The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth – [DETAILED] How to Create a Custom Character Mod in “The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+”

Before You Start

Here is some programs you will need to start modding! 

 
Here is a download that will help with the process! 
 
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2410333798 
 
 
 
 
 

Getting Started

You will need to navigate to your mods folder for the game in: 
 
Windows: C:\Users\Your User\Documents\My Games\Binding of Isaac Afterbirth+ Mods 
if you do not see the last two folders, it is safe to create them manually. 
 
You’ll see the Template here if you subscribed to it, if you don’t, double-check you subscribed first then wait a bit for Steam to download it. 
 
Once you open the template you will see 2 Folders, content and resources, along with main.lua, and metadata.xml. 
Both files can be opened with Notepad++ 
If you see “disable.it”, ignore it, it will be deleted when you boot the mod. 
 
main.lua 
Open the main.lua file, this will be where you change any coding that is not covered by the other files, including adding Eternal Hearts or adding special effects. 
Everything here doesn’t need to be changed except: 
local Template = { DAMAGE = 1.0, -- Change this to your damage multiplier, 1 is default. SPEED = 0.1, -- Change this to your speed multiplier, 0.1 is default. SHOTSPEED = 0.80, -- Change this to your tear speed multiplier, 1 is default. TEARHEIGHT = 0, -- This changes how high the tears can go including going over rocks, 0 is default. One of the factors of range. TEARFALLINGSPEED = 0, -- This changes how fast the tears can go, 0 is default. One of the factors of range. LUCK = 1, Better luck generally means better random events. 1 is default. FLYING = false, -- Do you want your character to be flying? Put "true" in place of "false" if so. TEARFLAG = 0, -- This changes how much gravity the tears have, 0 is default. One of the factors of range. TEARCOLOR = Color(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0, 0, 0) -- Color(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0, 0, 0) is default. } 
Now since we are done with that, lets continue to the next file. 
 
metadeta.xml 
 
This file should not be changed as it is only used when uploading to the Steam Workshop which I will cover in Extras. 
 
Okay, lets jump into… 
 
 
 

Content Folder

costumes2.xml 
Finds the hair texture. Do not change… 
 
players.xml 
Once again, I’ll explain what you can change! 
 
bombs="1" hp="1" black="1" armor="1" card="1" items="1,2" trinket="1" name="Template" coins="1" pill="1"“bombs” is the amount of Bombs you start with. 
“hp” is how much red hearts you start with, 1 being a half and every additional number being an additional half heart. 
“black” is the amount of black hearts you have, again each being half. 
“armor” is the amount of soul hearts you have, once again each being half. 
“card” is which card you start off with, put the Card ID here which you can find platinumgod.co.uk – http://platinumgod.co.uk 
“items” is which items you start with, IDs are separated with a space in Rebirth and Afterbirth, but use commas to separate them in Afterbirth+. IDs can be found in the same website as above. 
“trinket” is the ID of the trinket you start off with which can also be found in the website. 
“name” is your character name. 
“coins” is the amount of coins you start with. 
“pill” is the Pill ID of the pill you start with. YOU CAN ONLY START WITH EITHER A PILL OR A CARD! 
 
Feel free to remove certain sections if they don’t apply like so: “hp=”2″ armor=”2″ card=”1″” will be changed to “hp=”2″ card=”1″” if you don’t need soul hearts. Now lets get to… 
 
 
 

Content/GFX Folder

Stats 
Since you have already put down your stats, you can make it show your characters stats when looking at them in character select, though it is a little tricky. 
 
If you open charactermenu.anm2 with Notepad++ and scroll to the bottom you will see: 
<Animation Name="Template" FrameNum="1" Loop="false"> On line 1034, this is where the file tells the game where each images are where. We will need to modify it to reflect your stats because currently it is set to show my stat tallies. 
 
Go to line 1066 and you will see that line 1066-1067 are Layer 9 of the image. If we go to line 1067 it is telling the game where the image is. What image? well since Layer 9 is the Health Stat, well be changing that. 
 
Don’t worry you won’t be touching the values within the line, as a matter of fact we’ll replace the line instead. Below you will see a line of code that corresponds to the number of tallies you wish to have. Fell free to use this for line 1070 under Layer 10 ( Speed ) and line 1072 under Line 11 ( Power Stat ) 
 
1 Tally 
<Frame XPosition="196" YPosition="172" XPivot="16" YPivot="16" XCrop="80" YCrop="480" Width="32" Height="32" XScale="100" YScale="100" Delay="1" Visible="true" RedTint="255" GreenTint="255" BlueTint="255" AlphaTint="255" RedOffset="0" GreenOffset="0" BlueOffset="0" Rotation="0" Interpolated="false"/>  
2 Tallies 
<Frame XPosition="196" YPosition="172" XPivot="16" YPivot="16" XCrop="112" YCrop="480" Width="32" Height="32" XScale="100" YScale="100" Delay="1" Visible="true" RedTint="255" GreenTint="255" BlueTint="255" AlphaTint="255" RedOffset="0" GreenOffset="0" BlueOffset="0" Rotation="0" Interpolated="false"/>  
3 Tallies 
<Frame XPosition="196" YPosition="172" XPivot="16" YPivot="16" XCrop="80" YCrop="512" Width="32" Height="32" XScale="100" YScale="100" Delay="1" Visible="true" RedTint="255" GreenTint="255" BlueTint="255" AlphaTint="255" RedOffset="0" GreenOffset="0" BlueOffset="0" Rotation="0" Interpolated="false"/>  
4 Tallies 
<Frame XPosition="196" YPosition="172" XPivot="16" YPivot="16" XCrop="112" YCrop="512" Width="32" Height="32" XScale="100" YScale="100" Delay="1" Visible="true" RedTint="255" GreenTint="255" BlueTint="255" AlphaTint="255" RedOffset="0" GreenOffset="0" BlueOffset="0" Rotation="0" Interpolated="false"/>  
-1 Tallies 
<Frame XPosition="196" YPosition="172" XPivot="16" YPivot="16" XCrop="144" YCrop="480" Width="32" Height="32" XScale="100" YScale="100" Delay="1" Visible="true" RedTint="255" GreenTint="255" BlueTint="255" AlphaTint="255" RedOffset="0" GreenOffset="0" BlueOffset="0" Rotation="0" Interpolated="false"/>  
Rememeber, you are replacing the line. 
 
YAY, YOU GET TO START DRAWING! 
 
If you look into the characterportraits.png you will see gray and white boxes towards the lover right corner, 
 
Character Portrait 
Your portrait is the bigger gray box, the reason it is there is to show you the boundaries of your portrait, going outside of the boundaries will crop out everything outside of the box. Don’t forget to remove the box after drawing over it, with GIMP you can create a New Layer and draw on it instead. then select the gray box on the main layer and delete it. For more info look at some GIMP Documentation or Tutorials. 🙂 
 
Starting Item 
The smaller gray box is the are for the icon of the item, the white box right next to it is the area for the name of the item. 
 
If your character starts with more then 1 item that you want to list then this is where it gets a little tricky, to avoid cluttering, I’ll explain how to do it in the Extras Section. 
 
Character Name 
The last, small, white box is the area for the character name. 
 
Let’s go to the death portraits.png. 
 
Character Death Name 
Nothing much to change in this file, just the white box which is your name when appearing on your death note. Okay, lets go back to the main folder with the main.lua so we can jump to… 
 
 
 

Resources/GFX/Characters Folder

Lets start with the characters folder, this is where you can have more fun drawing. 
 
Hair 
If you open the TemplateHair.png you will see a oddly creepy face along with white and gray boxes. The white boxes are the boundaries for the hair in its default animation, the gray boxes are the boundaries of the hair when the character is Blinking aka Shooting Tears. To know how the hair will look on your character, there is some faces I put there for you, they are not needed and will make your character weird if not deleted before exporting the png. 
 
Remember the Hair will overlay. Also, Keep the hair open, you will need it in the next portion. 
 
Your Character 
If you open the costumes folder you’ll see character_template.png. This is how your character appears while playing. Feel free to change all of them. 🙂 
 
REMEMBER THIS: 
All the heads below the walking animations need hair added to them, they do not start with your TemplateHair.png like the ones at the top do. 
 
It’s probably been a while since you’ve looked at this article if you’ve been working hard on your character. Don’t worry we’re almost done. Just need to go to… 
 
 
 

Resources/GFX/UI Folder

WE ARE ALMOST DONE. 
 
This is the folder that contains only 3 easy images. 
 
boss/TemplatePortrait.png 
This is what shows when you enter a boss battle, ( eg. “Your Character vs Monstro” ) 
 
boss/playername_template.png 
This is what shows as your name when you enter a boss battle. 
 
stage/ui 
This is what shows as you move up a level and you have nightmares. 
 
 
 

Finishing Up…

PHEW, WE ARE DONE! 
 
All we need to do is activate the mod. 
 
Start up The Binding of Isaac Afterbirth+! Navigate to the “Mods” Tab where you start a New Game and Press “Tab” to activate mods and press enter on CharacterTemplate to activate it or deactivate it! 
 
Now you are done but next is how to add Multiple Items to the Character Menu and How to Upload your Character to Steam Workshop. 
 
 
 

Extras

Adding Multiple Items 
This is a pretty tricky process so lets immediately jump into this. 
 
NOTE: 
You can only list up to 2 Items in the Character Menu. Well… Technically you can list 3 but showing 2 already takes up a bunch of space so I’ll show you how to do 2. 
 
Open up charactermenu.png and draw the Icon of your item icon and name anywhere blank. 
 
Go to the charactermenu.anm2 and scroll down to line 1076 and replace the line with 
<Frame XPosition="206" YPosition="226" XPivot="16" YPivot="16" XCrop="REPLACE" YCrop="REPLACE" Width="REPLACE" Height="REPLACE" XScale="100" YScale="100" Delay="1" Visible="true" RedTint="255" GreenTint="255" BlueTint="255" AlphaTint="255" RedOffset="0" GreenOffset="0" BlueOffset="0" Rotation="0" Interpolated="false"/>  
In GIMP go to Window > Dockable Dialogues > Tool Options. This is really helpful. 
 
Now select the selection tool and select the area of your Item Icon. Now in the Tool Options Dialogue you should see Position. Copy the first box and paste it where it says REPLACE next to XCrop. Now Copy the second box under Position and paste it where it says REPLACE in YCrop. Now under Size the first box is Width and the Second is Height. Replace the REPLACE in both Width and Height with their correspondent. Now the Icon is setup. 
 
For the name you will do the same as above but replace line 1079 with 
<Frame XPosition="230" YPosition="229" XPivot="16" YPivot="16" XCrop="REPLACE" YCrop="REPLACE" Width="REPLACE" Height="REPLACE" XScale="100" YScale="100" Delay="1" Visible="true" RedTint="255" GreenTint="255" BlueTint="255" AlphaTint="255" RedOffset="0" GreenOffset="0" BlueOffset="0" Rotation="0" Interpolated="false"/> and work with this instead. 
 
Uploading to Steam Workshop 
Open your manifest.xml in your mod and change the 
<name>Character Template</name> to whatever you wish your mod to be named in Steam. 
 
Now go to your directory for the game, where isaac-ng.exe is. Now go to tools > ModUploader, and open the exe in there. This is a really simple dialogue, open the mod by selecting “Choose Mod…” and selecting your mods manifest.xml. Input everything else then click “Upload Mod”. 
 

Hope you enjoy the Guide about The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth – [DETAILED] How to Create a Custom Character Mod in “The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+”, if you think we should add extra information or forget something, please let us know via comment below, and we will do our best to fix or update as soon as possible!