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Using Developer Mode

For easier mod development, we strongly recommend enabling Developer Mode. To do this, head to the Preferences sidebar. At the topmost section, User Interface, you can see a toggle to Enable Developer Mode. Turn this on and the Developer Tools sidebar will show up, alongside some minor user interface changes in other sidebars.

Below every template name (Body, Pose, Brow, Hairstyle, Clothing and others) another field will show up, displaying the filename for those templates. You can click the right pointing triangle beside these filenames to show more options: Open with External Editor and Show in Explorer.

Manage Libraries​

In the first section of the Developer Tools sidebar, you can do various things regarding library management. Here you can view more details regarding each DLCs and mods that is currently installed. Click the right pointing triangle beside the library name to open a drop-down menu which lists all of the installed DLCs and mods, and another option to Create New Empty Library for starting your own mod creation.

Depending on the nature of the content library (whether it's the Default Library, DLC, Steam Workshop item, or other mods), you can do various other things:

  • Edit Library Information to change the library's author, description and other parameters.
  • Change Cover Image to change the library's cover image or thumbnail.
  • Validate Components to validate every SVG file inside the corresponding library with Mannequin Character Generator's coloring rules.
  • Open Library Folder to open the library files using File Explorer or Finder.
  • Delete Library to delete the library from your local storage.
  • Upload to Steam Workshop to upload the library as a Steam Workshop item. Naturally, this is only available if you are running the Steam version of Mannequin Character Generator.

Inspect Layers​

Mannequin Character Generator is using a lot of smaller images which are drawn as layers to form the final composition. From this section, you can view these layers including their position, scale and rotation, plus their filename in your local storage.

Hovering your mouse to each layer entry will highlight the corresponding layer in the preview window and reduce the opacity of other layers. You can also Open SVG File to open the source SVG file in your default app of choice (usually it's your default web browser) or Show SVG File in Explorer to view the source SVG file in your File Explorer or Finder.

Sometimes the SVG file referenced by the layer information does not exist. This is normal and will be marked by the cross mark beside the filename.