User blog:MDF infin/Character Animations: Common issues

I am still relatively new to mugen wikia, but I have learned quite a bit in that short time. When attempting to export a character animation from fighter factory, it is inevitable that one will encounter problems. I will list the problems that I have encountered so far.

The #1 tip I can give for dealing with these and similar problems is to not give up too soon and experiment a little. Something I learned dealing with winmugen and now Mugen 1.0 "today" is that you will have to do some troubleshooting if you want things to work correctly. Even as a non-creator fan/player like me, you can't just download and play. You need to know some basics. Keep in mind, not every problem requires a genuis to solve, so don't be intimidated.


 * 1) Apocalypse: Long story short, he has been sprited in pieces. His head has it's own sprites and hitbox(es), his hand has its own sprites and hitbox(es), and his torso. . . is just there (also it's own sprite). See excerpt below for 1 known solution.
 * 2) Ryu and Ken: I discovered a problem when I noticed the shoryuken animations, for their Street Fighter Alpha counterparts by N64Mario, suddenly stop before finishing. To witness this, compare their respective edits from 4/25/2014 to the one immediately before it. You will notice the note I left "...better Ryu/Ken shoryuken..." on the edit summary. Solution: The quickest and easiest way to fix this is to find the sprites that make up the desired animation. You need to pay close attention to the group # and the image #. You will need to create a new animation. Go to the animation tab and use the + sign to add a new one and name it (for example:shoryuken). Here's the harder part. You must add each sprite into the animation in order. You need to type in/ or find the group # and the image # . You also need to estimate the proper number of ticks to implement for each frame so that it looks right. (Key word: estimate.) If you want it perfect, you will have to cross reference the character's play in the mugen engine until it matches precisely. I started with 2 ticks per frame/sprite and adjusted them. (I don't have time (or maybe I'm just too lazy) to get really explicit with the details, but you should be able to get the main points.) Some Details: Consider gravity in the shoryuken. Ryu/Ken should linger in the air a bit so that means that there should be slightly more ticks after they leave the ground. This is really just an animation trick since you won't be actually doing any real spritework, you are creating a sort of illusion (like a flip book). If you were creating your own character, you could add more sprites/frames so that the quality would be much more impressive.
 * 3) Ryu: GM's version has a problem with the Tatsumaki Senpukyaku. Similarly to the above problem, the animation will stop prematurely instead of cycling. Solution: This one is simple although I don't have a technical explanation for it, I know something that works. In Fighter Factory, all I had to do was remove the very last frame of the animation and voila. The animation cycles properly. It is likely that animations require a proper transition from start to finish to start again. I'm sure someone here on the wiki knows more than I do about this.

More common problems: I don't have solutions for these and I am sure they come up more often.

4.  Pink background: The character's animations export with a pink background, sometimes unnoticeable until uploaded or opened. I have this problem currently with Juan Carlos' Doctor Doom. That's just one reason why I didn't add those animations yet. My question to admins/mods, veterans, and experts: Should I/we upload these "as is" or is it preferred that it be edited? My Guess: Photoshop or GIMP should do the trick right?

5.  Color scheme: Some characters simply look one way in game but entirely different in Fighter Factory. I am experiencing this with a version of Thanos called Ghost Thanos. He has a transparent Thanos look, but in FF his colors get mixed up in a wierd way, and it looks bad. I don't really know where to start with this one. My Guess: ? Re-rip the sprite manually (Artmoney or something) or fade a normal Thanos to simulate the appearance.

6.  Huge and/or wide animations: This is more of an issue of aesthetics. It is obvious on many pages including some I have worked on: Omega Red and Apocalypse. Omega Red's destroyer hyper is so huge that I can only represent it with him sandwiched between what should be connected to his body. The normal sized Apocalypse has quite a few problems with his specials and hypers with many of the blasts/beams occupying its own row. I know that many projectile attacks have a similar issue. My question: Will there ever be a solution, or should we just make it as neat as possible. It won't be perfect. . . .or. .  .should the beams/blasts simply be left out and only leave the character animation in these cases. My Guess: Shrink the images and attach them so that they fit. Reanimate those images.

7.  Too many pieces: Doctor Doom is a prime example of this problem. See photon array, photon shot and molecular shield. The first two should have several think pink beams shooting out. The problem is that Fighter Factory shows one horizontal beam. That means I would have to rotate it myself too. For the molecular shield, I maybe have two different sized rocks. It would look silly to just put a rock there. You'd have no clue what happens with it. My question: Same as #6, should I just leave out the extra stuff? My Guess: get to work on simulating that animation with what is available.

Disclaimer: I am aware that at least some of the problems I have identified may have been talked about already. I am hoping that more attention would be brought to them and perhaps someone will be able to help. Perhaps a more thorough guide could be created.

Solution for #1 Apocalypse:

Here's an excerpt (summary) from a conversation I had with Plasmoid on his talk page.

Apocalypse is falling to pieces
There's two types of character we really can't seem to make movelists, etc. for: Apocalypse-sized characters/characters that are split into individual pieces and uber cheap characters "cheapies". While it is completely possible to make animations for the split characters through a complicated method of taking the sprites from Fighter Factory and piecing them together manually in something like Photoshop or GIMP (which I did once or twice), it's incredibly time-consuming.

The cheapies have several thousand (slight exaggeration) effects and "attacks" with various different properties.

09:27, April 16, 2014 (UTC)