YesNoOk
avatar

Software(s) used when creating stages? (Read 1227 times)

Started by Markpachi, October 31, 2014, 03:34:24 pm
Email this topic
View printable version
Share this topic:
Page 1 of 11   Go Down

Markpachi

Software(s) used when creating stages?
#1  October 31, 2014, 03:34:24 pm
  • *****
  • LET THE SWAGGING COMMENCE
    • Philippines
    • Skype - markpachi
    • http://markpachi.mugenflowzone.com/
Hello there, everybody. I was just curious to see what type of programs you use in your creation of your Mugen content, specifically with stages. Of course, other than the various different versions of Fighter Factory, what other helpful tools should I use so that our stages gain more value? Let's discuss, shall we!


I mainly use Photoshop CC for main Graphical manipulations, and Fighter Factory Classic for coding, but here are some other programs I use.


1. RigzSoft's Timeline FX Particle Editor - TRIAL CAN BE DOWNLOADED AT THEIR SITE
A program, like Particle Illusion, that is used for generating and creating a full range of particle effects for your games and applications. From animated flames, to animated water and steam, to animated abstract objects, they have it just for you!
This program, in my opinion, is much more useful than Particle Illusion mainly because it is capable of seamlessly looping your effects which is built-into the program itself, and you can also specify how many frames are to be generated.


2. Squirlz Water Reflection - FREEWARE PROGRAM
This program generates reflective animated pools of water from your images or AVI videos. You can customize yourself the water reflection's ripple, perspective, and the likes. It can also generate rain and snow sprites for you if you need them.


3. RAD Video Tools / Irfanview- FREEWARE PROGRAM
These are multi-purpose file converters that can do batch conversion processes for your images and videos. I mainly use this for batch AVI/PNG to PCX file conversions that are then used in stages. Irfanview's PNG to PCX conversion results to a better file output, though, due to it handling colorloss differently.


4. Any video editing program that has a flexible "timeline" view.
An example of this are Sony Vegas and Camtasia Studio 6. They're mainly used for video enhancements, editing, and such. Camtasia can also be used for recording matches , which is useful for showing off the stage once it's to be released.

Of course, the final output will depend on how well you'll be using the programs at-hand.

Anyway, how about you guys? What programs do you use that may help other Mugen users?



Hoshi

Re: Software(s) used when creating stages?
#2  October 31, 2014, 04:22:03 pm
  • *****
  • Sprite Whore
    • USA
    • https://www.facebook.com/lee.tuttle.7
This pretty much covers everything I use except Paint Shop Pro(whatever version) for blurring effects as it handles it better than Photoshop, and I also use Adobe After Effects for super advanced looking stuff.

Dissidia

Re: Software(s) used when creating stages?
#3  October 31, 2014, 07:44:35 pm
  • ***
    • USA
    • Skype - dissidia.mugen
    • dissidia.mugenflowzone.com

  • Online
This is actually the first time I've heard about TimelineFX. I'll check that one out.

First Lt. Ding

Re: Software(s) used when creating stages?
#4  October 31, 2014, 08:23:18 pm
  • ****
  • The 666th Inning
    • USA
I'm a loser who dabbles with very simplistic stuff in MS Paint.

Like this.
And GIMP for indexing, and Fighter Factory 3 for the actual dirty work.

XGargoyle

Re: Software(s) used when creating stages?
#5  October 31, 2014, 08:39:07 pm
  • *****
  • Hedgehog Whisperer
  • Red Bull addict
    • Spain
    • xgargoyle.mgbr.net
Not listing the many tools and programs used to rip and extract the sprites from a game, I will focus only on the stage making process itself.

In my case I use Adobe Photoshop for building up all the graphics and mounting the stage layout. Then I use sprmaker to build the sff. Much faster and useful than Fighter Factory.

I also use an old video capturing program (Snag It!) to capture 60 fps videos and then process them in Adobe After Effects for counting animation ticks in emulators that do not have a step frame feature (or a reliable one).

Last but not least, I use a custom made Excel spreadsheet to calculate the alpha values from the original stage based on the source and destination colors, giving me the exact values I must apply in the AIR file


XGargoyle: Battle posing since 1979
http://xgargoyle.mgbr.net
http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=e71c0d43fe35093a  <-- Please click that link

Saikoro

Re: Software(s) used when creating stages?
#6  October 31, 2014, 08:48:39 pm
  • ******
  • Portrait Prodigy EX+
    • mugenguild.com/forum/topics/saikoros-high-resolution-mugen-portraits-fatal-fury-full-set-145724.0.html
XGargoyle said, October 31, 2014, 08:39:07 pm
Last but not least, I use a custom made Excel spreadsheet to calculate the alpha values from the original stage based on the source and destination colors, giving me the exact values I must apply in the AIR file

That. That is clever. Fascinating.
All of your Mugen Portrait needs may be found HERE.

Unstabler said, January 31, 2013, 04:11:33 pm
I'd like to report two robots on the MFG forums: One is EXShadow. The other is Saikoro.
GarchompMatt said, September 17, 2013, 12:37:33 am
There should be a Saikoro plugin for Photoshop.

Jango Hakamichi

Re: Software(s) used when creating stages?
#7  November 02, 2014, 09:02:05 am
  • ******
  • [The only one worthy of my love!]
    • USA
I usually do SNES stages, so when I do that, I use...

ZSNES

"Oh Jango you stupid klutz," I imagine you saying in my MUGEN fanfiction, "ZSNES is the WORST emulator you can use for ANYTHING regarding Super Nintendo emulation." Well hold your horses, Billy, I'm not going to use ZSNES to rip stuff. All I need is its ability to make savestates. Yes, that will be plenty, because that's all I need to use:

VSNES



Basically this program cuts out the work of having to constantly position your characters to screenshot parts of the stages and can either rip the entirety of any given layer or a big chunk of it. This is especially useful since the SNES screen generally takes up less space than MUGEN's, which keeps you from missing any elements (and in some cases, you can find bits of the stage that are trimmed out in the official release!). It especially works well with shitty licensed anime fighting games. Now your fanfiction self is saying "But Jango, that's boring. I want to do something crazy, like rip a stage with parallax!"

Okay, let's say you want to rip a stage from Killer Instinct, like Orchid's stage!



So you fire up ZSNES, make a savestate in her stage, load it up in VSNES, and



Bam, floor without parallax.

Paint Shop Pro

Just to do further edits or touch-ups (ie: if for some reason I still can't fit the minimum height for MUGEN). Of course you can use Photoshop/GIMP/whatever, I'm just used to the way PSP handles palettes.

SNES9x

"Wait a sec, you already have ZSNES as your emulator, why do you need ANOTHER emulator?" Well, this is more for extra credit. This emulator excels at ripping SPC files (SNES music format) with less of a need to have perfect timing (ZSNES is a PAIN IN THE ASS to rip music from).

Winamp with SNESAmp plugin

Now you can use Winamp to read the .SPC files, and change output to Disk Writer so that you get the file in a giant .wav file. Hooray! But that file is way too huge! That's why I use...

Audacity with lame_mp3.dll

Now I can use Audacity to trim the bits of the song that I don't need, find the loop points for when I code it into my stage, and of course, export it to mp3!
I dunno, it's probably overkill but it's good to have.

Cybaster

Re: Software(s) used when creating stages?
#8  November 02, 2014, 06:42:22 pm
  • ******
  • Limited time to use Infinite power !
    • France
    • network.mugenguild.com/cybaster/
Fighter Factory Classic, Notepad++, Photoshop.
I'm not very original LOL.

ShinZankuro

Re: Software(s) used when creating stages?
#9  November 02, 2014, 09:42:20 pm
  • ****
  • "That's great, super, EXCELLENT!!" Announcer,SFZ3
    • Brazil
    • https://www.facebook.com/kleylson.cavalcante

  • Online
Classic FF, WINKAWAKS and some emulators[for some BG sprite ripings], notepad, paint[In some times, my paint tool SAI also]


And the most important... PATIENCE LOL

Алексей

Re: Software(s) used when creating stages?
#10  November 02, 2014, 09:58:09 pm
  • ****
  • Hey.
    • Ukraine
    • mugencoder.com
I use Photoshop, After Effects, Paint Shop Pro at times and sometimes Squirlz for water when it's necessary.

-[Все слова это только слова.]-
Page 1 of 11   Go Up