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Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial? (Read 30493 times)

Started by DarkDesertFox, May 15, 2017, 06:00:48 am
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DarkDesertFox

Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#1  May 15, 2017, 06:00:48 am
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A lot of the tutorials I've looked at are really old and the one I've tried here uses Fighter Factory Classic which I keep getting lost in since I have Fighter Factory 3. I have spent hours and hours of my time the past couple days and it feels wasted. I really don't want to give up. I would truly like to create a character and I'm wondering if there are some newer tutorials out there.

Cyanide

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#2  May 15, 2017, 08:23:04 am
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The thing is, at the heart of it mugen creation hasn't truly moved on since FFC as a "this is how you do stuff" all it is for either version is learning the application, and apart from the GUI differences, there isn't much of a difference.

If you are trying to use FF3 for your palettes, that's not needed and isn't truly the best way to do it because you learn by rote which means when you get something wrong you have no idea why.

The code is all still text. The act files are still act files when you're using them. Snd is still the same etc etc etc. You ought to be able to transcribe a tutorial from FFC to FF3 without too many issues if you use a program like GIMP to do the paletting, arguably the single hardest part of understanding mugen.


In M.U.G.E.N there is no magic button

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.

Slivern

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#3  May 15, 2017, 08:33:42 am
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Maybe I could help. There's a guy I found on YouTube who made tutorials using Fighter Factory 3 in 2012 named Ryon Persaud.

Here is a playlist of his complete 10 part character creation series plus more:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIwEWBFlq_nqdRXtIA9rccQXx29eSHPlY

Ryon is still available to talk to years later, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask him. Ryon is honestly the only helpful person out there when it comes to character creation these days, and he was a former administrator of MUGEN Free For All, which is still up and running.

And believe me, you're not alone, I sometimes feel like I can't get anywhere with M.U.G.E.N characters. I'm still stuck with my first character (KoF '98 Kyo) because I haven't found any KoF centric MUGEN tutorials, so I have to take the hard route and mess around with another MUGEN character's code, and I STILL don't understand variables.

Odb718

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#4  May 15, 2017, 01:39:07 pm
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Slivern said, May 15, 2017, 08:33:42 am
Ryon is honestly the only helpful person out there when it comes to character creation these days, and he was a former administrator of MUGEN Free For All, which is still up and running.
Daaaaymn Cyanide. He's talking smack about us.
@DarkDesertFox: Like Cyanide said, FFC and FF3 are kinda the same.
You wont be doing EVERYTHING all at once. I always recommend editing an existing character that's closest to how you envision your character. Editing small values and testing will help you learn what's what.

What exactly do you need help in FF3 with? Are you building your character from the ground up? It's better to look up specific tutorials on how to do particular things in characters. Like if you're importing sprites you dont need someone wasting your time talking about the cmd file.

@Slivern: What's confusing you about Vars? It's just a way to remember "things" as numbers. What those things are is 100% up to you. What number you assign to those individual thing is up to you.  You're just bringing one bit of info mugen doesn't automatically remember from one move to another.
vVv Ryuko718 Updated 10/31/22 vVv

DarkDesertFox

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#5  May 15, 2017, 06:21:46 pm
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Thank you guys for the replies! Yeah, like Cyanide said, I'm mainly at the first part for importing the sprites and it's just really complicated to me. I wish it was like with Photoshop and you can just open an already transparent image. Like the guy for the tutorial I was watching had only a few colors on his while mine had a ton which made it confusing as to where to put the transparent color since every slot was filled. I also had other issues in following. I'm kind of starting off with a complicated character though:



Using sprites from Shantae: The Half-Genie Hero. Thank you, Silvern for the tutorial. I feel better not knowing I'm the only person struggling with this stuff. I'll check this guy out and hopefully I can make a little more progress.

Quote
@DarkDesertFox: Like Cyanide said, FFC and FF3 are kinda the same.
You wont be doing EVERYTHING all at once. I always recommend editing an existing character that's closest to how you envision your character. Editing small values and testing will help you learn what's what.

What exactly do you need help in FF3 with? Are you building your character from the ground up? It's better to look up specific tutorials on how to do particular things in characters. Like if you're importing sprites you dont need someone wasting your time talking about the cmd file.

Yeah, I probably shouldn't have started from the ground up. Sprites are my biggest problem right now with the palettes. I may need to rethink my approach and start with a less complicated character and start looking at other people's characters to get an idea of the overall works of Mugen. Thanks again guys for the responses! I feel more motivated than earlier for sure.

Odb718

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#6  May 15, 2017, 10:23:03 pm
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http://mugenguild.com/forum/topics/use-fighter-factory-3-make-palette-fast-177794.0.html

If you need help with understanding that, ask in here. You'll get a reply a lot faster. You'd do the process for each set of sprites you want to make.
If you want to add colors to another palette I can show how to do that too.

One very important thing to note, Fighter Factory has always been bad at updating the palettes while working on the character. FF3 is a lot better, but I've had it mess up.
Everytime you make/edit a new palette, SAVE, EXIT, & REOPEN the character. Something with the internal loading of Fighter Factory needs to be refreshed for the palettes to work properly. Especially the older versions. It doesn't happen all the time, but that 1 out of 50 times will have you pulling out your hair.
vVv Ryuko718 Updated 10/31/22 vVv

DarkDesertFox

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#7  May 16, 2017, 12:54:57 am
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Odb718 said, May 15, 2017, 10:23:03 pm
http://mugenguild.com/forum/topics/use-fighter-factory-3-make-palette-fast-177794.0.html

If you need help with understanding that, ask in here. You'll get a reply a lot faster. You'd do the process for each set of sprites you want to make.
If you want to add colors to another palette I can show how to do that too.

One very important thing to note, Fighter Factory has always been bad at updating the palettes while working on the character. FF3 is a lot better, but I've had it mess up.
Everytime you make/edit a new palette, SAVE, EXIT, & REOPEN the character. Something with the internal loading of Fighter Factory needs to be refreshed for the palettes to work properly. Especially the older versions. It doesn't happen all the time, but that 1 out of 50 times will have you pulling out your hair.

Thanks! I'll be sure to post if I encounter an issue with that again (which I'm sure I will). Wow, I'd rather keep my hair on my head so I'll stick to FF3. Thanks again for the tips!

Odb718

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#8  May 16, 2017, 05:08:09 pm
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Two tips for using FF3 real quick.
#1 Set Mugen to automatically start in Debug mode. It's way easier to turn it off once during regular game play than to turn it on every time you need to test something.
#2 Tools>Options>General>M.U.G.E.N - Add button. Right side top middle. Add the characters you want to fight against. But most importantly set up the P1 vs P1 quick launch. This way you press 1 button and you're testing.
vVv Ryuko718 Updated 10/31/22 vVv

mr_bourrepalestick

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#9  May 16, 2017, 07:56:41 pm
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Just wanted to second Silvern on his suggestion : Ryan Persaud's tutos were really helpful for me too ! Especially for the most basic stuff at the beginning, making a character from a sprite sheet and stuff.
Just take your time, and don't be afraid to make some mistakes :) .
- samurais, swords & stuff ? → Another Blade

Slivern

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#10  May 18, 2017, 02:49:26 am
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Odb718 said, May 15, 2017, 01:39:07 pm
What's confusing you about Vars? It's just a way to remember "things" as numbers. What those things are is 100% up to you. What number you assign to those individual thing is up to you.  You're just bringing one bit of info mugen doesn't automatically remember from one move to another.

I get that, but is there any examples of how those numbers are used?

Odb718

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#11  May 19, 2017, 12:59:04 am
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Well I mean I'd supposed any complex character would have vars used you could investigate. But one complex thing I do is get a Chest Height for P2. Mugen knows the head height and the waist height. So the middle of those would be the chest. (var(12) is the math for that)

Spoiler: Samus' Chest Finder (click to see content)
You can see var(13)'s commented out value would find the height for standing up. The next line changes when P2 is crouching so the homing missile doesnt fly over their head.
So you can see I use 3 variables to get 1 value mugen can't find by itself. Later in her code I tell the missile to move up or down depending on the height of the missile vs the chest; var(10).
Some characters make a list of specific enemies they want to act differently against. Special intros, extra damage for cheap characters, what ever reason. If there were multiple characters that would all get the same damage boost, you'd set the var to maybe 20. Then another set is super cheap and you needed to add 100 to your damage, so it'd be 100. You'd just make two varset and list the names of the enemies as the triggers. Then in each of the hitdef you'd add var(1)+20 as the damage. The 20 would be the regular amount vs regular characters. You'd get 20, 40, 120 as the 3 values vs the 3 sets of characters, normal, cheap, ultra cheap.
Vars are pretty much limited by your imagination. If you cant normally get mugen to pump out a response or a value you need, you could probably put a var together to BECOME that value.
Think of it like the word Var is a sentence.
Var(1)=20
HowCheapIsPlayer2??=theNormalSet
HowCheapIsPlayer2??=theCheapSet
HowCheapIsPlayer2??=theUltraCheapSet

That's why at the top of many characters there's a list of Vars with explanations of what they are. I've made the list, I've checked my list years later to remember what does what.
Another Samus Example
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
You can see var(10) labeled. You can see I use 10 variables to keep track of my whip helper. Samus is also scaled so I use fvar(14) so if anyone was to change her height, EVERYTHING would scale up, or down, with her. So 13 examples in the spoiler :P
vVv Ryuko718 Updated 10/31/22 vVv

Slivern

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#12  May 19, 2017, 07:39:47 am
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What's the difference between sysvar and var?

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Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#13  May 19, 2017, 08:17:42 am
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the sysvars are used for specific things in mugen (don't overwrite them)

I don't remember what though.

Odb718

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#14  May 19, 2017, 10:09:15 am
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Not to be rude, but those kinds of questions are what Mugen Class is for.
If you're not sure what, almost, anything is, you can look it up in the master thread.
http://mugenguild.com/forum/topics/the-mugen-docs-master-thread-168949.0.html

Did my explanation of Vars help? People still have a million questions about them. I was thinking about writing a post about IfElse and Vars. Those two are the things that most people starting out get confused about.
vVv Ryuko718 Updated 10/31/22 vVv

Slivern

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#15  May 19, 2017, 11:04:04 am
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You're fine, it was just a quick question. :P

Also, I didn't read your post yet. I will later though. XD

But while I was busy with my MUGEN character, I was beginning to understand how to use variables and how they work (sort of) and I managed to implement Advanced Mode Hyper Hops into my KoF '98 EX Kyo (I haven't implemented the actual subsystem yet). I think the problem is that Variables is usually not explained in a way that people with a lack of experience can easily understand themselves.

Then again, I find that's a common thing that happens with most people when it comes to explaining any programming language. It's just that it hurts us more than those programming languages do unless people are willing to mess with the code. For me, I was finally able to get a grasp when I did what Alexei Roschak was doing in his Variables tutorial in Fighter Factory 3. Aside from this however, confusion can still ensue for many people when Alexei explains Variables, and that's what happened to me a month ago.



In any case, I'd certainly appreciate an IfElse and Vars post.

JustNoPoint

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#16  May 19, 2017, 02:43:38 pm
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Slivern

Re: Is there a 2016-2017 friendly character creator tutorial?
#17  May 21, 2017, 12:06:59 pm
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That tutorial you linked is great, but for beginners starting out, I highly recommend getting a hands on experience with Variables in Fighter Factory 3 through watching Alexei Roschak's video first. THEN read Palette Jesus's tutorial.
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