Screenpack Tutorial Part 2

[MrSteve81]

This part of the tutorial will be covering the coding in the system.def file concerning the title screen. I have copy pasted the entire thing so you can see what it looks like.

[Title Info]
fadein.time = 10
fadeout.time = 10
menu.pos = 159,158
menu.item.font = 3,0,0
menu.item.active.font = 3,5,0
menu.item.spacing = 0, 13
menu.itemname.arcade = "ARCADE"
menu.itemname.versus = "VS MODE"
menu.itemname.teamarcade = "TEAM ARCADE"
menu.itemname.teamversus = "TEAM VS"
menu.itemname.teamcoop = "TEAM CO-OP"
menu.itemname.survival = "SURVIVAL"
menu.itemname.survivalcoop = "SURVIVAL CO-OP"
menu.itemname.training = "TRAINING"
menu.itemname.watch = "WATCH"
menu.itemname.options = "OPTIONS"
menu.itemname.exit = "EXIT"
; These parameters define the window in which the items are visible
; in.
menu.window.margins.y = 12, 8
menu.window.visibleitems = 5
menu.boxcursor.visible = 1     ;Set to 0 to disable default cursor display
menu.boxcursor.coords = -58,-10,57,2
; These are the sounds for cursor movement
cursor.move.snd = 100,0
cursor.done.snd = 100,1
cancel.snd = 100,2

;----------------------------
;Title background definition
[TitleBGdef]
bgclearcolor = 0,0,0

[TitleBG 0]
type  = parallax
spriteno = 5, 1
start = 0, 145
width = 400, 1200
yscalestart = 100
yscaledelta = 1
tile  = 1,1
velocity = -1

[TitleBG 1]
type  = normal
spriteno = 5, 2
start = -160, 145
trans = sub

[TitleBG 2]
type  = normal
spriteno = 5,0
start = 0, 10
tile = 1,2
velocity = -1
mask = 0

[TitleBG 3]
type  = normal
spriteno = 0,0
start = 0, 40
mask = 1
trans = add

It might look quite complicated at this point but there are only 2 different things that are possible to play with here, and neither has to be difficult. So lets have a closer look at each section.

[Title Info]
fadein.time = 10
fadeout.time = 10
menu.pos = 159,158 This is where your menu will appear. Change the numbers to see the affects it has.
menu.item.font = 3,0,0 This tells mugen which font to use for the menu. You can change your fonts as I've shown in a previous tutorial.
menu.item.active.font = 3,5,0 The font used when the menu selection is selected. In this case it is a simple colour change.
menu.item.spacing = 0, 13 How far apart the selections will appear. The first number is the x axis (left and right), the second, the y axis (up and down)
menu.itemname.arcade = "ARCADE" Changing the words in the " " will change the names of the modes. For instance say you wanted Arcade mode to be called Hero mode you would change "ARCADE" to "HERO".
menu.itemname.versus = "VS MODE"
menu.itemname.teamarcade = "TEAM ARCADE"
menu.itemname.teamversus = "TEAM VS"
menu.itemname.teamcoop = "TEAM CO-OP"
menu.itemname.survival = "SURVIVAL"
menu.itemname.survivalcoop = "SURVIVAL CO-OP"
menu.itemname.training = "TRAINING"
menu.itemname.watch = "WATCH"
menu.itemname.options = "OPTIONS"
menu.itemname.exit = "EXIT"
menu.window.margins.y = 12, 8 This deals with how big the selection window is. If you are using the default mugen fonts I suggest changing it to 12, 5. Looks tidier.
menu.window.visibleitems = 5 How many selections are visible.
menu.boxcursor.visible = 1 Change to 0 if you don't want a box around your current selection.
menu.boxcursor.coords = -58,-10,57,2 How big the box is. You can delete this line if you don't want a box.
cursor.move.snd = 100,0 The sounds that will be made when changing your selection. I will deal with sound in another  part of the tutorial.
cursor.done.snd = 100,1
cancel.snd = 100,2

See how easy that was? Mess about with the numbers, find something you like while thinking about how you want your background images to look. You should think about that because its the next section we will cover.

[TitleBGdef]
bgclearcolor = 0,0,0

[TitleBG 0]
type  = parallax
spriteno = 5, 1
start = 0, 145
width = 400, 1200
yscalestart = 100
yscaledelta = 1
tile  = 1,1
velocity = -1

[TitleBG 1]
type  = normal
spriteno = 5, 2
start = -160, 145
trans = sub

[TitleBG 2]
type  = normal
spriteno = 5,0
start = 0, 10
tile = 1,2
velocity = -1
mask = 0

[TitleBG 3]
type  = normal
spriteno = 0,0
start = 0, 40
mask = 1
trans = add

If you have ever made more than a very basic 1 layer stage then this section should make absolute sense to you. If not then don't worry its easy. And I'm going to teach you as well.

Each of the [TitleBG] sections is a separate layer. It doesn't matter what they are called after the TitleBG bit but they need that at the start or it wont work properly.
Lets have a look at the most complicated layer here, [TitleBG 0]

[TitleBG 0] The layers name.
type  = parallax Parallax means the sprite will scroll across the screen, normal will mean a static, non moving sprite.
spriteno = 5, 1 The sprite number in the .sff we had a quick look at in the last lesson.
start = 0, 145 The sprites start position.
width = 400, 1200 This section I don't have a firm understanding of yet, but increasing the numbers makes it move faster.
yscalestart = 100
yscaledelta = 1
tile  = 1,1
velocity = -1

As this is the bottom layer there is no need for one of the most important lines of coding in it. Mask.
By putting the line mask = 1 in the coding for each layer the colour you chose as your transparent colour when you added your sprite will not be shown.
There is also a line you can add called trans. By adding this you can decide if the whole sprite will be transparent or not. Just add trans = sub, trans = add or trans = add1 and check the results.

Using these 2 tutorials you should be able to create a new title screen for mugen. If you have any problems just post here, or send me a PM if you want to keep your screenpack a secret until its release.