SpritesheetAPI

An Inscryption mod that lets you easily add animated portraits to your cards with a spritesheet and a JSON file (or, alternatively, through C#).

This is a project done purely for fun. Please don't expect much out of it and please don't get mad if there are bugs.

This mod is currently in its beta stage. Please know there may be bugs. If you find any bugs, please contact me on Discord: kelly betty#7936

And here's an example of animated cards made with this mod (all art by me):

Below you'll find all the documentation for this mod, as well as a short blink animation tutorial.

Installation

This mod’s only dependencies are BepInEx and the InscryptionAPI mod.

There are two ways of installing this mod: with the help of a mod manager (like r2modman or the Thunderstore Mod Manager) or manually.

Installation (Mod Manager)

1. Download and install r2modman or the Thunderstore Mod Manager.
2. Install this mod and all of its dependencies with the help of the mod manager!

Installation (Manual)

1. Download and install BepInEx.
2. If you're downloading it from its Github page, follow this installation guide.
3. If you're downloading "BepInExPack Inscryption" from Thunderstore, follow the manual installation guide on the Thunderstore page itself. This one comes with a preconfigured BepInEx.cfg file, so it's advised.
4. Download and install the Inscryption API mod following its manual installation guide.
5. Find the BepInEx > plugins folder.
6. Place the contents of "SpritesheetAPI.zip" in a new folder within the plugins folder.

Overview

In order to use this mod, you're gonna need two things: A spritesheet, and a way to 'register' that spritesheet in-game. A JSON file is the easiest way to do it, but C# is also an available option for those who prefer it.

I will go through each of those options in depth below this.

JSON

Your JSON file's name should end in _anim.json in order for this mod to find it. Yes, this is necessary.

And these are all the fields your JSON file should contain:

{
  "CardName": "Kels_Example",
  "Spritesheet": "Example_Spritesheet.png",
  "FrameRate": 12,
  "FrameCount": 4,
  "HasPause": false,
  "PauseTime": 1
}

The first four fields—CardName, Spritesheet, FrameRate and FrameCount—are required. The last two fields—HasPause and PauseTime—are optional.

I'll give a thorough explanation of each field later down this page.

C

You can use C# to register a spritesheet directly from your mod's code, like this:

RegisterPortrait.Add(CardName: "Kels_Example", Spritesheet: "Example_Spritesheet.png", FrameRate: 12, FrameCount: 4, HasPause: false, PauseTime: 1f);

You should preferably do this inside of Awake().

The first four arguments—CardName, Spritesheet, FrameRate and FrameCount—are required, and the last two arguments—HasPause and PauseTime—are optional, and default to false and 0f, respectively.

Documentation

Card Name

The in-game name of the card your animated portrait will be attached to. Your mod's GUID should be included in the name.

A few important thing to note about cards:

1. If your card uses an alt portrait for anything, this might break the animation.
2. Cards with changing portraits, like the Mud Turtle, prooooobably have weird interactions with this mod. I have not tested this. I'm too burnt out to test every possibility.
3. I have not tested how cards affected by this mod interact with the Mycologist. For this reason, it's heavily advised you set cards with animated portraits as 'one per deck' (like how the base game's talking cards are). I was going to test this, but I'm kinda burnt out and don't have the energy.

The Spritesheet

The most important part of this mod is the spritesheet.

Your spritesheet should follow a few rules:

1. Each frame should be the size of a traditional Inscryption card portrait: 114 x 94 pixels.
2. Your spritesheet should preferably be a .png with transparency.
3. The spritesheet should not have any 'padding' between sprites: This will break how the mod reads them.

This mod doesn't support colorful portraits by default, but it's fully compatible with mods that do add colorful portraits, such as SpecialAPI's ColoredPortraits. You can, thus, use that to make colorful animated portraits—or even just convert random GIFs to card portraits if you want.

A typical spritesheet should look something like this:

Note: I have added the white background just so that this image is visible for users using Dark Mode and/or opening this image on a dark background. Your spritesheet's background should be transparent.

"How do I make a spritesheet?"

For starters: You don't have to put one together by hand! c:

There are many tools you can use to make spritesheets! I'm going to list two of those tools I know.

I use Krita, so the tool I use to make spritesheets is a really neat spritesheet extension called "kritaSpritesheetExporter"! c:

kritaSpritesheetExporter on Github

That Krita extension is what I used to make the example cards you see at the top of this page!

There's also this online tool that lets you turn a sequence of images into a spritesheet: