The Mugen Fighters Guild - Hmm, erm, huff

Jazriel

Hmm, erm, huff

#1 November 11, 2007, 03:33:55 am

So, I've just spent the last hour or so reading everything relevant in the "Introduction and Guides" section of these forums and working on my very first sprite.

http://img221.imageshack.us/my.php?image=testspritinghw6.png

Woo hoo!

Now, a list of questions. But first, some prose:

I literally don't have a clue what I'm doing. My current plan is to somehow hand draw 60 images (1 per frame) for: Walking forwards, walking backwards, & weak punch.

The software I have? MSPaint and Fighter Factory. Notepad too if that counts. Oh and MVS 2005, though I don't think that counts for much.

After making my 180 pictures, I was going to find some way to modify KMN's thingy and change it to Link.

So, question time:
-Do I need an individual image per frame for whatever it is that I'm doing? I'm thinking no, but I'm also thinking that it'll make it look really smooth. Which I'm assuming is kinda somewhat good.

-What, exactly do I need to make a fighter in terms of software? Is what I have enough?

-Am I correct in assuming:
The only thing I really need are the animations, Fighter Factory, and some code and I'll be able to walk forwards, backwards, and use weak punch?

-How or with what do you create the .air's, .sff's, .act's, .cns's? Fighter Factory? Notepad?

-What is a palette? I'm really confused on this one.

This is the extent of my knowledge:
Mugen only supports 256 colour thingies.
If I load a picture into paint, and then save it as a 256 colour format, it'll make it look really ugly, but it'll give it a max of 256 different colours.

Yeah, that's it. I don't know anything about transparent backgrounding thingies or any of that stuff. I've never seen any form of visual editing program asides from paint so I'm clueless.

I'm sure the help-I'm-making-a-fighter has been beaten to death, but like I said, I've read everything relevant in the help section.

[Edit]Oh yeah, I'm assuming the picture of link I worked on is considered a sprite.

Cyanide

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#2 November 11, 2007, 07:37:33 am

Legendary XIII
I am the eye of the storm to come!

Quote

I literally don't have a clue what I'm doing. My current plan is to somehow hand draw 60 images (1 per frame) for: Walking forwards, walking backwards, & weak punch.

Quote

-Do I need an individual image per frame for whatever it is that I'm doing? I'm thinking no, but I'm also thinking that it'll make it look really smooth. Which I'm assuming is kinda somewhat good.

Oh gods, no. Don't please. Average number of frames for a decent walk, 6. You could go up to 12.

Quote

Am I correct in assuming:
The only thing I really need are the animations, Fighter Factory, and some code and I'll be able to walk forwards, backwards, and use weak punch?

Well forward and back are actually accounted for in common1.cns. For that matter if all you do is make a new sff file for KFM and change up some animations he'll do as you wish.

Quote

-How or with what do you create the .air's, .sff's, .act's, .cns's? Fighter Factory? Notepad?

.cns .air .cmd .st and .def can all be created with notepad. sff needs something like Fighter factory, MCM or MEE. I suggest FF purely because it's pretty easy.

Quote

-What is a palette? I'm really confused on this one.

Huge number of topics on this everywhere because every person has to deal with it. Pallete = method of saying what colours your character will use. What's going to be transparent, and a method of changing them with alternate .act files.

Quote

Mugen only supports 256 colour thingies.
If I load a picture into paint, and then save it as a 256 colour format, it'll make it look really ugly, but it'll give it a max of 256 different colours.

Yeah, that's it. I don't know anything about transparent backgrounding thingies or any of that stuff. I've never seen any form of visual editing program asides from paint so I'm clueless.

I suggest something more advanced than MSpaint for your image management. Paintshop Pro for example Relatively user friendly, not as big as photoshop.

Err well, yes that is "A sprite" You'll need to edit it a bit to make it look nice though. Flatten the colours a little manually or something. Celshade it to make it work if you see what i mean. Looks too jpgish to work right now.

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.

Jazriel

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#3 November 11, 2007, 03:56:38 pm

Thanks, that helps. What does transparent mean/do? I've seen that word a lot.

Is it a particular colour that gets ignored? So if I use hot pink, Mugen won't draw anything that's hot pink?

Davod Sirloin

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#4 November 11, 2007, 08:54:49 pm

YOMI

The palette you should be working with is 255 colors + a transparent color. A palette will always have index numbers corresponding to color values, and is organized in no particular way. HOWEVER your transparent color must correspond to palette index 0 in order for it to work. It doesn't matter what color the transparency actually is, as long as it's index is 0.

You'll need a program that can edit palettes, and another program to apply them to your images. A commercial image editing software like Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro can do both, IIRC so can The GIMP (It's free) but it's terrible for editing palettes.

Jazriel

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#5 November 12, 2007, 01:16:49 am

Well, I found a free image editor that's supposed to "support PCX format" and has an "incredibly easy user-interface for intuitive use". It's called "Pc Image Editor" if anyone cares.

So, now that I have some funky sprite editing software, how do I make .pcx files? I'm assuming that I'll have to make my sprites in paint, convert them, and then do the fancy palette thing to make them usable sprites for Mugen. Is this correct?

I don't know what to do

Also, Fighter Factory comes with an "AVI Frame Exporter". Does this mean I could just make a movie of the character I'm going to make in Mugen and could then get all the frames from that?

[Edit] Oh yeah, and this really confuses me:

I took screen shots of KFM via Print Screen button and paste. When I saved the screen shot (using Paint) as a 256 colour thingy, the colours changed. Shouldn't KFM already be in the 256 colour format? Or do palettes count 256 colours but any 256 colours?

[Edit] Hmm, I need a program to edit palettes AND to apply them to the .pcx? I'm confused by that. Does the .pcx get edited? Where do the .act files come from?

And the PC Image Editor says this:
"PC Image Editor is a free graphics editor with many of the features of a professional product.
You can edit images from a variety of formats (BMP, GIF, JPG, TIFF, PCX, PNG, TGA, J2K, WMF, EMF, RAS); it contains an extremely user-friendly interface enabling you to work intuitively. Along with the usual assortment of file operations such as Copy, Move, Delete, and Rename; adjust colors in photos; apply filters such as Hue, Negative, Colorize, Posterize, Mosaic, Twirl, Emboss; rotations and transformations; Perspective and Skew; blur images; sharpen images; image resizing; setting an image as the desktop wallpaper. Additionally, it contains enhanced brushes and painting options."

I'm assuming that doesn't mean palette editing capabilites?

Last Edit: November 12, 2007, 01:25:50 am by Jazriel

DavidGee

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#6 November 12, 2007, 07:11:38 am

I never really was on your side.

I would really recommend downloading the trial of Paint Shop Pro, which does everything you need, except that you have to convert your .pspPalette files to .act files separately for Mugen use. For that, I've always used PAL2ACT.

You just have to have a palette which contains every color that you need. An obvious way of making that palette is to make a collage image which definitely contains every color you'd need for all your sprites, and then use PSP to decrease color depth to 256 (Optimized Octree), thereby generating the palette. After this, you just need to make sure your background color is the first index in PSP's palette editor for Mugen transparency. This palette must then be physically applied to every one of your sprites, which can be done easily in PSP by making a script that consists of the load palette command. Use the batch process command to run the script on all the sprites at once.

Jazriel

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#7 November 12, 2007, 03:08:55 pm

I'm downloading the free trial for Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 and I downloaded the Mugen Tools and PAL2ACT.

Does Fighter Factory replace Mugen Tools?

Cybaster

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#8 November 12, 2007, 03:11:51 pm

Limited time to use Infinite power !

Jazriel said, November 12, 2007, 03:08:55 pm

Does Fighter Factory replace Mugen Tools?

It can replace most of them, but for example, to optimize SFFs, sffextract and sprmaker are still the best tools to use.

Jazriel

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#9 November 12, 2007, 04:06:16 pm

Good to know, thanks.

I think I'm starting to understand some of this better.

http://www.packetsniffers.org/projects/geeks_unleashed/tutorial/tutorial1.html Why isnt' this stickied? This has been an immense help. It should be stickied.

Would it be possible to somehow by pass the 255 colour restriction? Couldn't you disassemble a sprite into a head/torso/limbs and then render them in the proper position, but each one has a palette of its own?

[Edit] I'm going to follow the Tutorial provided by Elecbyte, and I've prepared a sprite to be converted to a .pcx:

Last Edit: November 12, 2007, 04:29:52 pm by Jazriel

Davod Sirloin

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#10 November 12, 2007, 04:07:52 pm

YOMI

That tutorial is already included with every copy of mugen. Look in the docs folder.

Jazriel said, November 12, 2007, 04:06:16 pm

Would it be possible to somehow by pass the 255 colour restriction? Couldn't you disassemble a sprite into a head/torso/limbs and then render them in the proper position, but each one has a palette of its own?

Yes, but then the possibility of changing palettes in game (by selecting with a different button) becomes impossible.

Cybaster

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#11 November 12, 2007, 04:12:12 pm

Limited time to use Infinite power !

Jazriel said, November 12, 2007, 04:06:16 pm

http://www.packetsniffers.org/projects/geeks_unleashed/tutorial/tutorial1.html Why isnt' this stickied? This has been an immense help. It should be stickied.

Isn't that the tutorial you can find in html format in the mugen docs of the mugen folder ?
EDIT : yes it is.

Jazriel said, November 12, 2007, 04:06:16 pm

Would it be possible to somehow by pass the 255 colour restriction? Couldn't you disassemble a sprite into a head/torso/limbs and then render them in the proper position, but each one has a palette of its own?

Dunno why you'd need this, but yes, indeed, it's possible to do as you just said. Only problem is that you would need to treat each part of the character as an helper and not as the character itself, which makes the code much more complicated and difficult to handle. Check what an helper isd in your mugen docs if you don't understand what I mean (they're part of the complicated stuff for mugen).

The Maniac said, November 12, 2007, 04:07:52 pm

Yes, but then the possibility of changing palettes in game (by selecting with a different button) becomes impossible.

It IS possible, but implies using 12 times each sprite in the SFF, each one having a different palette, and displaying the sprites depending on which button you've pushed to select the char... not worth it at all.

Jazriel

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#12 November 12, 2007, 05:26:14 pm

Demitri Maximoff said, November 12, 2007, 04:12:12 pm

Jazriel said, November 12, 2007, 04:06:16 pm
Would it be possible to somehow by pass the 255 colour restriction? Couldn't you disassemble a sprite into a head/torso/limbs and then render them in the proper position, but each one has a palette of its own?
Dunno why you'd need this, but yes, indeed, it's possible to do as you just said. Only problem is that you would need to treat each part of the character as an helper and not as the character itself, which makes the code much more complicated and difficult to handle. Check what an helper isd in your mugen docs if you don't understand what I mean (they're part of the complicated stuff for mugen).

The Maniac said, November 12, 2007, 04:07:52 pm
Yes, but then the possibility of changing palettes in game (by selecting with a different button) becomes impossible.
It IS possible, but implies using 12 times each sprite in the SFF, each one having a different palette, and displaying the sprites depending on which button you've pushed to select the char... not worth it at all.

I was just wondering, testing to make sure what I'm understanding is indeed correct.

Paint Shop certainly is interesting.

Using the help I've figured out how to decrease the colour depth to 256 and it barely changed my image (woot). Though it messes up the pinkish background I had made, specifically the areas where it touches link.

What can I do to fix that other than going over his entire perimeter (again) and fixing it manually? And how do I set the palette indexes? How can I see what colours make up the current palette? And what do I save the palette as? Does the palette itself eventually turn into the .act?

[Edit] Upon further examination, the entire perimeter of link has been surrounded by a darker version of my background. Also, a few pixels away there are random discolourations (all similar to my background). Why did it do this and how can I fix it? It doesn't make much sense to me, if the palette supports my background then why would it change it?

[Edit] O.o Loading my original photo (pre-decresed colour depth) in Paint Shop changed it. It blurred the background and link together on its own and decreasing the colour depth made it worse. I'm going to go over it again in paint. After I do that, how can I load it into Paint Shop and not have it affect my image?

Last Edit: November 12, 2007, 05:50:31 pm by Jazriel

Jazriel

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#13 November 12, 2007, 06:08:10 pm

This is really dumb...

Here's what I did:

[img=http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/1815/brawllinkphotoshoptesthm3.th.jpg]
The image on the right is the original image I'm using.
The image on the left is me replacing the background with the pinkish colour.

I load the image with the two links in Photo Shop.
I save as .pcx
I decrease colour depth to 256

I get the boots. The boot on the right is different from the boots on the left. WTF?!

DavidGee

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#14 November 12, 2007, 09:02:19 pm

I never really was on your side.

It must be using more than 256 colors, as a photo-real image would, so decreasing the color depth results in color reduction where only the fittest colors survive. A sprite in a fighting game like KOF or SFA generally has like 16 colors.

Jazriel

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#15 November 12, 2007, 09:49:58 pm

Do you know why Photo Shop gives me the darker pink aura around Link? You can see it quite well in the picture of his boots. It's very annoying. Is the only way to get rid of it to re-colour his perimeter by hand again?

[Edit]And how can I change the index values of colours? The pink is 163 but I can't see any way to change it to 0.

[Edit]And is it possible to do a net change in colour? Meaning if there's a particular hue of light green, I could replace all instances of that colour with white?

DavidGee

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#16 November 12, 2007, 09:58:37 pm

I never really was on your side.

One way that should be fairly easy would be the color replacer tool. Use that to change every pink to a single shade of pink. As for editing the palette, I say read this.

Cyanide

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#17 November 12, 2007, 10:11:45 pm

Legendary XIII
I am the eye of the storm to come!

Looks like your original image was a .jpg file as well. Not the best for 256 colour conversion.

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.

Jazriel

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#18 November 12, 2007, 10:27:48 pm

*Facepalm* This makes no sense. The random pixels that were generated when I decreased the colours, won't disappear with the colour replace tool. I turn them into the background colour and I make the pink the foreground colour and when I use the tool, the pixels stay there, they just lose all green value.

Hmm, if .jpg is bad I'll try under a different format.

[Edit] Hmm, no funky purple aura when dealing with a .bmp. Woo hoo! Also got the index thingy working, my picture has a full 256 colours so I had to colour all index 0 things with the index 1 colour, otherwise he has no eyes lol

Last Edit: November 12, 2007, 11:00:22 pm by Jazriel

DavidGee

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#19 November 12, 2007, 10:34:45 pm

I never really was on your side.

Actually, I downloaded your image and played with it. If you could find it in PNG, that would be much better than a shitty JPG. Try this prior to decreasing color depth:

1) Use the Dropper Tool to set your background color to the shade of pink you want.

2) Use the Flood Fill Tool with Tolerance set to 50 on every background section. Most of the "aura" is removed.

3) Copy the image. Edit > Copy

4) Edit > Paste as Transparent Selection directly over the existing image.

5) Selections > Modify > Contract by 1 pixel.

6) Edit > Copy.

7) Edit > Paste As New Image.

8) Add a new layer, fill it with cyan, put it under the image, and then Layers > Merge All to combine the layers into one. This is what I had at this point.

9) Change the remaining pink to cyan by hand using the Paint Brush tool. Pretty laborious. Has to be done by hand where the pink is blended with the colors of the character. Of course, it would be best to avoid blending like that where possible.

Last Edit: November 12, 2007, 10:56:44 pm by DavidGee

Cyanide

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#20 November 12, 2007, 10:57:20 pm

Legendary XIII
I am the eye of the storm to come!

Jpg's blur images. I think it's to do with the compression but not really sure.

Anyway, if you take a picture thats 5 colours and jpg it with something crappy it'll give you way more than the original 5 colours.

And just to note. 1 sprite although useful as a learning activity, isn't going to get you a character. I hope you have a lot more available. Or a way of getting some.

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.

Jazriel

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#21 November 12, 2007, 11:02:00 pm

Cyanide said, November 12, 2007, 10:57:20 pm

Jpg's blur images. I think it's to do with the compression but not really sure.

Anyway, if you take a picture thats 5 colours and jpg it with something crappy it'll give you way more than the original 5 colours.

And just to note. 1 sprite although useful as a learning activity, isn't going to get you a character. I hope you have a lot more available. Or a way of getting some.

I'm working on it. And 1 sprite can be a character, just a very confusing character

Bastard Mami

Re: Hmm, erm, huff

#22 November 12, 2007, 11:27:06 pm

[E]
Online

i suggest you to do a ebtter image handling; like making your main palette by hand. judging by your link picture he uses several tones of green, a few skin ones and some blues. so try using the color drop tool, and get the values of 16 tones of green, 8 blue and 12 skin, then make a palette containting those colors plus and make the rest of the colors the exact same magenta tone; that way it will be ahrd to get color mixed with magenta AND you will get a workable palette.

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