete my program.

 

CTK-GUI takes the guesswork out of editing CTK .bat (batch) files so you can easily build a working Addon the first time. And lets face it, some people are just intimidated by bat files and CLI's.

Changelog:

v0.9.2

 o Hat and Hair support added (but still untested.)
o Correction of various bugs.
o "Dynamic" ID's had to be disabled (temporarily?) due to an unresolved bug in V11.
o Icon preview added.

 

v0.9.1
 o Utility was copying duplicate toy textures after renaming. Confusing when trying to create AM textures.

v0.9.0
 o Now supports both Static (7.5 & VX) and Dynamic (V11) ID's!
 o Support for "Hair" & "Hats" added (possibly "Glasses" too. Untested.)

Currently, CTK-GUI only supports "Toys" & "Rooms", with "Hats", "Hairs" and "Clothing" still a WiP. I need working samples to add support for those, so if you have a clothing model you are willing to share as a test, please PM me.

 

Remember, this is just a Beta and has not been thoroughly tested. If you find any bugs in the GUI or the output, please contact me. If you can provide completed DAE or Blender files for test, please PM me.

 

REQUIREMENTS:

 

Windows 7 or above with .Net 4.5.1 or above.

A copy of CollaTKane v3.2 (link above.)
TK17 (any version.)

 

KNOWN BUGS (Remember this is only a Beta):

At the moment, tracking of last used ID still needs to be fixed.

Occasionally, the program will fail to copy ALL required textures (randomly failing to copy the final texture.)

"Busy" icon may not go back to normal after project completion.

 

NOTE: THIS IS STILL IN BETA! Clothing is still not supported.

 

FULL INSTALL:  Download from Mega (v0.9.2 - 1.33M) - Setup Installer and documentation included.

Please PM me with any problems you may encounter.
Update only: (Download v0.9.2 updated exe. Previous Full install required.)

 

 

Edited March 21 by OysterMug
Update

[OysterMug]

March 2023 UPDATE: v0.8.6.1 Beta (for people who already installed the FULL version above):

 

Change log:

 

REMINDER: I am still in need of working dae source files for Clothing, Hair, Hats, & Shoes.

 

v0.8.6.1 Beta: Fixed default textures were not being included with the Addon.

 

v0.8.6.0 Beta: (UPDATE ONLY. Still need Full Install below.) Simply replace the existing "CTK_GUI.exe" with this copy.

• Sorry folks. Had to disable "Dynamic" ID's again. Program currently is not configured to support both Static & Dynamic ID's simultaneously.
• FIXED: Still some bugs in Toy & Room creation.
• FIXED: Activemod textures were incorrectly named.
• FIXED: Some Toy addons had no textures.
• MANY additional bugs fixed. Too many to list.

 

v0.8.5.6 Beta: Full install.

 

v0.8.4.5 Beta:

• Brought back "Dynamic" Toy ID's for those who need it until a proper fix can be found.
• FIXED: Room ID#'s restored (Dynamic ID#s being phased out of TK17.)
• FIXED: The "Edit Desc" window did not close if you never clicked on the window.
• UNFIXED: Addon ID# field for rooms restored.
• FIXED: Building same addon a second time w/o Reset built addon with wrong ID#.
• FIXED: Program wrote "Default_Icon.png" when saving bat file regardless of icon filename.

 

v0.8.4 Beta

• Program now puts resulting Activemod & Addons folders inside a folder.
• Addon ID# no longer needed for rooms.
• Addon is now automatically Zipped on completion ("7z.exe" included.)
• Added "auto-increment" button to ID#.
• Improved bat file export. Readable format and now includes icon & Activemod files. Also no more copying of textures by hand.
• Removed "Dynamic Toy" support and reverted back to requiring static ID#'s due to compatibility issue when sharing poses.
• Added ability to enter a Description for rooms that appear on VX's Room selection menu.
• Added... then Disabled (for now)... the ability to auto-generate an ID# based on user prefix. Disabled due to icon support issues.
• Fixed: Cancelling locating CollaTKane.exe caused an error (thanks ITIB.)
• Various other minor bug fixes.

 

v0.8.3 Beta

• Activemod support now working.
• Poses that include VX toys now work properly on other computers (toys must be recreated. Toy "dynamic ID's" in VX are incompatible with poses.)
• You can now export your settings to a "bat" file for easy recreation of your Addon w/o using the GUI (note, you will have to manually copy textures to you Addon & Activemod folder.

 

v0.8.2 Beta

• "ID" & "Prefix" fields were not allowing changes after saving your settings.

 

Beta.

"Clothing" & "Hair" still not supported.

Testing/Testers still needed.

 

This is why we have Betas.

Edited March 4, 2023 by OysterMug

[_Haze_]

Is there a ETA on the build for clothing item? I'd like to restart making clothing mods but a bit rusty and would like a simple tool at my disposal.

[OysterMug]

Unfortunately, until someone provides me with a working DAE file (and a working bat file if possible) to use as the basis for a template, I am unable to add that feature to the program.

 

If you have a working clothing .dae file, please provide me with a copy so I can use it to complete my program.

 

Thanks.

[_Haze_]

Wait, so its been couple of months and no one has helped you yet? Not sure if I can provide any help right now. I mentioned that I'm rusty and the last time I used blender was when it was between 2.68-2.69. And reading some of the comments on the other club, they are making sound really simple.

 

Well I've been holding from joining that other elitist site. So I might join there and see what I come up with.

[Marburg]

8 hours ago, OysterMug said:

Unfortunately, until someone provides me with a working DAE file (and a working bat file if possible) to use as the basis for a template, I am unable to add that feature to the program.

 

If you have a working clothing .dae file, please provide me with a copy so I can use it to complete my program.

 

Thanks.

it's not that simple... every type of clothing has it's own set of Ctk parameters and a corresponding Blender structure that has to match.

A Hat or a Shoe requires a different template than a Dress.

 

[OysterMug]

6 hours ago, Marburg said:

it's not that simple... every type of clothing has it's own set of Ctk parameters and a corresponding Blender structure that has to match.

A Hat or a Shoe requires a different template than a Dress.

 

 

My app already has a separate option just for hats. I'll do the same for shoes if I ever get working sample.

 

Most clothing should need only a single template.

[_Haze_]

After joining that site, I must admit they are pretty friendly in nature. They posted some written guides and video guides and they have a designated section for guides and tutorials.

So the whole process in blender is still the same. The only thing that changed is the creation and usage of a tool called CtK. After spending hours with it and CTK-GUI for VX v0.8x. I tried the simple thing that they recommended and that is a toy. The thing is, using the GUI, I couldn't get the toy to appear and it crashed my game. I tried putting your comment that you posted here in play, but I could not get the toy to appear when using the dynamic ID system that VX uses which is a bummer and frustrating. But CtK is simple and straight forward and has the parameters and corresponding structures that marburg mentioned and I got the toy to appear using VX's dynamic ID system!

 

The thing that confuses me about the GUI and just creates more questions than answers. In CtK, you are able to save the bat files and have multiple bats files. You can make each bat file separate and match the corresponding structure. So is the GUI simply trying to compile all those categories? If so than I see its biggest flaw. And that is by making CtK excessively complicated. The CtK program already has all the settings there. GUI v0.8x doesn't and by reading the patch notes posted by oystermug, the only setting that is being used is acTool and to a lesser degree, some of the clothes target settings but I can only speculate that it is not complete. And I see no option to select the anim skeleton. The way I see it, you can pretty much copy and paste the settings that CtK provided to complete GUI VX v0.8x.

 

Not trying to stir a fight here but the GUI just seems like a forced detour in which it is not needed.

[OysterMug]

5 hours ago, _Haze_ said:

After joining that site, I must admit they are pretty friendly in nature. They posted some written guides and video guides and they have a designated section for guides and tutorials.

So the whole process in blender is still the same. The only thing that changed is the creation and usage of a tool called CtK. After spending hours with it and CTK-GUI for VX v0.8x. I tried the simple thing that they recommended and that is a toy. The thing is, using the GUI, I couldn't get the toy to appear and it crashed my game. I tried putting your comment that you posted here in play, but I could not get the toy to appear when using the dynamic ID system that VX uses which is a bummer and frustrating. But CtK is simple and straight forward and has the parameters and corresponding structures that marburg mentioned and I got the toy to appear using VX's dynamic ID system!

 

The thing that confuses me about the GUI and just creates more questions than answers. In CtK, you are able to save the bat files and have multiple bats files. You can make each bat file separate and match the corresponding structure. So is the GUI simply trying to compile all those categories? If so than I see its biggest flaw. And that is by making CtK excessively complicated. The CtK program already has all the settings there. GUI v0.8x doesn't and by reading the patch notes posted by oystermug, the only setting that is being used is acTool and to a lesser degree, some of the clothes target settings but I can only speculate that it is not complete. And I see no option to select the anim skeleton. The way I see it, you can pretty much copy and paste the settings that CtK provided to complete GUI VX v0.8x.

 

Not trying to stir a fight here but the GUI just seems like a forced detour in which it is not needed.

 

I left the other site after an unprovoked attack regarding this very program (my CTK_GUI). It defies explanation why anyone would criticize free software intended to aid the novice user, but c'est la vie.

 

If you are using the newest release of CTK_GUI (0.84beta), I disabled the ability to use dynamic IDs with toys upon discovering their incompatibility with shared poses. I still need to work out a numbering method that avoids conflicts.

 

The v0.8.4 version of CTK_GUI can create those bat files for you. Editing CTK's supplied sample bat files can be a tricky process as there are some parameters that... if you alter them... will break the script and create an addon that refuses to load. I'm not sure how a toy created using 0.8.4b of the app would fail to produce a working visible toy, but if you encounter any issues, let me know so I can fix them. The app is still just a Beta since I need plenty of source files & testers to test the utility, and have received neither in a very long time.

 

The GUI is not for higher level users with more sophisticated needs. It is intended to simplify the process for the novice/average user. I created it b/c I grew tired of editing batch files by hand 20 times, often discovering tiny mistakes that sometimes took a half hour to track down & fix. With the GUI, there's no second guessing. No inconsistencies. Nothing to debug. I've found it to be a great time-saver.

 

Let me know if you need assistance.

Edited September 13, 2021 by OysterMug

[_Haze_]

On 9/12/2021 at 8:16 PM, OysterMug said:

 

I left the other site after an unprovoked attack regarding this very program (my CTK_GUI). It defies explanation why anyone would criticize free software intended to aid the novice user, but c'est la vie.

 

If you are using the newest release of CTK_GUI (0.84beta), I disabled the ability to use dynamic IDs with toys upon discovering their incompatibility with shared poses. I still need to work out a numbering method that avoids conflicts.

 

The v0.8.4 version of CTK_GUI can create those bat files for you. Editing CTK's supplied sample bat files can be a tricky process as there are some parameters that... if you alter them... will break the script and create an addon that refuses to load. I'm not sure how a toy created using 0.8.4b of the app would fail to produce a working visible toy, but if you encounter any issues, let me know so I can fix them. The app is still just a Beta since I need plenty of source files & testers to test the utility, and have received neither in a very long time.

 

The GUI is not for higher level users with more sophisticated needs. It is intended to simplify the process for the novice/average user. I created it b/c I grew tired of editing batch files by hand 20 times, often discovering tiny mistakes that sometimes took a half hour to track down & fix. With the GUI, there's no second guessing. No inconsistencies. Nothing to debug. I've found it to be a great time-saver.

 

Let me know if you need assistance.

So retorting back to the 7.5 method is better because of this shared poses incompatibilities? You are still limiting people by making them use the old ID system which in terms will create conflicts, I think that is a far worse outcome than some toys not loading correctly.

 

I actually found CTK really easy to use and this is my first time using it. Not sure what exactly you where trying to change but so far, using notepad I'm able to highlight the names I want to change and it does it automatically. I found your GUI v.8x really limited and it will confuse people wanting to create content, perhaps that is why people aren't jumping in on trying to help you out.

 

Between freewares, CTK is the better option if shown how to use it. As a new user, I never used it and I can easily see how simple it is to use and struggled to fully understand what was being used in GUI. Maybe those guys where trying to help you so perhaps don't take constructive critism as a insult.

Edited September 14, 2021 by _Haze_

[OysterMug]

20 hours ago, _Haze_ said:

So retorting back to the 7.5 method is better because of this shared poses incompatibilities? You are still limiting people by making them use the old ID system which in terms will create conflicts, I think that is a far worse outcome than some toys not loading correctly.

 

I actually found CTK really easy to use and this is my first time using it. Not sure what exactly you where trying to change but so far, using notepad I'm able to highlight the names I want to change and it does it automatically. 

 

Between freewares, CTK is the better option if shown how to use it. As a new user, I never used it and I can easily see how simple it is to use and struggled to fully understand what was being used in GUI. Maybe those guys where trying to help you so perhaps don't take constructive critism as a insult.

 

The "Dynamic ID" method introduced in VX is only useful if you never intend to share your creations with anyone else. Because any pose you use with that toy won't be linked to the same toy on another user's computer. Poses link to toys by their static ID (an oversight they never accounted for before they released VX). If you are fine with never sharing your toys or the poses/sequences that use them, I can restore the option to my utility. But you should consider "Dynamic ID's" a broken feature that never should have been added to VX in the first place.

 

I'm glad you're finding my utility useful. I'm not trying to "change" anything. It's not a replacement for CTK, it's a shell to make it easier to use. Some people find it easier to edit the bat files by hand and have no problem knowing what they can & cannot change. There are some values you can change when creating one type of addon that you simply cannot change when creating other type of addon. It will refuse to work and even crash VX if you change them. This can make editing bat files by hand quite confusing for the average user.

 

As for "those guys" and "constructive criticism", there was nothing "constructive" about it. I was personally attacked/ridiculed for my software based on nothing more than a single screenshot and (incorrect) assumptions about what the program does without having ever touched it. Attempting to set the record straight only led to additional personal attacks. When I responded with personal attacks of my own, *I* was singled out for my behavior (b/c the attacker, "Smoke" was friends with the Admin, "Hdiddy") and subsequently banned. I bid them good riddance.

 

And I'm not the only one they've pulled this crap with. It's one of the reasons LL (not KE) is the "Official" site of Team 17.

[_Haze_]

2 hours ago, OysterMug said:

The "Dynamic ID" method introduced in VX is only useful if you never intend to share your creations with anyone else. Because any pose you use with that toy won't be linked to the same toy on another user's computer. Poses link to toys by their static ID (an oversight they never accounted for before they released VX). If you are fine with never sharing your toys or the poses/sequences that use them, I can restore the option to my utility. But you should consider "Dynamic ID's" a broken feature that never should have been added to VX in the first place.

 

What are you talking about? Marburg shared a good amount of toys and rooms using the Dynamic ID system.

[Marburg]

9 hours ago, _Haze_ said:

What are you talking about? Marburg shared a good amount of toys and rooms using the Dynamic ID system.

he's absolutely right that a Pose cannot link to a custom toy in VX.

 

But it's not an oversight nor is it in any way a broken feature. The old system of centralized lists of addon ID's was no longer workable. Keeping these lists up to date simply took too much time and effort so another method had to be implemented. In my not so humble opinion selecting the right toy in a Pose is a small price to pay for the flexibilty and "open-ness" of Dynamic ID's where anyone can make, use and maybe even publish addons that are ready to go without any hassle. 

[_Haze_]

4 hours ago, Marburg said:

he's absolutely right that a Pose cannot link to a custom toy in VX.

 

But it's not an oversight nor is it in any way a broken feature. The old system of centralized lists of addon ID's was no longer workable. Keeping these lists up to date simply took too much time and effort so another method had to be implemented. In my not so humble opinion selecting the right toy in a Pose is a small price to pay for the flexibilty and "open-ness" of Dynamic ID's where anyone can make, use and maybe even publish addons that are ready to go without any hassle. 

So people should not use the Dynamic ID system that CtK uses? You got one person that is saying that its pointless and only who don't intend of sharing their mods.

 

This type of confusion is not gonna get people to make any addons.

[Marburg]

No, you misunderstand me.

 

Ctk doesn't hand out ID's for VX builds, the game does that at runtime.

VX addons do not use a fixed ID. Pre-VX addons do, but the game "knows" their ID's from those old master lists

 

Please do not confuse CtK with this GUI frontend.

If you use CtK the way you're supposed to (see the example batch files!), the addon that is produced will have an ID of 0.

This will let the game assign a Dynamic ID.

 

OysterMug doesn't like that but that's how it is designed to work.

 

 

 

 

 

[_Haze_]

I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about oystermug retorting that its not worth it because of this pose bug and firstly we agreeing to that it minor and overstated and were pretty much on the same page than you are agreeing on it being a major bug.  I already ran CtK these past couple and know of the runtime. I put into practice. But oystermug is saying that it is not useful. 

Edited September 14, 2021 by _Haze_

[OysterMug]

6 hours ago, _Haze_ said:

I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about oystermug retorting that its not worth it because of this pose bug and firstly we agreeing to that it minor and overstated and were pretty much on the same page than you are agreeing on it being a major bug.  I already ran CtK these past couple and know of the runtime. I put into practice. But oystermug is saying that it is not useful. 

 

Like I said, if you have no intention of sharing anything you produce, Dynamic IDs are perfectly fine.

 

But if you create a pose that includes a toy that uses a dynamic ID, then share that pose & toy with someone else, the supplied toy won't be linked to the pose. You would actually have to edit the pose and manually link it to the correct toy... as would anybody you subsequently try to share the pose with.

 

I find I must remind people often that the entire purpose of TK17 is to make sequences. Poses, toys, actors, rooms, clothing... they're all just material for sequences.

 

So while editing poses to link to the correct toy for personal use may be a tedious & frustrating task, it's nearly impossible to do with poses shared as part of a sequence. That's why I abandoned "Dynamic Toy ID" support in my shell. Someone needs to develop a new method of generating unique static ID's. I thought I developed a method based on users assigning themselves a unique 2-4 letter ID (like "R9", "JU", "CM74" or "OM")... which works fine except that the toy's icon disappears if the generated ID# > 9999. If someone were able to fix that limitation, we'd be back in business.

[OysterMug]

For those who need it, I've uploaded a version of "CTK_GUI" that restores support for "Dynamic ID" Toys.

 

You still need to install the original full package first so that all required prerequisite files are installed, then simply replace the program exe with this "updated" version.

 

REMINDER: I am still in need of working dae source files for Clothing, Hair, Hats, & Shoes.

 

Changelog for v0.8.4.5:

 

Brought back "Dynamic" Toy ID's for those who need it until a proper fix can be found.
FIXED: Room ID#'s restored (Dynamic ID#s being phased out of TK17.)
FIXED: The "Edit Desc" window did not close if you never clicked on the window.
FIXED: Addon ID# field was still disabled for rooms.
FIXED: Building same addon a second time w/o Reset builds addon with wrong ID#.
FIXED: Program wrote "Default_Icon.png" when saving bat file regardless of icon filename.

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by OysterMug

[bobcat5]

On 7/13/2021 at 2:34 PM, OysterMug said:

March 5, 2022 UPDATE: v0.8.4.5 Beta (for people who already installed v0.8.1 above):

 

Change log:

 

REMINDER: I am still in need of working dae source files for Clothing, Hair, Hats, & Shoes.

 

v0.8.4.5 Beta:

• Brought back "Dynamic" Toy ID's for those who need it until a proper fix can be found.
• FIXED: Room ID#'s restored (Dynamic ID#s being phased out of TK17.)
• FIXED: The "Edit Desc" window did not close if you never clicked on the window.
• UNFIXED: Addon ID# field for rooms restored.
• FIXED: Building same addon a second time w/o Reset built addon with wrong ID#.
• FIXED: Program wrote "Default_Icon.png" when saving bat file regardless of icon filename.

 

v0.8.4 Beta

• Program now puts resulting Activemod & Addons folders inside a folder.
• Addon ID# no longer needed for rooms.
• Addon is now automatically Zipped on completion ("7z.exe" included.)
• Added "auto-increment" button to ID#.
• Improved bat file export. Readable format and now includes icon & Activemod files. Also no more copying of textures by hand.
• Removed "Dynamic Toy" support and reverted back to requiring static ID#'s due to compatibility issue when sharing poses.
• Added ability to enter a Description for rooms that appear on VX's Room selection menu.
• Added... then Disabled (for now)... the ability to auto-generate an ID# based on user prefix. Disabled due to icon support issues.
• Fixed: Cancelling locating CollaTKane.exe caused an error (thanks ITIB.)
• Various other minor bug fixes.

 

v0.8.3 Beta

• Activemod support now working.
• Poses that include VX toys now work properly on other computers (toys must be recreated. Toy "dynamic ID's" in VX are incompatible with poses.)
• You can now export your settings to a "bat" file for easy recreation of your Addon w/o using the GUI (note, you will have to manually copy textures to you Addon & Activemod folder.

 

v0.8.2 Beta

• "ID" & "Prefix" fields were not allowing changes after saving your settings.

 

KNOWN BUGS remaining:

If Toy ID# is > 999, your toy will have no icon.

"Clothing" still not supported.

Testing/Testers still needed.

 

Simply replace the existing "CTK_GUI.exe" with this copy (you still must install the full package first.)

 

This is why we have Betas.

 

Download from MEGA (134K).

 

Hoping to beta test this but link not valid today

[OysterMug]

15 hours ago, bobcat5 said:

 

Hoping to beta test this but link not valid today

 

I forgot this post was still up.

 

I've updated the post with a link to the latest Beta (0.8.6.0)

[OysterMug]

Latest update to v0.8.6.1 - Default textures were not being included with the Addon. Fixed.

[DDK33]

 

Hello.

Please send an example of CollaTKane 3.0 bat file or a tutorial on creating heeled shoes.

Could you please update at least one GUI link? All links are dead.

Thank you.

[OysterMug]

I'm afraid "shoes"/"clothing" are still not supported as no one has provided me with working source files to create them.

 

The latest update of "CTK_GUI" will be a major update, adding support for Hair and Headwear (in addition to previous support for Toys & Rooms) and the upcoming "V11".

 

I'm waiting on the release of V11 before releasing the latest update.

[DDK33]

thank you so much, we will wait

[Curtis_S]

On 10/10/2023 at 5:43 PM, DDK33 said:

 

Hello.

Please send an example of CollaTKane 3.0 bat file or a tutorial on creating heeled shoes.

Could you please update at least one GUI link? All links are dead.

Thank you.

Here's one example. There is one custom settings file you'll need in your path for this to work. I included all of them just in case.CB_Boots.zipCB_Boots.zipCB_Boots.zipCB_Boots.zipCB_Boots.zip

CB_Boots.zip