Tutorial: How to Build Your Own DC vs Marvel Game

Sunday, September 12, 2010

From time to time we get questions over at the ScruffyDragon forums and in our email about how to download a "one click" installation of the DC versus Marvel game we're making. It occurs to me that this is a common enough problem that I should post some easy-to-follow steps to building your own custom DCvM game, while you wait for the official release.

It's really not all that tough, if a bit involved. All the pieces are there, you just need to put them together in the right order:

  1. Download "No limit WinMUGEN" and the "DC vs Marvel screenpack" from my Add-ons page.
  2. Use WinRAR to extract No_limit_Winmugen_patch.rar into a folder on your PC (I use D:\MUGEN, on my hard drive's data partition)
  3. Extract DCvM.zip into that same folder.
  4. Download the characters you want from my characters section, from the ScruffyDragon download section (note that you'll need to be signed in to see the files), or any other site, really — bearing in mind that not all characters will fit into our custom screenpack without a little customization (more on that in a minute).
  5. Unzip/unrar each character's files into their own folder in MUGEN\chars (e.g. MUGEN\chars\Lobo, MUGEN\chars\Ice, and so on). Note that characters sometimes come with extra folder information in the archive, so you'll want to check that you don't end up with a subfolder inside the folder, like MUGEN\chars\kon-el\kon-el. If that happens, just move the files into the main character folder.
  6. Make sure that folder name is in the text file MUGEN\data\select.def

I know, it seems like a lot, but it's really not that bad. When you're done, you can run Winmugen.exe to play your own, personalized version of the game! From there, you may want to download Fighter Factory or another MUGEN editing tool and start to tweak and customize things for your personal use, which can be really fun and rewarding*. In fact, I know of at least a few people that started out as MUGEN players, and by doing personal tweaks like that, have evolved into MUGEN creators.

* Please remember that most MUGEN creators will have a problem with you posting your tweaked versions of their characters for other people to download. Best to ask permission first before doing that.

Be warned, though: once you've caught the MUGEN creation bug, and begin crafting stuff perfectly tuned to your own tastes, you may never look at pre-packaged fighting games the same way again. ;)

Have fun, and let me know in the comments what your personal DCvsMarvel roster looks like!

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Why won't the characters show up when I play?
 
I'm guessing from your post at ScruffyDragon that you forgot step 6. Open Windows Explorer, change to the folder where you put your MUGEN, and find the subfolder called "data". Inside that, there will be a file called "select.def" (or just "select", if you don't have Explorer configured to show file extensions). You can edit that file to add the characters you've downloaded. Search "how to add characters to mugen" at Youtube, there are a ton of tutorials.
 
How Do You Add The MVC Style Half-Face Portraits In The Select Screen For The Characters I Downloaded I Already Have The PCX's And The MCM I Just Need A Tutorial Or Video Tutorial Please Help
 
I just looke don YouTube and couldn't find a tutorial, so I may have to do one. Meanwhile, here are the basic steps:

- open the SFF (I would recommend not using MCM, but Fighter Factory instead -- the SFF format has changed since MCM was written and it may mess up the sprites for your characters.
- find the sprite with group 9000, image number 1 (sprite 9000,1 for short). Click the "Change image" button and find the new PCX you want to use (make sure it's in indexed palette first!)
- if the "Shared Palette" checkbox is selected, unselect it if the portrait you've loaded looks differently colored than you expected.
- make sure the sprite's x-axis and y-axis are both 0
- save the file

Now your new palette should be ready to go!
 
Wow Thanks Guess What It Worked! My Only Problem Now Is How Do I Make The Characters Show Up With That Square Box With Their Faces On It I Didn`t Have To Use Fighter Factory On Characters Like Lex Luthor Thanos Darkseid Ice Hal Jordan Ghost Rider Etrigan And SavageHulk And The Square Box Showed Up Please Help
 
Yeah, some of our characters just have normal MUGEN select portraits, some have the DCvM-compatible ones. Kind of a pain, I know, sorry. To change the small portrait, follow the same steps I posted above, but for sprite 9000,0 instead of 9000,1. The other difference is that the x-axis for that sprite isn't 0, but will be different depending on which side of the screen you want the icon to be on... DC characters (on the left side) should have x-axis of -63, but Marvel characters (on the right side) should have x-axis of 66.

Both left and right side characters should have y-axis of 1 for that sprite. The DC/Marvel template characters in my Add-ons section have example icons that you can use as a starting point if you need to.
 
great it worked thanks! now can you post a link to download a MVC Half-Face Portrait Pack For Characters That Are Not In The Support Folder Please
 
There's an old thread on ScruffyDragon with tons of links and posted pictures to help you fill out any missing portraits you might need: http://www.scruffydragon.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4398
 
Finally Thanks
 
I can't find a link to download DCVSM half-face portrait pack for characters, can you post a new link or something please
 
@anon: I'm not sure I know of a portrait pack that would fit your needs, but I'll bet if you Google around you can find something.
 
How do you make the characters faces on the fight loading screen flip? To be more clear, the face of the first character is fine, but the face of the second fighter overlaps the first one's face and appears backwards (The character's name is backwards), how do I fix this?
 
If you look at Ice's SFF, you'll see how the portraits need to look:

Click here for a sample

It's a little unintuitive, but that was the only way to make it work right with this screenpack.
 

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