Help:Character Making Resources

This article is meant to serve as a guide about some character tools and resources to make your own Microsoft Agent characters.

Image software

• Photoshop (recommended)
• GIMP (also recommended)
• Paint.NET (a bit limited, but still pretty good)
• Microsoft Paint (limited, and will not turn out great)
• Macromedia or Adobe Flash (good start)
• Adobe Animate (great start)
• AviUtl
• PaintShop Pro (great for making high quality palettes)
• Tux Paint (limited)
• Kid Pix (limited)

3D characters

• Blender
• 3ds Max or Autodesk Maya
• Cinema 4D
• Source Filmmaker (pretty recommended for beginners and even works out for advanced animators)
• Anim8or
• Microsoft 3D Movie Maker (limited)
• Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker (limited)
• MikuMikuDance
• Poser
  • 4
  • 5
  • 7
• Hash Animation Master
• 3D Choreographer
• Reallusion iClone
• Xtranormal or Nawmal (limited)
• Ulead Cool 3D
• Microsoft Paint 3D (limited, and it is discontinued, but archives of it can be found)

2D characters

• Reallusion CrazyTalk Animator (also for 3D characters)
  • 1.2 (recommended)
  • 5.3
• Anything mentioned on image software.

Effects

• Adobe Premiere or After Effects
• Vegas or Vegas Pro

Audio editing software

• Audacity (great for compressing sound effects)
• Wavosaur
• Ocenaudio

Character images (also known as VFX)

• Animation Factory
  • 3D Animated Clipart
  • Animation Factory - Essential Collection 3
  • Animation Factory - Essential Collection 2

• Gifcities

• Textfiles' DiscMaster Image Search

Sound effects

• Sound Effects Wiki
• Perfect Scrapbook Maker
• Microsoft Agent Sound Packs
• Textfiles' DiscMaster Waveform Audio Search
• Sound Ideas 1000 (classical sound library used during the 1980s and 1990s)
• Hanna-Barbera Sound Effects Library

Agent making tools

• Microsoft Agent Character Editor (recommended)
• Agent Magic (a pretty good alternative)

Miscellaneous

• ICO Converter
• Audio Converter
• MP3 Cutter
• JPEXS Free Flash Decompiler

Helpful tutorials

• Pre-Rendered SNES Sprites Tutorial by Spacepig22 (it does not have to be SNES-styled, you can make it whatever you want with this)
• Looping Animation Tutorial by MiniLopka Studios

Notes

1. Make sure your character is at least no bigger than 256 pixels in size so it can be decompilable.
   1. Though if your character does exceed 256 pixels in size, make sure it at least does not exceed the size of Gurruduk so it does not cover the entirety of the desktop.
2. Make sure your character at minimum, has at least the Show, Hide, RestPose, Move, and Gesture animations.
3. It is recommended to make your animations have multiple frames. Though, it will not have a major affect on your character, as long as you follow the first two instructions.
4. You are allowed to use some Windows sound effects for some of your animations. You can also use a lot more if your Microsoft Agent is based on any version of Windows. Though, it is recommended to have at least a few sounds that are not from Windows, so that way your Microsoft Agents do not get dry fast.
5. If your character consists of a mouth, it is recommended to have lip syncing in your character.
   1. Though, if your character lacks any sort of mouth, then this step can be skipped entirely.
6. OSC-styled characters are fine, and will always be fine, as long as they follow the first 5 things which are recommended when making a Microsoft Agent character.
7. It does not matter whenever your character is 2D or 3D, as there are many good 2D and 3D Microsoft Agents, as well as many generic or mediocre 2D and 3D Microsoft Agents.