Debug messages

This is the default message that’s shown if no errors or problems have been detected.

If you make any changes to the character’s design without updating the character, this message will pop up. This isn’t indicative of a problem but is rather meant as a reminder that you should update the design of your character by pressing the “Save Changes & Update Character” button.

If you see this message you have added and selected a Template Character Prefab without giving it a name. While this doesn’t break anything, I always recommend properly naming your templates to avoid confusion during your workflow. This warning message will disappear immediately as soon as the selected Template Character has been given a name.

This warning appears if you didn’t add a Saved Designs Database for the body to the Character Data Manager. All you have to do to fix this is click the white dot next to the empty Saved Designs Database field and select the proper database. If such a database doesn’t exist yet, you can create one by selecting Create > Game Between The Lines > Character Creator 2D > Database > Saved Designs Database. After doing so, give it a descriptive name so you know what its purpose is, and drag it into the empty Saved Designs Database field in the Character Data Manager. The warning message should now disappear.

This warning message pops up if you haven’t added a Saved Designs Database for clothing to the Character Data Manager. To fix this, click the white dot next to the empty Saved Designs Database field and select the correct database. If such a database doesn’t exist, create a new one by selecting Create > Game Between The Lines > Character Creator 2D > Database > Saved Designs Database. Then, give it a descriptive name to avoid confusion about its purpose, and drag it into the empty slot in the Character Data Manager. This warning notification should have disappeared.

This message indicates that the ‘Global Character Data’ Scriptable Object inside of the Character Data Manager is missing. If you’re not using this Character Creator in conjunction with the Basic Dialogue System, this warning can be ignored. If you are using the Dialogue System, we need to fix this issue by adding a new ‘Global Character Data’ Scriptable Object. You can do so by selecting Create > Game Between The Lines > Character Creator 2D > Database > Global Character Data. Drag the newly created Scriptable Object into the empty slot and the warning message should go away.

This message will appear in the following scenarios:

• One or more of your Character Data Clusters have “Use Databases” set to “Both” but are missing a Character Segment Database and/or Character Color Database.
• One or more of your Character Data Clusters have “Use Databases” set to “Segments” but are missing a Character Segment Database.
• One or more of your Character Data Clusters have “Use Databases” set to “Colors” but are missing a Character Color Database.

This message can be resolved by checking all of your Character Data Clusters and viewing if you are missing a database or if the “Use Databases” field should be adjusted.

This message appears if one or more of the Character Data Clusters contains an empty database. This can either be an empty Segment Database or an empty Color Database. Double-check your databases to ensure that all of them include at least one option to pick from the Character Creator window.

This message appears if any of the Segment Databases or Color Databases contain a segment or color group without a name. Double-check your databases and ensure all selectable segments and colors have a name.

If you see this message pop up, odds are you recently made changes to one or more color groups. This message tells you that a fully transparent color (with alpha 0) was found within one of the Color Groups. This is an easy “mistake” to make because Unity gives all color fields a default alpha value of 0. Be sure to check whether your recently added colors all have an alpha value of 1. This problem may be patched in the future so the alpha is set to 1 by default upon adding a new color.

This message requires a quick but urgent fix. The Scriptable Object called “Character Creator Dependencies” is needed for the Character Creator 2D to work properly. This Scriptable Object holds data for visual elements such as icons and other GUI-related settings. To fix this error, navigate to the bottom of the Character Data Manager. There you will find a field called “Character Creator Dependencies”. If you click the white dot at the far right of that field you should be able to select a Scriptable Object called “Character Creator Dependencies” that’s given to you by default upon downloading the project. If for some reason no such object exists, I highly recommend reimporting the project.

You’re seeing this message if you enable the “Export Character as Prefab” option in the Export Settings, but leave the list of Character Templates in the Character Data Manager empty. If you don’t want to export a prefab for your characters, you may ignore this error message and set “Export Character as Prefab” to false. If you do want to export prefabs, you’ll have to add at least one Character Template for your prefabs to use as a blueprint. In Chapter 4, you can read more about why this is necessary.

This message shows up when you create a Template Character without adding a prefab to it, whilst having the “Export Character as Prefab” variable in the Export Settings set to true. If you have no intention of exporting a prefab for your characters, feel free to ignore this error message and keep “Export Character as Prefab” set to false. If you do want to export prefabs, I recommend double-checking your Template Characters to find out which of those characters is causing the error to appear. If you add a prefab to all of your templates, the error should disappear.

If this message is shown, you have enabled the “Export Character Animations” option in the Export Settings while selecting a character template that doesn’t have an Animator Component. If you want to use a non-animated character as a template you can ignore this error message by disabling the “Export Character Animations” boolean in the Export Setting window. If you do want to export animations for your character, check your Character Template Prefab again to ensure it or one of its children contains an Animator Component with at least one animation clip.

If this message is shown, you have enabled the “Export Character Animations” option in the Export Settings while selecting a character template that misses at least one sprite in one of its animations. If you want to use a non-animated character as a template you can ignore this error message by disabling the “Export Character Animations” boolean in the Export Setting window. If you do want to export animations for your character, check your Character Template Prefab again to ensure all associated animation clips contain sprites.