LITHIUM
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C H I L L
COSPLAY EVOLVED
OVERVIEW
Cosplay Evolved: Races is a mod that allows very specific customizations of your character model in game; From skin tone to bone lengths to parts and abilities, you can customize your character to appear as they truly should! CE is included in almost all roleplay servers nowadays, but there are still some folks who don't have as much familiarity with it. This guide will go over each page of the UI when you interact with a Cosplay Mirror (an item in game to access the mod) so you can make your character just as you imagined them.
PART CUSTOMIZATIONS
The first page you will be greeted with on interacting with a mirror, is the Part Customizations page. This is where you will add, modify, or remove, various parts for your character.
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UI Elements
On the right side of the UI will be two large lists labeled Mesh View Controls and Misc. Controls. These are how you will interact with the character preview on the left side of the UI, and easily copy and paste colors when selecting parts.
To be honest... it took an embarrassing amount of time for one particular server owner to realize that you could copy/paste colors of parts... namely only now, as this guide is being written. Anyway!
Just beneath the controls will be two check boxes. These allow you to, as they are labeled, see part names on top of their images in the list, or forego the images and only see the names.
Moving further down still, there are four important elements to find along the bottom of the screen. On the far left, in the preview pane, you will find a slider bar to adjust Brightness and Resolution. These are very helpful when the surrounding light is rather poor, and you need to see a bit clearer.
In the right-middle of the bottom of the screen, you will see a box with an arrow on each side. This tells you what page you are currently on, and allows you to switch between pages using the arrows.
On the far right, there are buttons for closing the UI with or without saving the edits you've made. If you select Close Without Saving, you will be given a secondary prompt just to make sure.
Moving all the way up to the top, this is where you will find several helpful elements: a button to create an Item Template (which will be covered at the end of this guide), a search bar to find a specific part by name, check boxes to change how parts are displayed, and a drop down that asks you to Select a category. It is this drop down that will allow you to browse the various parts available for your race.
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Categories
Parts are separated into ten different categories to make it easier to sort through them all. These categories are: All Parts, Heads, Head Bits, Piercings, Ears, Torso, Tails, Arms, Legs, and Full Bodies. The final item in the drop down list is to remove all parts currently on your character, and will pop another prompt to make sure you want to remove the parts.
Once you click on a category in the dropdown, all parts in that category will appear in a grid on the right side of the UI pane. You can click on each one to see its name, displayed in text above the grid as Selected: (item name). If you wish to apply it, you will click the check box in the upper left corner of each item's square. This will add the item to your character in the preview pane, and add additional settings above the preview pane and below the item grid.
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Part Customization
Once a part has been applied to your character, there are multiple ways you can customize it.
Above the preview pane, you will find three rows with three axes each. Adjusting the sliders will change the various aspects of the selected part. This allows for some rather creative applications, so don't be afraid to experiment to see what you can come up with.
Below the item grid you will find a number of region buttons, and three color bars beneath those. Each region that is available to have its color changed will be listed. The three color bars are RGB (red, green, blue), which you will change to achieve the color you want.
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Tips
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When working with a Head part, it is advised to not change its Z Scale to make it sit on your character's shoulders at the correct height. Instead, use the Neck axes on the Bone Customizations page to achieve the right neck length. This will prevent helmets and hats from clipping awkwardly, and will prevent your Head part's neck from dislodging itself during different animations.
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If you find yourself have trouble getting the right color for a part, try searching the internet for a color in RGB. Use a search such as "Auburn RGB color" and try using the number combinations you turn up.
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Colors in the preview pane, and in your character pane in your inventory UI, will appear slightly different than the colors of your character in game; This is because the lighting using for the panes is stark white, where natural light has varying hues. Don't be afraid to save and close frequently to see how your colors really look and whether they need adjusted.
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Any part that has an ability that it will provide to your character will have an icon on its image. Hovering your cursor over this icon will bring up a small info box that explains what the ability does.
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Some parts may have their abilities turned off in ini settings. They will still display the icon that tells you of their ability, though the text may change to alert you that the part is not functional if it has been turned off.
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If you remove a part, all changes you made to its settings will be lost. So if you are wanting to remove it temporarily so you can see how something else looks, try checking the Hide Part box instead.
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By default, any part that has an ability and is hidden will no longer provide its ability to your character. Lithium's ini settings allow for a hidden part to still provide its ability.​​
BODY CUSTOMIZATIONS
The second page of the UI is Body Customizations, and where you will modify many base things about your character: skin, hair, gender, and more.
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Gender
At the top of the UI, you will see a gender icon followed by the corresponding gender name. This displays your character's current gender and, when clicked, will switch between male and female. Yes, you can switch your character's gender even if your base survivor is one or the other. Helpful if you make a mistake and need to fix it! Be aware: if you switch your character's gender, you will lose all customizations you've made to them.
If you've wondered why we only work in male and female genders, this is why! The game itself is coded to only accept those two.
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Main Body
Moving down, you will find the Main Body category taking up the entirety of the right UI pane. There are multiple elements within, so let's go through them one-by-one:
There are two boxes that control your hair, one for hair on your head, one for facial (including eyelashes) hair. The check boxes available are as they are labeled--you can hide the hair and stop it from growing past the length it is currently set to. Speaking of, there are slider bars that allow you to change the hair length to whatever suits your desires. Next, there are dropdown menus that will allow you to choose from any of the default/base game hair styles. Finally, at the bottom of these boxes, there is a button that will allow you to set the hair color; Once you click the button, use the RGB bars at the bottom to choose the color, and click the Set Color button again to lock it in.
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Player Scale
To the right of the hair customization boxes is the Player Scale box. This is as it sounds: changing the sliding bar will adjust the scale (height) of your character. Some races have a minimum and maximum scale they can be set to. It is typically recommended to stay within point-nine of one, else your character may have trouble interacting with objects in game such as climbing ladders.
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Ability Key
In the middle of the right UI pane you will see text declaring Ability Key, a box with the key/key combination, and modifiers available. The Ability Key is the key or key combination you use to open the radial menu in game to enable/disable any eligible abilities from specific body parts you've added to your character. Some find it easiest to set it to a single uncommonly used key, while others prefer to keep it as a combination. The default, as displayed, is pressing R and Alt on your keyboard.
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Specimen Implant
Beneath the Ability Key element there is a small checkbox that will show or hide the ARK survivor implant on your wrist. Most prefer to hide it, so as to have things a bit more immersive for roleplay rather than gameplay.
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Skin Texture and Color
Taking up the bottom half of the right UI pane is where skin texture and color can be customized. There are several skin textures you can choose from. When you click on one, the preview pane will update to reflect the texture change so you can see what it looks like. Some textures are restricted by race if ini settings have been adjusted to do so.
Once you select a texture, it's time to color it. There are a few different regions that are listed; Though not all textures use all regions, all region buttons will remain visible. You can easily click on one and change one of the RGB bars to see what it changes, if anything. A few regions will change shininess or enhance/flatten specific textures rather than change the color, so don't be afraid to check out each region.
Otherwise, you simply select a region and use the RGB bars to color it as you desire.
BONE CUSTOMIZATIONS
The third page is where you can truly customize every aspect of your character, Bone Customizations. Here, you can change three axes of every available structure that comprises your character's skeleton.
It isn't exactly necessary to go over how each part is modified by each axis, as all it takes is a few minutes of playing around to figure it out. Instead, here are some helpful tips when using Bone Customizations.
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Tips
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It is highly recommended to leave Body Height untouched, as it compounds in wonky ways with the Player Scale from the previous page. Furthermore, it could be used to get around scale minimums or maximums, which is disallowed.
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It is highly recommended to leave the Knee section untouched. Changing any of the three sliders will make your character float above the ground, as then your character mesh and the land/object mesh won't... well, mesh.
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When in doubt, leave it alone! Changing bone scaling isn't necessary, and can easily wind up with a veritable Wendigo of a character. So if you find yourself frustrated, try leaving everything at default and moving on.
ARMOR CUSTOMIZATIONS
The final page of the CE Mirror UI is the Armor Customizations page. This is where you will tweak what armor pieces are visisble, how high/low helmets sit, and the appearance of your underwear.
As with the previous page, this is largely self-explanatory and/or easy to learn by simply clicking about. So here are a few helpful tips.
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Tips
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If your character is using legs that are digitigrade rather than plantigrade (meaning more like an animal's leg than a human's), the appearance of armor/clothing equipped in the leg slot will be extremely glitchy. A quick way around this is to simply hide any leg equipment on this screen. Another way is to use equipment skins that are actually bracelets or necklaces rather than pants from the wardrobe.
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If your character's neck is shorter than normal, you can adjust the Additional Hat Height into the negative to drop it down to the right level.
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Hiding the top and bottom of your underwear will show your character as truly naked when they have no armor on, but PG. More or less, all characters are simply Barbie and Ken dolls under their clothes. Some roleplay servers disallow the hiding of these pieces, others don't much care so long as you don't paint on the... extremities. Lithium falls into the latter category.
ITEM TEMPLATE
Once your character is looking just as you want them to, and you've Saved and Closed the UI, it's time to reopen it!
Okay, truly, it's time to create a template that you can keep in your inventory or in storage so that you can quickly reapply CE settings, should something go weird with your character. This keeps you from having to trek all the way to a mirror just to reload your look.
Back in the mirror UI, look in the top right for the Create Item Template button. Go ahead and click it. Another page will fold up from the bottom with various checkboxes for what exactly you want saved in the template. Generally speaking, it isn't necessary to change anything other than enter a name for the template itself. If you have more experience with CE and know what you're doing, you can customize the template as you wish.
When you're ready, click the Create Item Template button at the bottom. This will create an item and automatically put it in your inventory.
Now, whenever you need to refresh your look, you can simply hover over the item in your inventory and press E to use it!
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Tips
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Character Templates are an easy way to switch between two different appearances for a character as needed for roleplay purposes.
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A prime example of this would be a Werewolf, who would have a normal template for their normal form, and a template that is an entirely different design of a monstrous looking wolf anthro for their were-form.
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It is disallowed on almost all roleplay servers to have templates for different forms without explicit roleplay need and/or staff permission. This applies to Lithium as well.
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It's handy to have a few of the same template saved and stashed about, just in case you died and lost your inventory but need to reload your appearance before you can go back to retrieve your things.
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Anyone who has your character template in their inventory can use it, which can make for some comical OOC moments. Just be aware anyone who's used another's template will need to use their own to go back to themselves.
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Again, it is disallowed on almost all roleplay servers to use another character's template without explicit roleplay need and/or staff permission. This applies to Lithium as well.​
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