Mii Editor Blog

Hey everyone. I'm still here. I'm just busy at work and there have been a lot of distractions. I don't know when I can get back to the editor but it might be a couple of weeks.

Labels: delay, update

Slow going this week. I've been busy at work (my *real* job) and haven't had much time to work on the editor. I'll try to get to some more work done on the hair and maybe, just maybe, figure out what you need to do to get a unique Mii... with gold pants... !!!

Labels: delay, hair, upcoming

I pushed the recent updates for the hair. They're not complete but should be better than before. Also included is frame coloring for glasses that are not shaded. I think some of this is still off so I will have to go back and try to make that a little more accurate.

Some other minor backend adjustments have been made as well, but nothing that should make any difference to the end user.

Labels: beta, glasses, hair, update

I'm almost done with the initial frontal hair designs. After that the rear hair designs will need to be made (long hair, curls and other things seen behind the head). Once these are done, I'll need to go through and massage them to make sure each work with the individual head sizes. This may cause some hair to have a greater variation from the original Mii hair style, but it is necessary for best compatibility without months of extra work on my part.

Labels: beta, hair, upcoming

I forgot to re-compile the View Mii Flash SWF for the latest batch of updates so it was looking all crazy. That should be fixed now.

Labels: beta, fix, update, website

General updates for the face. Eyes and eyebrows should be mostly on the mark for position, size and rotation. I'm assuming all variations are equally separated (if one eye position is 5 lengths away from the one before it, then the next one should be 5 lengths after the current). If that is not the case, it could mean more adjustments.

Additionally I updated the mustaches which should now be sized and positioned more accurately. Some additional hair has been updated as well, but that's taking longer than I expected. I'll be working on that for the next couple of days.

If you've used the Mii Editor before, you may need to refresh/clear your cache before seeing the updates.

Labels: beta, eyebrows, eyes, hair, mustache, update

I'm pushing the new version of the Mii Editor with the updated eye graphics and the new XML format implemented. Its not well tested and the eyes have not been correctly positioned or sized, so they're bound to be off still, but I wanted something new out there for all the kids to play with. Hopefully I didn't break it ;)

If you've used the Mii Editor before, you may need to refresh/clear your cache before seeing the updates.

Labels: beta, eyes, update, xml

I'm hearing random reports of Miis not being able to make it from the Mii Editor back to the Wii. If this is happening to you, please send me your broken Mii and idealy a Mii from your Wii to senocular at hotmail dot com so I can track down the problem. Thanks.

Labels: beta, binary, wii

What am I working on? Currently I'm redrawing the eyes. Right now they're a little off and this update should fix their sizing and rotation issues. Given that there are 4 pages of eyes, this may take a couple of days.

After that I will get back to the hair, adding highlights and redrawing/repositioning where needed. I may also go in and take some creative liberties to make sure they fit ok on all head shapes.

After that will be mustaches and lip coloring followed by tweaking to finalize the preview.

After that, I will probably add final touches to the interface and push it as a 1.0 release.

I think following that I will probably create a Flash 7 version of the preview (not the editor) allowing it to be seen on the Wii. Hopefully, this downgrade won't be too hard.

Labels: beta, color, gui, hair, lips, mustache, upcoming

Earlier I received an email informing me that a Wii console will recognize a Mii as being a specific Mii (and thereby replacing other instances of itself) not just by the Mii ID number, but also the Wii ID number. Only when both of those match will a Mii replace another Mii on the console. Before I had assumed it was only the Mii ID number.

Thank you Shannon for pointing that out. I will update the FAQ.

Labels: faq, update, website, wii

If loading a Mii or XML file wasn't working before, it should be working now. I think that there was a problem that is now fixed. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm going to go with yeah, it was there and now it's fixed.

Labels: beta, binary, fix, xml

I took a break from doing visual improvements on character rendering and have turned focus instead to the XML. The idea behind the XML was to create a human-readable version of the Mii format which could be edited in simple text editors and uploaded back in the Mii Editor interface. I also wanted the XML to function as a file format that could support multiple Mii definitions.

The current format for the XML now supports that - more than one Mii can be placed in a single XML file. This, however, has not yet been implemented into the Mii Editor beta. So far all I have is an example (with a DTD and XSL for styling):

• example.xml

Right-click and download to see the XML, or simply click it to open it in your browser with the XSL applied (you can also view source from that to see the XML).

The XSL transformation includes a run-down of Mii character properties, a preview using the "view" Flash movie, and a link back the editor to edit it directly. Unfortunately, due to IE's active content issues, all previews will appear black until you click on them... why black, I don't know. The imagery should technically still show. Clicking should only be required for interactivity... but this is IE we're talking about so who knows (not me at least, not yet, but I will look into it).

I guess it should be noted that the preview is generated by a hex string coded into the XML by the editor (the same one used in URLs). If other properties in the XML are changed, the preview will not reflect those changes unless that hex string is updated as well.

... oh yeah, the format is not 100% complete either. I still want to transform type values to match their location in the interface. For instance the first type on the first page of the hair tab in the Wii has a value other than 0 - its like 16 or something. I want to make the XML values match what is more naturally assumed - the first being 0, the second 1, etc.

Update: I narrowed the black preview in IE to be a result of using 100% to size the SWF object. I just hardcoded in the size now and it seems to work fine.

Labels: links, upcoming, update, website, xml

The XML format has now changed slightly. Hopefully most people are using URLs now and not XML so this shouldn't be a big issue. But values for vertical position (those ending in "Y" like "eyeY") now have their values reversed. This means a value of 0 is low on the face and a value of 18 would be high on the face. Before this was reversed - and a little confusing. Now it makes a little more sense. That's the purpose of XML after all, human-readable information that makes sense.

More complete documentation on the XML format will be provided when it has been finalized.

Labels: beta, update, xml

If you've tried using the editor at MiiEditor.com and have onyl gotten a series of Flashing screens, you probably don't have an updated version of the Flash player installed. Flash Player 9.0.28.0 is required.

I have updated the F.A.Q. and included a detection script (using JavaScript) to warn anyone that might not have a compatible player. Either way, the editor will still try to load. In fact, you should actually be able to use most of the features with older versions of 9 (prior to r28). I think the current restriction only applies to features unique to 9.0.28.0 that the Load Mii feature makes use of.

Labels: beta, faq, update, website

I think I fixed most of the issues with the eyebrows. This could affect a lot of the Miis created with the Mii Editor earlier since their eyebrows were incorrect. Miis from the Wii, however, should look more like what they do on the Wii.

If you've used the Mii Editor before, you may need to refresh/clear your cache before seeing the updates.

Labels: beta, eyebrows, update

I added a new page which will show just a Mii character without any of the Mii Editor interface. This uses the same URL format as the URL provided by the editor (hexadecimal URL explained earlier) but does so through an alternate page, view.php. Example:

http://www.miieditor.com/view.php?mii=45e20052...

This can be used to provide a larger preview of your Mii (as this page scales with the browser). Additionally, I would like to eventually be able to provide a SWF that anyone can download and use with their own pages to show off their Mii. This, however, I won't provide until character rendering is more complete.

Labels: gui, hex, links, update, website

Updated the mouths. These are a little more refined. Color, however, has still not been implemented. Mouth (lip) coloring is pretty subtle and I have yet to nail down those subtleties and figure out what color is applied where and how much.

Labels: beta, lips, mouth, update

I created a new Known Issues page for the Mii Editor site. This lists the current problems currently associated with the editor. This includes both interface and character rendering issues, though I think the most important are definitely character rendering at this point in time and those are the issues I will focus my attention on.

Labels: beta, upcoming, website

I just finished drawing all the hair icons and have added them into the editor. This marks the move from alpha to beta. Now I will concentrate on getting the characters to look right. This means updating more hair, updating the mouths, and correcting the sizing and rotation of characteristics.

Labels: alpha, beta, gui, hair, update

I updated some more hair graphics fixing some which were not centered on the head and giving highlights to others. There's still a lot to do and it takes a lot of time to do it. I'm also discovering that some hair styles have parts of hair that conform to different head sizes. One thing I'm not about to do is make a different hair style for each one of those, but I will have to find some middle ground that will work ok for all head sizes.

I'm also still working on the hair icons. They're about 35% done as of today.

Labels: alpha, hair, update

So my trip to Seattle was canceled. This means I might get more done this week than I thought.

Speaking of which, I managed to add a text field at the bottom of the editor that shows the current character's Mii URL. Using this URL will load that character directly into the editor when it's used.

Labels: alpha, delay, gui, hex, links, update, website

As mentioned before, links with hexadecimal information could be used to dynamically load Mii characters into the editor. This is now working. Though there is no way to directly generate the url from the editor (yet) I am working with http://www.miiplaza.net to have miis within their database link directly to the Mii editor in this fashion. Example:

http://www.miieditor.com/?mii=33aa00730074006500760065005f006f0000000000006458807bd2b3c261e08040002fa0014066744089a4a01440b8af26670c8a250400730074006500760065005f006f000000000000

Labels: alpha, hex, links, update, website

Many of the missing icons have now been added to the interface. I think the only set remaining are the hair icons. These might take a while given their dissimilarity to the actual hair graphics used in displaying the character. Once I get those added, I'll probably slide it over into beta and begin working on refining character rendering. The mouths could use some cleaning up and there is still a lot to be done with the hair, not to mention general positioning and sizing.

Labels: alpha, gui, update

This week I'll be going to Seattle on business. As a result I may not be able to provide many updates until around the weekend or next week sometime. I do recognize that there are many kinks still to work out and I will be sure to get to them when I can.

Labels: delay

The Mii Editor has support for reading hexadecimal strings as Mii data. Though not a format you'd normally work with, it has it's applications. For example, using the hex data for a Mii (148 characters), you could potentially send your entire Mii character - thanks to its tiny format - to miieditor.com in the form of a url. Example (currently non-functional):

http://www.miieditor.com/?mii=276a0054007200650076006f00720000000000000000763b80706050c2010203000067e09980ee94188b86601450788c008a008a250400730065006e006f00630075006c006100720000

Ideally, this will make it easy to share Miis with a friend simply by sending them a URL.

Implementing this into the current editor shouldn't be too hard, but I want to finish the UI first and work on some more improvements to the character rendering.

Labels: hex, upcoming, website

Facial features like wrinkles and the 5 o'clock shadow now fit better to various the head shapes. I don't think this is perfect just yet, but it definitely fixes a lot of the obvious issues, especially with the shadow and some of the wrinkles which, before, just fell off the face.

I also fixed an eye whose pupil was getting lost in the coloring.

Note: you may have to clear/refresh your cache to see the results.

Labels: alpha, eyes, facialfeatures, update

The Classic UI Preview now supports save and image export features. XML handling is managed through a different screen, though the load option works for both Mii binary files as well as XML. Images can now also be exported in 4 different sizes.

About the only thing remaining is creating icons for the various types of characteristics. I'll try to get some of those in sometime soon, and I think once that's done, this will be in a 1.0 (beta) release. Additional features I have planned will be considered as an upgrade or a 2.0 release. Enhancements to character rendering will also be constantly improved between now and then.

The Classic UI Preview is now considered the current Alpha.

Labels: alpha, gui, update

The Classic UI Preview has been updated. It now supports most colors. The only colors not supported are favorites (since that requires an additional popup). The borders are also currently being colorized, so that will have to be eventually fixed. At least they work now. Some other minor updates were also included.

Update: I added favorite colors, and not through a popup. Instead, they're just smaller versions of the color blocks condensed to fit in that area. This was easier and works for now.

Labels: alpha, color, gui, update

Noses now have a fill color for, well, their nose skin (instead of just being outlines). In addition, glasses now have color for the types of glasses that have shaded lenses. I think lips are currently the only characteristic that doesn't display the appropriate color it has been defined.

Labels: alpha, glasses, nose, update

I hooked in the "Classic UI" to the current character rendering and you can now use it to change most of the values: Classic UI Preview. Basically the only thing you can't change are the colors. Also, there is no load or save features in this UI yet and no icons for characteristic types. You can scroll through the pages of types available, but you can't tell what you're looking at until you select something and the preview is updated.

I did allow XML editing through the File button. This will let you bring in XML from the Alpha version, edit the character through this UI, and take it back over to the alpha to save.

More information in regards to the additional options (Mii ID and Mii MAC) can be found on the FAQ of MiiEditor.com.

Labels: alpha, gui, update, xml

I've updated the beards so that they include highlights and fit better with the faces. For the most part, for now, they're pretty good to go. They could use some fine tuning later down the road though. Facial features such as wrinkles and the 5 o'clock shadow requires a similar treatment, but I think I'm going to focus on the GUI from here on out.

Labels: alpha, beard, update