I'm not talking about dithered transparency, so get that out of your head right off. this is more an opacity issue.

MUGEN comes with  a (lets say 50%) transparent BG for the lowest layer of the lifebars. How does one emulate this for other items? Certain items are better suited to this type of transparency over dithered.

Also, no, I'm not talking about after-images.

EDIT:

I've found how to do it, sort of... but now it's a transparent red. In my fight.def, under the lifebar section, I added this:

p1.bg0.mask = 1

My palette consists of two colors - sky blue and black. It's supposed to be a partial-trans blue but I have no idea how to change the color from what mask 1 is causing.

Nevermind that crossed out part. Was just my imagination I guess. >=[ So still no partial transparency. The current trans is noticable when the screen flashes certain colors, though...