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Cvs style sprite sheet extraction Index & Palette help (Read 15724 times)

Started by Plum, August 19, 2024, 10:06:35 pm
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Plum

Cvs style sprite sheet extraction Index & Palette help
#1  August 19, 2024, 10:06:35 pm
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Recently started working on a project--I noticed there are a bit of sprites that are hi-res/transparent, like white dash effects/ smoke screens and etc. These kinds of sprites are usually in cvs characters and the effects are always darker and then made transparent/brighter when animated in mugen, but I have no idea how to index them without them turning into flat white streaks.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Every time I try to color index the sprites they become flat and solid, it's got to be either a format or a palette issue. I've tried saving the images in PNG and PCX--nothing works so far.

Odb718

Re: Cvs style sprite sheet extraction Index & Palette help
#2  August 21, 2024, 08:38:35 pm
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So it sounds like you're trying to take a sprite from a 1.1 down to a 1.0/winmugen sff?
and at the end of it, you want something like this


If that's the case, the 1.1 you might be able to do it 2 ways. If the sprite is already indexed but the colors all have transparency, you can try to double click the color and change the alpha to 255.

The other way would be to Save the Image as an external file and open a program that can handle transparencies and layers. You'd make the background layer solid black and the sprite would be above it. Then export that as a png and it should be ready for Mugen 1.0/winmugen.
^^^
There might be a way to do this inside of Fighter Factory. I dont know if I have any character to test this theory out on, BUT
In the sprite, designate 1 color for your solid black. Probably the top left. Inside the sprite, press Ctrl+X to cut it, the image should be black. Ctrl+V to paste it back over the black. If it looks good I'd press File>Save As>New Sprite.
That new sprite will be at the end of the character. See if it's what you need.
vVv N00bSaibot & Muramasa RoofTop vVv

Plum

Re: Cvs style sprite sheet extraction Index & Palette help
#3  August 22, 2024, 07:38:30 pm
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I really should have done a better job with the subject name, my bad.

I just wanted to be able to port over this sheet for a dash effect, but it has to be in PNG so it doesn't become flat, it isn't from 1.1 or anything, just a hand drawn Hi-Res indie game. I have photoshop but I'm not too sure how to go about fixing the transparency since, it goes flat the moment it's indexed. I added green to it myself, it's transparent by default, I've tried it with the green and without, still no success.

Taking about these sprites here:






I was reading through one of your topics: https://mugenguild.com/forum/topics/remove-black-outlines-images-180047.0.html

But I couldn't wrap my head around it, in all honesty I'm jetset on figuring out how the VFX were ported in the same way as there where from a character named "Ghost" as you can see in the screenshots.

On this character, the sprites are indexed... but also PNG/RGB and I have no idea how the author did this which sure an unruly palette. Here it looks fine and works with all six of the color palettes 1,0 - 1,6.





Keep in mind the actual palette looks like this in FF3:




If I go to my character "Heckin" then load the sprite with the same palette it actually looks like this pink mess in game.



I just want to know how they managed to do this with this palette, since it's used for nearly all effects, there isn't any black box around it or any other adjustments, it just works really well. I've tried reaching out to the author, but there was no response.



The4ury

Re: Cvs style sprite sheet extraction Index & Palette help
#4  August 22, 2024, 09:00:46 pm
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Plum said, August 22, 2024, 07:38:30 pm
I really should have done a better job with the subject name, my bad.

I just wanted to be able to port over this sheet for a dash effect, but it has to be in PNG so it doesn't become flat, it isn't from 1.1 or anything, just a hand drawn Hi-Res indie game. I have photoshop but I'm not too sure how to go about fixing the transparency since, it goes flat the moment it's indexed. I added green to it myself, it's transparent by default, I've tried it with the green and without, still no success.

Taking about these sprites here:




hmm, Is it possible you can make the background black? I'm not very good at explaining the process, but i'll try.

When making that kind of effect, you want to start of with the background being pitch black (#0000). Then once the effects are made, you then use the paint bucket tool too paint the bakcground what ever colour your transprancy would be e.g. Green. What this will do is leave a black edge around your affects, which will disappear with the Trans SCTRL.

If you dont understand, you can send me the .PNG without and background colour and your desired palette.



Edit: Can you click whats I highlighted in red, just to see if that helps?
Last Edit: August 22, 2024, 09:11:30 pm by The4ury

Lyrica

Re: Cvs style sprite sheet extraction Index & Palette help
#5  August 22, 2024, 10:13:16 pm
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My guess is that this is a 24bit PNG, so it doesn't have a palette. The palette you see there is not indexed to that image. This only works in 1.1 and Ikemen. It works like a normal png with different levels of transparency. You don't index it, you just insert it as it is, but your sff needs to be saved as 1.1.

Plum

Re: Cvs style sprite sheet extraction Index & Palette help
#6  August 22, 2024, 11:03:12 pm
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DeathScythe--

Looks like everyone was right in some way on this one, DeathScythe, I didn't know about the transparency thing for 1.1, although the author does state it only works in 1.1, as for my character, she is also 1.1, when I dropped the PNG into the "other" character(Ghost) it just worked without issue, but not in mine, so there has to be some kind of code missing since they're both 1.1. The image is 32bit PNG, "different levels of transparency" has me curious, I tried to insert it as but it still didn't work for me. But I do feel like I'm starting to see a solution. Is there a topic you could point me to, or give me a bit or info on the transparency since it sounds like the best case scenario?

The4ury --

I tried pressing the button and it didn't adapt to the image for me, instead of being red, it just became a blackened mess, but after you mentioned the transparency and pitch black outline/trans--I did notice that "some" of there sprites uses a black background around the edges and removes it with transparency just like you said--I just need to figure it out for myself.

--Odb718

The process you listed--like the two above, I'm sure is 100% correct for most cases, but this one didn't give me any luck, but from what I've read there are a bunch of ways to do it, unless someone can pinpoint the solution here so I know which route to take, I'm going to go back to the topic you made that lead me to "Indexing Effects help" to see if I can just patiently learn how to fix this from there since there are a lot of effects like this that I need to grab.

The4ury

Re: Cvs style sprite sheet extraction Index & Palette help
#7  August 22, 2024, 11:25:37 pm
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DeathScythe said, August 22, 2024, 10:13:16 pm
My guess is that this is a 24bit PNG, so it doesn't have a palette. The palette you see there is not indexed to that image. This only works in 1.1 and Ikemen. It works like a normal png with different levels of transparency. You don't index it, you just insert it as it is, but your sff needs to be saved as 1.1.

This is spot on, I should of asked what version of SFF is being used.

I sent Plum my results and it should be fine for SFFv1.

EDIT: just seen your post of it being on 1.1. If im correct, you dont need to index for 1.1? especially if its an effect? someone correct me if im wrong

EDIT again: Sorry, 1.1 uses SFFv2.1. This might help. https://mugenguild.com/forum/topics/sffv1-sffv2-sffv2-1-178240.0.html
Last Edit: August 22, 2024, 11:30:49 pm by The4ury

Odb718

Re: Cvs style sprite sheet extraction Index & Palette help
#8  August 23, 2024, 05:37:48 am
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See if this one will work for you. This is a super fast edit in Irfanview. I converted your green image to greyscale and then hit Auto-Adjust Colors. So the black might not be as black as you need. You can use Irfanview to darken the colors to how ever you need it pretty easy.
vVv N00bSaibot & Muramasa RoofTop vVv

Plum

Re: Cvs style sprite sheet extraction Index & Palette help
#9  August 29, 2024, 11:52:30 pm
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I wanted to thank everyone here, all the info helped me really helped me!

Odb178

you were the first to respond, and you were right--I needed to do this for some effects. The4ury actually sent me a private message doing the same thing with the dash effects using the same method. I was hyperfixated on the whole PNG thing though and having clean effects which was only possible by using SFFv2--which I didn't know existed until Death mentioned it. But I was going to put this on hold completely until you answered, I also believe you might have inspired the others.

DeathScythe

You were the one who gave me the info I was after the most; trying to figure out how the PNG were just exported without a palette, I was using 1.1b but I'd never heard of SFFv2--learning I'm about six years late, I haven't even been making characters that long.  This kinda blew me away since I was able to get all the sprites and port/animate them over so quick--and I'm officially making all Hi-Res characters with SFFv2 from now on.

The4ury

After you offered to help and sent me the message I decided to try it for myself, and it was easier to understand that I thought, so you gave me the push to at least fix up the extra sprites that aren't just "port-able PNGs" to easily  extract, so there aren't any more barriers in the way.

I'm going to go ahead and mark this as solved--Thanks to you lot, I can complete this character without any issues.

Odb718

Re: Cvs style sprite sheet extraction Index & Palette help
#10  August 30, 2024, 12:23:23 am
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Odb718 said, August 21, 2024, 08:38:35 pm
So it sounds like you're trying to take a sprite from a 1.1 down to a 1.0/winmugen sff?
@Plum:  I asked this to see if you were going to make a 1.1 char. SFFv2 are 1.1 only I believe. If you're planning a 1.0 just make sure the SFFv2 works for your char before you invest a ton of time into it.
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