Trouble creating small ports

i recently tried to create some new 25x25 small ports for chars that did not have correct ones. i did that easily, indexed and converted to pcx and inserted into the sff correctly.

they look fine on the select screen, but for some reason i get color loss on them in the lifebars. anyone know how i can fix that?

colorloss or wrong colors?

color loss.



as you can see from the image (edited the examples together so seen better), wonderman looks fine on the select screen. its in the lifebars where it gets screwed up.

and now a new trouble. i tried to change the main port (9000,1) on wasp and that screwed up the palette for the small port as seen in the select screen. though it look fine on the lifebars when playing.

any help on either case? the one i just mentioned, or the one previously discussed above

Color loss is there due to the fact that when indexed it's victim of mugens 256 color limit. The render/picture you're using obviously has many colors and this is why there's loss. The only way to properly overcome this is to edit your render/picture so it doesn't have too many differentiating colors, or simply find a picture that you'd assume doesn't have much color loss keeping the 256 color thing in mind.


The other problem you've encountered could be a couple of things, your description's a bit vague. it could be incorrect indexing (not setting the proper 0 color. I'm assuming you know what a 0 color is.) Or you could've accidentally shared the palette with other sprites, causing a slight error in the appearance of the sprite. I've encountered this a few times, I usually solve the situation by replacing the small portrait with itself in fighter factory and saving its own palette to itself then resaving the sff.

thanx for the reply and for getting involved in general. offered a welcome in your stage release topic.

anyway, the small ports were indexed to 256. in each case i took an actual sprite and cropped it to 25x25, then added to the sprite file at 9000,0. they work in the select screen, but not on the lifebars

Maybe it's the screenpack you're using? Does it require custom portraits?

no custom ports.

though i now wonder if maybe i'm supposed to click the shared palette box on small ports? i had not been doing that. could that be the problem? and if so, where in the sprite file do they then need to go if have that box checked?

hi! i have the same trouble with the small portrait.. are you found some solution volzilla?

the video is in spanish, but i am sure you can understand the process my friend!!

Alright here's what I usually do, forget about the sprite currently on the 9000_0, go find the actual sprite or something you want to use, then open that in a picture editor, (I use paintshop)
copy the image, and shrink the original down to 25x25. Then paste the copy on top to where their head fits nicely in the 25x25 box, then the important part, save as a '.bmp' so call it 9000_0.bmp

add that to your 9000_0 slot in the sff. Then tick the shared pallet box but make sure there isn't any other pics before or after that are not part of the shared pallet, (I suggest to allocate them at the end of the Sff (once the shared pallet box is ticked everything after should also be the same till the end) this is not a strict rule, but it does help when discoloring happens randomly
hope that helps cheers
oh and you can thank Zvitor for teaching me that, when I was stuck on that very same issue, long time ago