Question: How many colors may be used in a Mugen character's sprite?

[ShotokanTuning]

I'm a bit rusty.

How many colors may be used in a Mugen character's default body/clothes sprite? Can you use all 256?

What is the maximum of what is a practical amount of colors?

The reason I asks this is if you do a double-high resolution character, you want to add in a lot of details.

My guess is that usually the character specific effects (fire ball etc), special moves etc share the same palette with the character, but I think I recall you could also decide to not share the palette for some sprites for example the character specific effects (fire ball etc). If that isn't the case (without for example creating a full game) the less colors used in the sprite the more you would have available for the effects.

So can you just use 256 colors for the main sprite and still use different colors or even palettes (so not share the default palette on those) for the character specific effects (fire ball etc)? Or do you get any bugs (sprites in wrong colors etc) if you do that?

If so what is a good tool to achieve that? If I remember correctly M.C.M. had some glitches with that.

Not too sure where to putt his question, but this seemed Mugen Graphic Arts related (fixed into the Help section).

Thanks a lot for a reply.

[b.easy]

256 is the standard for all characters, no more.

This is true with nearly all video game sprites, even doubledres characters use them.

My guess is that usually the character specific effects (fire ball etc), special moves etc share the same palette with the character, but I think I recall you could also decide to not share the palette for some sprites for example the character specific effects (fire ball etc). If that isn't the case (without for example creating a full game) the less colors used in the sprite the more you would have available for the effects

special effects don't have to share the same pallete as the actual character, but too many unshared sprites can cause choppiness.

[ShotokanTuning]

Thanks for the quick reply.

256 is the standard for all characters, no more.

This is true with nearly all video game sprites, even doubledres characters use them.

Yes I know no more, just wondered if you can really use all 256 colors for the character itself.

special effects don't have to share the same pallete as the actual character, but too many unshared sprites can cause choppiness.

Okay interesting. So just for my understanding. If have let's say 1000 shared character sprites and 200 special effect sprites, will it cause "choppiness"? With other words what is too much? Is it a software specific thing or is this also dependent on hardware? Fast computer less choppy or totally not choppy?

Thanks again.

[Spidermew]

Well color number 256 has to be the background color to be turned transparent, so really you can only use 255.

[ShotokanTuning]

Well color number 256 has to be the background color to be turned transparent, so really you can only use 255.

True, tough arguably the background is part of the character? 

Did you ever notice the choppyness or did you always share the whole palette, besides for example character select art.

[XsLaught]

Add all the unshared palette sprites at the end of the sff file.
I have 500+ unshared palette sprites and have not noticed choppiness. It may be computer specific. I'm unsure.

[Dakangel]

  hi man ,well is most recomended to share all sprites for your character (character itself) because are always the same only making diferent moves
and effects in different kind of palettes for "more color option"
btw the choppynes is for loading a lot of different palletes in every image,just imagine your character is 1000 images
700 are for the character moves
295 are for effects
5 are portraits

a better way is share pallete in every identical action like same pallete for 700 images of character then share all the sprites for the "hadouken projectile" ,another share for the "fire flames" ,ahother for the "stars super bg" and so
1000 images with different kind of palletes everyone with the option for optimize

[ShotokanTuning]

Add all the unshared palette sprites at the end of the sff file.
I have 500+ unshared palette sprites and have not noticed choppiness. It may be computer specific. I'm unsure.

Okay, thanks for the info.

hi man ,well is most recomended to share all sprites for your character (character itself) because are always the same only making different moves
and effects in different kind of palettes for "more color option"
btw the choppynes is for loading a lot of different palletes in every image,just imagine your character is 1000 images
700 are for the character moves
295 are for effects
5 are portraits

Thanks for the welcome, Dakangel.

A better way is share pallete in every identical action like same pallete for 700 images of character then share all the sprites for the "hadouken projectile" ,another share for the "fire flames" ,ahother for the "stars super bg" and so
1000 images with different kind of palletes everyone with the option for optimize

So if we put character sprites after another they can share a palette (the palette in the act files), then if we have a special move after that needs a different palette those sprites can also share their own palette as long as they are behind one another?

Like a couple of groups of palettes and only the character group is altered by the pal files. How can you we set this up in the sff?

[Dakangel]

  yes ,look the very first image on sff file determine the primary palette, all images linked to that are affected by the pal archive ,the images unshared after that uses its own palettes but we can shared the unshared  to optimize
let me make a tutorial or something like that for more help

[ShotokanTuning]

yes ,look the very first image on sff file determine the primary palette, all images linked to that are affected by the pal archive ,the images unshared after that uses its own palettes but we can shared the unshared  to optimize
let me make a tutorial or something like that for more help

Thanks again Dakangel. Looking forward to the tutorial!

I'll be looking for it anyway, but feel free to pm or e-mail, when the tutorial is up. I will walk through it and will try to help making it even better.