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Use Fighter Factory 3 to make a palette fast (Read 34143 times)

Started by Odb718, December 27, 2016, 07:15:31 am
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Odb718

Use Fighter Factory 3 to make a palette fast
#1  December 27, 2016, 07:15:31 am
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This tutorial may get expanded, but I see a lot of people having a problem importing a sprite that isn't paletted in their character.
It's extremely easy to do with Fighter Factory 3. If you're making a character you should be using this tool. Here's a quick text version


Open your character and hit the PCX Icon to add another sprite. Name and import it. Save and Reopen your character.
Go to your new sprite, open Advanced Palette Editor and double click the first color. Change it's alpha to 255.
Drag your background color to the first box. Commit changes to the palette. Exit Advance Palette editor.
Hit the PCX Icon to add another sprite. Import the image but use Force the specified palette, and put in the palette number you just made.
Double click the palettes BG color and set it's alpha to 0.
Save your character.
You'll want to delete your original, messed up, image at some point. Dont delete it until the 2nd image is perfect.

Sometimes pics help so click the spoiler if you want a follow along with images.
Spoiler: Click each image to see it a little clearer (click to see content)

If you skip a step, like if you try to move the pink to the first spot and make it's alpha 0 before importing, it'll mess up.

If this was my first image of a TON of sprites that all use the same palette I'd only import 1 sprite. Once it was in and the palette worked perfect, Then I'd import ALL of the other sprites using FORCE the specified palette. As long as they used the exact same colors, they'd all work perfect. Even if they were missing a few of the colors.
Also, if this was my main palette for my character I'd NAME THE PALETTE 1,0 and save. Usually this will clear up some problems in 1.0/1.1 sff files.

Remember, you can get colorloss batch importing sprites using FORCE. You want to make sure this doesn't happen. If it does, delete the sprite from your character and repeat the process for that individual sprite.

Here are some other really useful Palette tutorials.
The Palette FAQ <<< Read this.
Compare mugen ssf and palette
Pots Color Separation
Bastard Mami Sprite Recolor
Palettes Easy Way <<This tutorial is a lot like mine. It's for an older tool/set up
Applying palettes to many sprites
vVv Gouken718 vVv
Last Edit: December 28, 2016, 04:17:58 am by Odb718

Odb718

Re: Use Fighter Factory 3 to make a palette fast
New #2  December 28, 2016, 04:18:29 am
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Spot filler. Going to show how to get the palette to work with an existing sprite's palette. This way you can add new sprites to your character.
------------- After so long, I just explained this process so this is a copy/paste. -------------

Read all this vvvv before doing all this vvv The alpha color at the end will mess you up if you dont.

1)  Open the character. Find a sprite that has all of the colors your new sprites are supposed to be using. In advanced palette editor, make sure all of those colors are unique. Otherwise you'll get colorloss. Save that sprite as an external png. Sprites>Save Image
Keep the character open

2) Create a new Blank char. Import the NEW sprites. Do the steps in the first post ^^^^
Once the NEW sprites have a reasonable palette open Advanced Palette Editor again.
Click the dot to work in/on the Image or Palette. So that the right side is active. Hit Load the current image from a file. Select the image from 1).

Now you'll have the new sprite's palette on the left and the palette you WANT on the right.
More than likely, the order wont be the same. The dark colors will be on the opposite side or things just wont be in the correct order. It happens 80% of the time.

What you want to do is use the eyedropper on the right and select all the color of the "hair". Then on the left select all the colors of the hair. If they're in the same order, the buttons in between the two palettes, use the Send from Right to Left.

As soon as you get all the colors of the "hair" sent to the left, click the button so you're working on the Character side. If the "hair" looks correct, hit the 3rd button, the Save as group/index. Input a number, NOT 0,0! Close Advanced palette editor.
Use the palette selector and slide it right to your new palette.
Open the Advanced Palette Editor. You should see one of your new sprites with the new "hair color".

3) Repeat 2) but do it for the "shoes"
4) Repeat 2) but do it for the "shirt"

5) Once all of the colors are on the left side of the Advanced palette Editor you're ready to import the new sprites to your char. Click on your Char. You should still be on the sprite you selected to save as a png. Write down what Group/Index it's palette is. Slide the sprites' bar all the way to the right so it's the last sprite.
Sprites>Import from another project.
Select the blank char. It ALL the sprites, Hit Renumber, Hit Add. in the box that says 0, add a number like 12947. Something that probably isnt used.
Hit Force the Specified Palette.  The group/index is probably 1,1. But remember, you wrote it down, so write what it says in the boxes.
Hit Ok.

6) You can rename the sprites if you need/want. They should be looking good and ready to become an animation once they're placed on their correct spots.

Also. The bg color is probably messed up. If this happened, go into your char and advanced palette editor, Double click the top left color and change the alpha channel from 0 to 255. And make sure the new sprites in the new Blank char has the same 1st color and the alpha is 255 not 0.
Once the new sprites are in, you can change the alpha back to 0 like nothing happened.
vVv Gouken718 vVv
Last Edit: July 11, 2024, 09:22:26 am by Odb718

MegaSobi

Re: Use Fighter Factory 3 to make a palette fast
#3  December 29, 2016, 03:08:45 am
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Do you mean the first color next to the checkered box? If it doesn't read 0, 0, 12, 0, should I still change it to 0, 0, 12, 255, or should I just change the last value to 255, or is there something else I need to do?

Odb718

Re: Use Fighter Factory 3 to make a palette fast
#4  December 29, 2016, 08:04:04 am
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The checkered box is actually a color with it's alpha set for transparency. That color can be any color. That spot, the top left, is the spot Mugen picks for the background transparency color. (99.9% of the time)
You dont want to adjust the hue/color. Only adjust the Alpha. So the 4th number will either be a 0 or 255 in most cases. That blue-black, 0,0,12, was just the color used in Ibuki. It'll almost always be something different for every user.
If you're going to make a palette for 1.1, you can use values in between. But anything below 1.1 mugen wont be able to read it. I believe it will default back to 255.
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MegaSobi

Re: Use Fighter Factory 3 to make a palette fast
#5  December 30, 2016, 08:47:47 am
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How do you find the palette of your image?

The Ibuki palette above is 0, 310, for example. Where do you find that information?

Also I'm not getting that warning message when I open  my .pcx in FF3.

Odb718

Re: Use Fighter Factory 3 to make a palette fast
#6  December 30, 2016, 11:13:53 am
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You can use Fighter factory 3 to switch to the palette automatically.
Go to sprites, and on the left hand side there's 4 boxes. Right above Onion Skin is the Switch to the sprite palette. Make sure it's checked. Then when you move to the image, the palette will change.

If you look in the 6th image you'll see on the right hand side it says Palettes. I'm on palette 471 out of 471 palettes and it's Group and Index are there.
Group 20191 index 0 is the 94th of 470 because I hadn't added in my palette. The last sprite used that palette, so FF3 jumped to it when I scrolled all the way to the last image.

If you dont get that warning, it means it's already paletted and saved in the sff file.
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MegaSobi

Re: Use Fighter Factory 3 to make a palette fast
#7  December 30, 2016, 06:39:28 pm
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Okay, I think I got it now.

So does this mean I can import my image into other .sffs and it'll still come out transparent, or do I need to repeat the process using another .sff?

Odb718

Re: Use Fighter Factory 3 to make a palette fast
#8  December 30, 2016, 08:23:38 pm
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Fighter Factory 3 has a nice option, 2 actually, for importing your sprite paletted into a different character.
The first one you actually open both characters with FF3 and go to the one missing the sprite. You go to the sprite drop-down at the top and select Import from another Project. If you have multiple projects you'll have to select the character from the list.
You can import 1 particular sprite by checking a few boxes and specifying the group and index. A habbit I have from older Fighter Factory's I check Renumber and Add, but I leave it at 0. You can import it's palette and it'll look exactly the same.
If you want to import a whole animation's worth of sprites you'd simply just put the group and leave the index blank.
If you wanted to import multiple animations that are in a row you would put the range of the group. Say Animations 8500, thru 8550. You'd put that in the two groups boxes.

The second option will take just a few seconds longer.
You open your two characters, find the sprite in the one that has it. Use Save Image... under sprites. In your second character use the add pcx button and find it on your hdd. It should import with it's palette.
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mr_bourrepalestick

Re: Use Fighter Factory 3 to make a palette fast
#9  January 16, 2017, 05:15:28 am
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Great tutorial OdB !
I admit I've been using that same workflow when importing images using FF3 (colour indexed or not) but wasn't sure if it was "the righ way to do it". It's reassuring to see others do it similarly. :)
- samurais, swords & stuff ? → Another Blade

Odb718

Re: Use Fighter Factory 3 to make a palette fast
#10  January 16, 2017, 07:30:24 am
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One thing I like to do if it's a brand new palette and I'm going to use mugen to remappal, is physically adjust where ALL of the colors are by hand.
This makes it super easy to understand the palette. You can select a line in Advanced palette editor later and create new palettes extremely easy by setting this up in advance.

You can do this pretty easy.

This is your sprite.

This is your sprite with FF3's made up palette.

So like before open up Advanced palette editor, but move the pink to the top left corner of the Right Side's palette. Once that's done, use the eye dropper to select a group of colors. I've grabbed his Clothes' colors. I use MASK to make it easier to tell when I have all the colors I want, and none that I dont want. I've set the mask color to the bright blue. It's usually magenta.

Doing the same process for all the different groups of colors, I set them to where I want. I made his
Clothes
Skin/Hair
Eyes/Eye Brows/Head Band
Belt/Gloves
Each on their own line.
Once ALL of the colors are sent to the right, I select EVERY color and send it back to the left palette. Make sure you have all the colors. An semi-easy way to tell is by counting the actual number of colors on both sides. Mine has 21. The whole image is blue because every color is selected.

Now that we have our weird looking Ryu with it's weird palette it's time to save. As I mentioned, this will be repaletted in mugen so I need it as 1,1, to make things easier on myself later in coding the char.

Just like before we import our sprite again, but this time using Force Palette and using our value, 1,1.
Once that's done we change the pink color to transparent and use the Sprites>Save As.


One tip that might not be obvious is to keep the Black and darker colors contained inside colors that are easily visible.
If you noticed my two black colors are against the left side when in Advanced Palette Editor. It just makes it easier to find the black colors.
vVv Gouken718 vVv
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