A guide for Live2D model adaptation and customization.

This is a complete guide for everything about custom Live2D models, so it may be too long to read. If you've got a model which is already adapted for this app, it would be needless to read this!


Neptune Live2D, as its name says, is just a Live2D project for showing Neptune on desktop at first, but later I found that some people would like other characters better, so I made this customization feature for it.

For some reason, the models which aren't in Neptunia series may not work as expected. I'm not guaranteeing it'll be well fixed though, because this project isn't intended to support other kind of models.

To apply any change, you may need to reload the wallpaper by clicking the refresh button or re-select this wallpaper in Wallpaper Engine browser.

You will lose all modifications in this project when it receives an update, please always keep a backup for your custom Live2D models.

The underlined features/properties and the entire subtitle feature are available only in this project, they are not part of the Live2D standard.

When editing JSON files, pay attention to the quotation marks and commas. According to JSON's specification, each string must stay between two double quotation marks, and every two objects or name/value pairs must be separated by a comma. A common mistake is using a " inside a string, the right way would be using " instead.
If you still get an error with JSON, you can validate your JSON file in here[jsonlint.com].

What Live2D is
A 2D character animation engine. Official website[www.live2d.com]

Where you can find models of Neptunia series
Official mobile app[compileheart.com] or google it!
The resources in app are all encrypted, for getting models you have to decrypt them. Alright I know what I've done to them is not right. Feeling guilty.

Tools you may need
You can download them from the download page in the website above.

• Cubism 2 / Cubism 3: For creating Live2D models.
  
• Live2D Viewer: For previewing model and creating simple runtime files.
  
  • To load a model, drag & drop its model settings file or .moc file to app's window. Also you can do with other resources for addition, such as physics, expressions and motions.

See video tutorial.


I didn't find an official tutorial for it, so just wrote one myself. If you've imported your Live2D models and they work perfectly, you can ignore this section.

Model settings file stands for "Live2D Model Setting", usually named *.model.json, it defines all the parameters and related resources.

As an example, here is what Neptune's model.json looks like. I've removed unimportant objects and shortened it for a better look, you can directly open this file in project directory for a full and exact version.
model
The main file of Live2D model, which includes textures binding, parameters declaration and other information.

name / preview
Information that will be displayed in character list.

model
The main file of Live2D model, which includes textures binding, parameters declaration and other information.

textures
An array of texture files.

pose
A file that defines visible / invisible parts. If there is no available pose file, just use the default (empty) one as above.

physics
A file that defines physics effects with hairs and other items.

subtitle
A file of subtitles, see the following section of guide.

layout
Setting some parameters' values. Available parameters are: width, height, x, y, center_x, center_y, top, bottom, left, right. I can't explain them because I don't know much. You may have to test them out.

hit_areas
Naming the hit areas, which are used for interactions. The ids can be found with the Live2D Viewer. In this project, hitting head is bound with expression switching, hitting body or belly is a "tap_body" event.

expressions
Expression files and names. The name does not matter.

motions
Motion groups with events. When an event is triggered, its motions will be randomly activated. If a group has no motions, just leave it with an empty array, otherwise it may cause issues.

• motion properties
  
  • file / sound: File.
    
  • fade_in / fade_out: Time in millisecond, omit it for a default value 500.
    
  • subtitle: The subtitle's name declared in your subtitle file.
    
  • time: (For greet motions only) The start of available time span of this motion.
    
  • season: (For greet motions only) The season for special greetings.
    
    • Currently available values:
      
    • NewYear: 01/01 - 01/10
      
    • Halloween: 10/25 - 11/05
      
    • Christmas: 12/20 - 12/31
  
  
• idle
  Triggered when character is idle, means none of the other motions is running.
  
  
• greet
  Triggered right after wallpaper launches. If there are two or more motion with the same time span, it'll make a random select.
  E.g. the two greet motion examples above define that, a morning greeting starts from 6 to 14 and a evening greeting 15 to 5 (the next day), so a wallpaper launch between 6 and 14 will trigger the morning greeting. (Obviously the time around 14 is not "morning"... never mind)
  
  
• pinch_out / pinch_in
  Triggered when character is scaled to the max / min.
  
  
• tap_body / flick_head
  As the words say.
  
  
• shake
  Shake detection needs the accelerometer sensor.

The pinch_in / pinch_out / flick_head / shake events are not yet supported in this project.

The "../" in file path is to access the parent folder. For further upper levels, you can use "../../", "../../../", etc.

When a motion with dialogue starts, its subtitle (if exists) will pop up with a dialog. I used JSON as the format of subtitle files for a clear structure and better extensibility.

Here's Neptune's simplified subtitles.json.

Structure

file
├───language object (1)
│　　├───locale
│　　├───name
│　　├───author?
│　　├───description?
│　　├───font?
│　　├───style?
│　　└───subtitles
│　　 　 　├───subtitle object (1)
│　　 　 　│　　├───name
│　　 　 　│　　├───text
│　　 　 　│　　└───style?
│　　 　 　└───subtitle object (2)
└───language object (2)

Properties end with "?" are optional.

Multi-language
Properties in a language object:

• locale: Notation(s) for language.
  
  
  • You can check Steam\steamapps\common\wallpaper_engine\locale to find it for your language. (If you can't recognize which is, please check this website[www.science.co.il].
    
    
  • Multiple locales should be separated by spaces, e.g. "zh-chs zh-cht".
    
    
  • Note that "default" is also treated as a locale. When searching for a subtitle, if no language is selected or the selected language doesn't contain this subtitle, the app will search the language with "default" locale.
  
  
• name / author / description: Information that will be displayed in language selector.
  
  
• style: CSS styles.
  
  
• font: A shorthand for font(s) that subtitles in this language will be displayed as. It's equal to style: "font-family:<FONTS>"[developer.mozilla.org].
  
  
  • Multiple fonts should be separated by commas, e.g. "Trebuchet MS,Segoe UI".
    
    
  • Please don't use a special font that only you have it installed because most of the other people can't see it. Instead, you may use "safe fonts", i.e. built-in fonts of (most of) Windows, they can be found in C:WindowsFonts. For more information, you can search them in Google: "English safe fonts", "Russian safe fonts", etc.
    
    
  • If you don't know the exact name of a font, you can open it from C:WindowsFonts, then its name will show at first line.
  
  
• subtitles: Subtitle objects.

Adding a subtitle

1. Replicate a subtitle object, fill the text.
   
2. Specify a name, can be any value except duplicates.
   
3. Use the name as the value of subtitle of related dialogue definition.

Feel free to ask any questions!