#au shells

The AU Shell Revamps have been in the works for well over a year at this point, and I’ve put a lot of thought into handling them, and thus far it’s really paying off! It’s been really exciting to see the new shells fall into place as they have been. I’m really proud of my work!

Since so much care has been put into the whole project I thought I had everything lined up what I’d need to do and it was just a matter of actually doing it. But something I hadn’t really taken into account until more recently has come up and is the real reason I’m unable to publicly release the new shell revamps, though most of the shell work itself is in place and easy to replicate for the visual aspects. 

The issue now is building dynamic AU support in the code. 

^ Those are the same lines of dialogue, just with different AU/dialect flags to adjust his speech patterns and vocabulary. 

AU support in the code used to look like this. For example, switching to the Classic Undertale shell... 

There were pre-set, finite possibilities as far as shells go. So I could hard code all of it straight into place, since I knew the names and all possibilities. While some content is literally on a per-AU basis, some AU behaviors were regulated with the Chat Filters system to adjust his default conversation preferences as a baseline before user traits kicked in to affect your relationship. 

Here’s the post with the Chat Filters update and explanation. 

Here are some snippets:

These are categories of his random dialogue, which can be toggled from a “default” setting (white and gray), or manually overridden to be OFF (red) or ON (green). The default settings of each of these is dependent on the AU and your progress in your relationship with Sans (currently measured in Intervals).

This is Interval[0] so he just met you. Notice how Papyrus, Underground, and Nap are grayed out? This is because Horror Sans doesn’t trust you enough to even mention his brother existing, or tell you anything about himself. He’s also too agitated to nap at this point, so the default value of that setting is “off” and grayed out.

This is the array holding default values of the Papyrus conversation topic (Horror’s values are the last value of each line). Every category has its own array like this!

He’s willing to tell you all kinds of jokes, particularly Dark Humor, which is a conversation topic category I added specifically for Horror himself, that UF!Sans will make use of as well. User Traits and Sans’ relationship stats will cause exceptions to this default. Most AUs will also make use of Dark Humor with high Rude or Enmity stats.  

The value in brackets is referring to the Interval (your progression), and in quotes is the default value for each AU of whether he’ll talk about Papyrus or not. Intervals 0-1 Sans would rather you not know Papyrus exist, so he never mentions him or the Underground. After Papyrus calls, the cats outta the bag, so he’s willing to talk about his cool bro later. The exception to this, the 5th AU listen is “on” all the way down. This is because in the Inverted Fate AU, Sans doesn’t know about the timelines or RESETs, so he wouldn’t be nearly as suspicious of you and is willing to talk about his cool bro right off the bat.

Anyway! This is a feature that should help facilitate each AU having a unique feel, streamlines new AU implementation, and allows users to control their experience with MVSans.

Renaming the shells would cause this to break though and I’d have to fix it, otherwise there would be an error message about the shell possibly not being supported, and the AU dialect flags/settings would not get set correctly. 

Now, however, I am faced at the possibility of dozens of different shells, some of which have similar names, and having dependency on me to input all the content for a new AU is suddenly daunting when faced with the reality of it in my near future. Sure, the shell upkeep itself is super streamlined, but support in the code? That can still get overwhelming, especially if it’s an AU I’m not familiar with like I was Horrortale initially. It would require research and writing new lines and I kinda handwaved details away a year ago when planning all this out, since it was so far in the future, but now. Now it is time.

So. How do I make it so I don’t have to handle all the legwork for adding a new AU’s support in the code? Well, design and build a system that allows configuration and content addition without touching the code. 

I’ve been working on an entire txt-based configuration system to be included as part of the shell folder contents. 

The defaultTalk arrays, which reflect how his topic preferences will change as your relationship progresses (dependent on AU), will need to be handled outside the code, and configurable by the shell creators themselves, as a way to configure his disposition as an AU Sans. There have already been a few iterations of this, trying to figure out how to handle it efficiently!

The dialect flags auUF (underfell), auIF (inverted fate), auHT (horrortale), etc, are binary values (0 or 1) to determine if certain AU-specific mannerisms and dialogue apply, such as saying mustard in place of ketchup, ability to drop F-bombs, and.. other Fell-specific lines.

Those variables also need to be replaced, because I can’t keep adding new variables for every single AU and AU shell! 

More details coming in the next weeks. :) 

Here’s the old Shell Support Superpost.  

Vote weekly on what AU shells you wanna see next*!

(View Results) — Please don’t spam votes.

I don’t have much new I can actually show, but I’ve gotten a bit of dev work done lately. Since I was on IRL-enorced hiatus after working on Flowey, I felt like working on Sans again, and have been working on the shell revamp here and there to relax.

I made a post in January explaining in detail how the shell revamps are constructed, check it out for more info! 

I’m at the point where I have all his surfaces renamed and am working on rewriting all the surfaces.txt code itself! The file names used to all be surface#.png but this way will be easier to keep track of all the pieces. 

Instead of making thousands of surfaces for each possible combination of blush, sweat, eye shapes and sizes, etc, all the components are broken down and get stacked together as surfaces via the code! It’ll be easier for shell artists to simply change the pieces as needed (mostly just the blankface.png files!) and voila! Thousands of new AU MVsans shell expressions! ^_^ 

This means I can add shell support for dozens of AUs without getting overwhelmed, and artists without ghost dev experience can create AU shells more easily.

For a breakdown of what those files actually look like, and the final results, check this posts from January.

↓ More under the cut! 

Fell is getting a makeover as part of the shells revamp!! 

Most of Fell’s assets have been converted into the new format, though I may update his old shell one last time to look like this. 

The Swap!Papyrus idea is something I’ve tossed around a bit tbh, but his ghost size would end up being pretty different from regular Snas, which would make keeping track of the shell code a more difficult. Plus, Papyrus’ mouth moves when he speaks, while Snas doesn’t at all. 

I still may consider it, though, since he would indeed be in-character as Swap!Papyrus. He’d need a different balloon tho. 

also OK I GET IT YOU WANT REAPERTALE SANS 

thanks for all the votes, guys ^^ 

Vote weekly on what AU shells you wanna see next*!

(View Results) — Please don’t spam votes.

Multiverse Sans Preview - Shell Revamp 

Last weekend’s v1.3.531 Stable Update introduced Undyne in Chapter 2: Part 1 of the phone call series, along with interface tweaks and new Relationship Stats (Sans’ Feelings) implemented under the hood. 

Since there were so many potential outcomes (8 Choice responses alone, plus traits and more...) it took a lot to write and refine so I need to focus on another aspect for a while to prevent burnout.

Therefore! My focus for the time being will be getting the shells revamped to streamline the AU Shell-adding process. Additionally, all the shells will end up animated similarly to above WIP samples. All will have animated eyes, blinking and eyelight-rolling. Any AU Sanses with particle effects (Geno and Error) or other ongoing animations (Fresh’s beanie and glasses, Ink’s eyes) will be properly represented! 

Keep in mind, revamping all six shells, plus a new one, is a monumental task. Implementing his Feelings half of the Relationship Stats is also a top priority. So keep sending those User Reports! Again, huge thanks to everyone who’s sent some. They help with more than the nitty gritty stats themselves; they determine priority of New Content additions, such as the Pickups and Insults, to accommodate balanced stat accumulation.

I hope to release shell revamps in the next 2-3 months. Error is slated to be the next new shell but it’s not set in stone. He complements Ink, and is viable as soon as Geno’s revamp is done since they’ll use identical shell code. 

Geno shell was originally made by @huskalis​ for their own Geno Sans ghost and gave their blessing for use in MVSans. Geno is from Aftertale by Loverofpiggies. Ink!Sans belongs to @comyet​​ and WIP shell is by me.

Full detailed shell credits, and AU shell submission guidelines are in the Shell Support Superpost. 

Shell Submissions are currently closed but having an idea of what people want ahead of time will give us direction.

Vote weekly on what AU shells you wanna see next!

(View Results) — Please don’t spam votes. Once per week per person.

Multiverse Sans aims to support as many AU shells as possible! The Undertale Fandom is still going surprisingly strong years later in large part because of all the creativity surrounding the AUs, mostly AU Sanses, because for whatever reason everyone is obsessed with the punny lil shit. 

The currently supported AU shells are:

I decided from the very start I would not kill myself making shells for AUs I’m only lukewarm about. However, if someone else wants to make the shell for any AU, I will do what I can to support it in the code! 

Vote weekly on what AU shells you wanna see next*! 

(View Results) — Please don’t spam votes. 

*No guarantee the shell will be made but it may inspire artists into action!

(details on support under the cut)

In case you missed the content under the cut of the last update post...

I’m reaching the point at which I can open submissions for new AU shells from other artists. I’m not gonna kill myself making shells for AUs I’m only lukewarm about, but I’d be happy to support as many as possible in the code. 

So!! We got yet another AU shell already coming our way from my good friend Ymuy, creator of the @underchangeau​ and part of the Ukagaka Dream Team. She has a Sans ghost of her own AU you can download; he’s an angsty little shit! 10/10 will harass again. 

The technicalities on this AU submission system are still being worked out and I don’t wanna overwhelm myself with anymore shells right now. But I’m curious.

What other AUs do you guys wanna see in MVSans?