Palette



In M.U.G.E.N, a Palette is a set of colours used in a character that defines the appearance of the character in game. It may also refer to the actual .ACT files stored in the character's directory for this function.

How Palettes Work
In character creation, M.U.G.E.N only accepts indexed colour sprites. As such, the image is saved in two components - an image file with colour references and a palette file with the table of colours. M.U.G.E.N reads the image, refers to the palette and fills in the right colours for each sprite.

To read transparency, MUGEN takes the last colour of every palette and reads it as the transparent colour. Any part of the image that is supposed to be this colour will be transparent.

As such, through the creation of additional palettes, the look of the character can be changed without needing to re-sprite the character in its entirety.

M.U.G.E.N supports up to 12 palettes per character with up to 256 colours.

Selecting Different Palettes
To choose different palettes for each character, move the selector over the character at the select screen and push the following buttons to select the corresponding palette:

A,B,C for palettes 1, 2 and 3 respectively

x,y,z for palettes 4, 5, 6 respectively

Start + x,y,z for palettes 7, 8, 9 respectively

Start + A,B,C for palettes 10, 11, 12 respectively

In the case of a mirror match (same character vs same character), the engine will automatically give an AI 2nd player palette #2 if it is available.

Palette Based Triggers and "12p mode"
M.U.G.E.N is capable of recognising the palette selected by the player through trigger1 = palno = (some number from 1 to 12 inclusive) As such, it is possible to trigger some changes to the character when certain palettes are selected. This is how "all in 1" characters are made - certain palettes trigger a variable that turns on certain moves and turns off others, customising the moveset according to the desired iteration of the character.



However, more often, selecting a particular palette, usually (but not limited to) the 12th palette, unlocks new moves and traits in the character for as long as that palette is in use. These usually serve to make the character excessively cheap. When these modes are activated in compatible characters, it is usually said that "12p mode" is enabled.