Creating endings/intro's

[Zantetsuken]

I used a basic storyboard creation tutorial by Riccochet to create endings for Mugen. The resolution I used for these tutorials was 320*240 because that was my native resolution for old Mugen.

I tried creating a new ending scaling my frames up to 640*480 but now my images are stupidly big and only a quarter of the frame is visible. Here is my def file if it is helpful.

;=======================================================
;Ending storyboard for Red Cyclone by Zantetsuken
;=======================================================

[SceneDef]
spr =  redend.sff       

[Scene 0]
layerall.pos = 0,0    ;Default position for all layers
layer0.anim =  0          ;Anim action number for slideshow pictures
end.time = 4200        ;600 ticks = 10 seconds
bgm = Zangiefend.mp3
bgm.loop = 1

;==========
;animations
;==========

[Begin Action 0]
0,0, 0,0, 600
0,1, 0,0, 300
0,2, 0,0, 300
0,3, 0,0, 300
0,4, 0,0, 300
0,5, 0,0, 300
0,6, 0,0, 300
0,7, 0,0, 300
0,8, 0,0, 300
0,9, 0,0, 300
0,10, 0,0, 300
0,11, 0,0, 600



;============
Special thanks to Riccochet and O Illusionista

Cheers dudes.

[Cyanide]

What version of mugen are you running? IIRC the whole intro's/ending things can't actually be scaled to HR in winmugen.

They might take their own localcoord in 1.0 and you could check KFM720 to find out.

You could scale them down if you made all the BG's parallax rather than normal (i think) but it won't improve appearance.

[Zantetsuken]

Well I'm using Mugen 1.0 at resolution 640 * 480. I wasn't really doing it to improve appearance really.

It's just that working at a bigger scale makes it easier and besides scaling every image from 640 * 480 to 320 * 240 will probably make them look awful.

What does that parallax thing you were talking about do?

[Cyanide]

parallax as a BG element (rather than normal or anim) takes a scale parameter. And this is something i asked you to check. You're using a 320x240 character, but you've given it 640x480 ending. That will display AT THAT SIZE relative to your character. Resolution doesn't matter. Localcoord will take effect. it's displaying your 640x480 as if they were 320x240, so they're big.

Check kfm720's intro/ending and see if it takes it's own local coord. If not you're going to have to make your ending low res.

[Zantetsuken]

Well I scaled it all down to 320 * 240 but once again I am confronted by my old Gimp2 conundrum which hopefully someone can explain to me.

When the ending shows up in Mugen quite often the previous frame still shows underneath, anyone any clue how to rectify this?

[Cyanide]

like, an afterimage, or like it's still visible for a bit before it disappears by itself. The solution to these is different.

If it's still visible because it hasn't gone yet, check your timings. If you have the next frame start before the previous frame officially ends you will get that issue. Afterimages is a different thing and i am not 100% on whether the method for fixing a stage would work for an ending.

[Zantetsuken]

It's like it stamps my next image over the top whilst making certain colours transparent meaning you can see parts of the previous image through the transparency.

[Cyanide]

Having looked at one of my old intros it looks like you probably want a BG sprite flat behind your existing one as another layer. Just to prevent anything replicating.

I used flat colour squares that were the same size as the frame.

[Zantetsuken]

Just a plain black image between frames?

[Veolf]

Just a plain black image between frames?

Pretty much plain black frames, preferable (add or addalpha) with an alpha setting =o

[Zantetsuken]

Having looked at one of my old intros it looks like you probably want a BG sprite flat behind your existing one as another layer. Just to prevent anything replicating.

I used flat colour squares that were the same size as the frame.

Will this work?, create a frame 320 * 240 in all black before stamping my storyboard frame over the top, indexing and flattening image and saving it. Will this remove my transparency problem?

[Cyanide]

Try and see dude. I don't 100% know what you're doing. I'm suggesting a possible solution that works in stages when i've needed it.

What's the worst that can happen? It won't work. We'll sort something else out...

[Zantetsuken]

Cheers for the help but it didn't seem to work. I'll try and explain as best I can what I'm trying to achieve. I put all my frames in the sff as 0,0, and 0,1, etc.

I created the frames in Gimp2. I created a 320 * 240 black frame  and stamped my ending frame over the top, flattened and indexed the image and I still come across transparent parts.

[Cyanide]

I said to place a black square behind it, as another layer. Not as part of the sprite.

[Zantetsuken]

So don't flatten the image, save it indexed as 2 layers?

[Cyanide]

;sonic
[Scene 0]
; Fade
fadein.time = 0       ;Time to take for fading in
fadein.col = 0,0,0     ;Use 255,255,255 for white-fade
fadeout.time = 0
fadeout.col = 255,255,255
; Screen color
clearcolor = 0,0,0
; Overlay Anims (from 0 to 9)
layerall.pos = 0,0   ;Default position for all layers
layer0.anim =  2       ;Anim action number
layer0.offset = 40,40   ;Position offset
layer0.starttime = 0
layer1.anim =  1       ;Anim action number
layer1.offset = 320,60   ;Position offset
layer1.starttime = 0   ;Time to start display
layer2.anim = 0
layer2.offset = 40,40
layer2.starttime = 0
window = 40,40,278,198
; Music
bgm = start.ogg        ;Name of music file to play
bgm.loop = 1
; Total time
end.time = 20

See how i have 3 layers? They're all part of the same scene. Save it as a SECOND sprite.

[Zantetsuken]

Cheers for the advice but I'd rather find out why that colour in my frames is somehow altered into a transparent colour through the transition from Gimp 2, through Fighter Factory and finally into the mess Mugen displays.

[Cyanide]

Colour 0 is always transparent. If mask = 1 is not an option in intros and endings then you simply need to create an image which has a transparent colour, but it's not part of the image For example hot pink is transparent, but it's not actually in the image at all.

Tutorials these days suck because people have lost the art of playing with palettes or even truly understanding them.

[Zantetsuken]

I think Mugen has lost a lot over the last few years to be honest. I'll have a look at that palette thing you refer to then at some point because it would seem that colour 0 must be a black which seems to be used in most of my frames then.

Iassume Gimp2 adher's to the palette ruley you refer to?

[Cyanide]

Mugen adhere's to that rule. If you know how to edit a palette you can alter your image to fit.

See if i had black and wanted to keep it with no transparency, i would add pink to my palette and put it in the 0 slot (fucking easy with gimp) i would then make sure there was no pink in my image. Done. Transparency exists but is not visible.