Game Character Hub Reviews

Dev promised free MV support, but they instead put up another version on the store for $25 making this one abandoned and obsolete

The concept would be great, but the restriction that you can only use the generated assets with RPG Maker is absolutely unacceptable in my opinion. If I hadn't bought this tool years ago I would totally go for a refund as this restriction makes the tool useless to me. Only Buy this tool if you intend to use it with RPG Maker.

Excellent application if you're working with any RPG Maker engine. It's cheaper and more streamlined than Photoshop. (That's what I was using before.) It's very easy to set up the grid so you can rearrange and edit tiles, too. I'm well versed with Photoshop and GIMP. But GCH is a great tool because it's so specialized for 2D spriting. You can see a walk cycle preview, for example. It can convert sprites from XP to Ace so they fit the number of frames. It can even handle the old 2000 and 2k3 sprites. It features random sprite generators that are easy to customize and set up. Some people expected it to have "behavior" bases and corresponding parts, for animations or poses, like dancing or collapsing. It doesn't. (I have no idea where that expectation came from. At least one person already made a "down" base. Just consult the internet.) Yes, VX Ace has a built-in character generator, but you can't even adjust colors without an outside editor. GCH allows much more freedom for what parts you're able to use and how you can layer them. The resource sets it comes with are for RPG Maker XP and VX Ace. (If licensing is an issue because you're using some other engine, you can always import your own sprite parts...) Now, this might not be the best tool for making a sprite entirely from scratch, for a number of reasons. But it's probably one of the best options for editing sprites or piecing them together. If the price is too steep for you, just wait for a sale.

To be honest I used the GCH for making sure my sprites are in the correct place , to check the movement and other great stuff that I could do in minutes, but the developer said on December that we would get an update here with the MV parts etc. a few months passed and I believe in April he mentioned the delay for this update , but there he said that he wasn't releasing the pack and was going to make a new GCH ,but he didn't say we have to pay for it well now its on sale for 20.00 and when it goes up to 25.00 thats not even worth it because I believe it only have pieces for the MV series and some of us want to have at least templates and other stuff that can also be used on other engines instead of rpg maker , like one of the first problem this got when released and had to sell the second story set, I believe that this should be a free upgrade here since we don't know if that not GCH have all the dlc from this one and how many content have for the mv series, but still thats thats a slap to some other people who bought this for the mv support and update , and others stop using it so they where waiting for the update ,like me waiting since December more than 10 months and didn't say anything for so long and now they announce to tell us if you want it , you buy...again. For the moment I wont recommend buying this because all the new stuff are going to be in the new software and I believe they will stop supporting this version so we all can go and buy the new version.

Good piece of software but very limited. Only has 4 ways with no options of falling down, sleeping, casting etc. I may recommend it if you don't have game maker VX ace but if you do, you can do almost exactly the same on that software which also includes things to make an actual game!

I've only used it for a little over an hour, but it's already been very helpful. The character generator is great for making XP or VX style sprites with very little work. It's great for recoloring. The "save as diffferent hues" option is great. It lets you pick which elements of your sprite get recolored and spits out a bunch of randomly color sprites. It will also convert from various formats. Sure, converting XP style to VX style by hand isn't hard, but this just makes it easy and error free. You can also import parts for the generator. For example, I took the taira accessory from the VX ACE RTP character generator and imported it in as a library piece. Now I can have a tiara on any character I create. With the amount of time and work this tool will save me, it's a great deal. Even at full price.

You can add custom resources to this, ignore that other review. VERY useful program, highly recommended! Very easy to use and there are already tons of 'parts' out there on the net to import for use here. If you liked the demo, this is just a more convenient shined up version of it.

Despite what many people say this software is capable of making anything for RPG Maker Ace. The tools are self explanatory and very easy to use once you take the time to familiarize yourself with the interface. You can create custom sprite sheets, characters, even animations and battle backs. All you half to do is go into RPG Maker Ace and export the type of content you want to make and boom! instant template. Want to make a damaged character like you see in the default sprite sheets? Make your charter, import the pose you want and start cutting and adjusting your character to fit over the imported one and your done in ten minutes or less. Want to mix two tile sets together without risking messing up the format? Just use the grid system to copy past what tiles you want into the corresponding area. There is NOTHING that this can't make for RPG maker. All of the tools are there, just think outside the box and make them work for you. Note: Yes this works for MV too and actually can be used to quickly convert Ace anything to MV since all you do is scale things up by 50%. This literally lets you use anything you bought for Ace in MV. Step by step: 1) Open your Ace item and set it to being 1 big square. 2) Open an equivalent MV item in the same and compare its size in pixels 3) Go back to the Ace item and use the grid tool to adjust it to be the same size as the MV item making sure the enlarge to scale button is on. Depending on what your doing you may want to turn on smoothing.

I have used Photoshop for my custom spriting and animation, but just got this today and found this to be very much helpful in making my animation aligned properly and framed appropriately (I use RPG maker VX ACE, btw). Before, it didn't look bad when I tested my current custom sprites' movements, but this shows me all the directional movements along side each other in the proper frames and it shown me a big difference in the alignments of my previous sprites. Something I would've never noticed, otherwise! And it updates the preview as you work on it. I highly recommend this as an addition to sprite animation editing, especially if you want to make custom edits, even if they are not the traditional xp/vx size :) It'll let you know if the current grid sizing isn't optimal for what you have (I had imported a custom sheet and though it just barely worked in game, it wasn't the proper size till I fixed it). I may still use my photoshop program for stuff like scenes, very large stuff or minimal to no animated sprites, but this is my new favorite for most character spriting. I also love the ability to layer clothing, hair and items, separating them individually, this is a plus :D And the price is really great, too. Especially compared to another program here on Steam that does something similar. Fortunately it doesn't matter to me if there's limited resources included as I've got tons I've collected and many I plan to make anyways. Update (and further/clarification tips): Yes, you can adjust the amount of frames to what you need and create a template for more sprites that work in a "similar" manner, if needed. When adding, it'll ask if you want to scale the frames to match, depending on what it is, you would want to select for it to not match so it'll expand properly. Unless it does match, of course (may have to test variations out to be sure). On some clarifications in my post, when I tested my sprites before using this, I was testing animation in photoshop and using the actual rpg maker vx ace engine to test if the sprite would work correctly in it, which was time consuming and ineffecient in itself, since I have to go between programs. Also when I tried to import my "finished" sprite that was made beforehand, it shown me that the framing size wasn't correct (particularly in the middle column, thus cannot be imported properly, if at all), I had to correct it in photoshop by expanding it with the 32px grid sizing requirement to match the outer two columns. This program is best for those that either has a bunch of resources to import/work with or those who are creating their own templates, etc. Even if something isn't aligned right, it's not that hard to go in and make adjustments, just select the layer and make the adjustments. It's a slight learning curve, but not hard to work out. The other program I saw on Steam, cost over/around $100, so this is a great deal once you know how to work it.

While the software itself and its assets are great, there is a huge problem with the license of its contents. I purchased this software because it said we could use its results for our 2D games. Unfortunately, and to my knowledge it is still unclear to non-users willing to purchase, the software as of now only authorizes usage of its contents for "RPG Maker". What does that mean? It means that you won't be able to use Character Hub production for your 2D Games, not in any way. At least if you are not a pixel art designer. And if you are a pixel art designer, I wonder what use could be Character Hub to you as you would combine your tiles and sprites on Photoshop for about the same results. The game descriptiom says that "the elements found in the program should work with other 2D game engines as well." As of now it adds that "RPG Maker assets are for RPG Maker use only". But even some months after, the software only contains assets from RPG Maker! This means that you cannot use it in any game of yours, unless you make a RPG-Maker-RPG. I've googled for other 2D resources for Character Hub to no avail. If you know any legal resource library that we may use for our own games (and not something restrictive like RPG Maker), please tell! The software should be renamed as "Character Hub for RPG Maker" ; as of now, although a very nicely made software, it ends almost as a scam for programmers willing to use it for their own games. It's very unfortunate as I am sure Character Hub programmer, an indie, has worked on this software, but it needs clarification and efforts to get some license-free resources.