RobotMonkeyHead

Oh hot damn! That's lookin purty! So bad, the original sf2 music for this stage popped into my mind as soon as I looked at it :)

Hello MFFA peoples! This is a character balancing / frame data tool I made a couple years back called Grasshopper. I finally just finished polishing it off. It allows you to gather multiple characters' frame data and damage values on a chart. You can easily copy / paste / move them around for averaging and comparison. It's geared for creators and editors who want to make highly balanced characters, or balance out existing characters or rosters. You can group the characters data however you want. By game, or play style, etc. Grasshopper will then tell you the frame data averages for these groups and allow you to compare that average against specific characters data. It will show you either the difference between the two, or the average between the two, whichever you prefer. This will give you a clear sense of what damage and frame advantage you should set for each attack of your character. Frame data for comparisons can be found on a reference site, or by using the Training character to get the frame data from existing Mugen characters. Grasshopper actually comes with about 5 or 6 characters frame data already loaded on it. If anyone decides to upload and share their frame data (partially or fully filled charts) for the good of the community, here's a thread specifically for that project. Hopefully, over time it could build up to a little library type resource of frame / damage data which could help bring much needed balance to the Mugen! (A couple SF2 / SF3A characters frame data are included, along with links to pages where you can find more.) Here's a gif that nicely shows the type of data Grasshopper works with: Other possible uses: Here's some pics: And here's the link: Download Grasshopper 1.0 - Contains original OpenOffice version, and a Microsoft Excel '97 exported version. Download Microsoft OpenOffice - Free open source excel / word / draw clone. The program Grasshopper was made in, and the sure way to run it. tl;dr Spreadsheet for viewing, comparing and averaging characters frame data and damage.

Ok, I know I haven't been the best about staying current with this wip thread, but despair not!! Progress has not stopped! Not once, actually, and it's not about to now! I've just gotten a little lazy with the updates (2 months already!?) Feedback Fixed. No dancy. 1 - You can ignore the readme. It's in the process of being replaced by an in-game moves list. 2 - Fixed. Silly mistake :) 3 - Yea good call, the Dasherator's a bit unsafe. Made it so he's invincible to all attacks except other hypers now. 4 - Yes coin sound effects are a definite. All the sound will be overhauled once the coding is done. 5 - Bike and Bossummon commands fixed. 6 - I don't know what the dark area around Wario during the dash attack is all about... I can't seem to replicate it. Could it be the stage? Thanks, too, glad you like the Bossummon hyper so far :) It's gotten a little better recently too, I added a zoom feature, along with some environment shake, and explodes. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Progress Update: * A lot of minor tweaks and touch ups to specials and hypers. * Complete in-game moves list implemented (double tap taunt to toggle). Working "configure" page allows you to change his palette and any configurable options mid-fight. It also makes keeping track of your treasure collecting easy. * I'll be starting in on the sounds very soon, and thank you very much@Clownmanfor the sound files!

Yes, lookin good!

Good lookin!

Genesis, it's been a pleasure working with you. I will say, from a life long artist that there's absolutely no shame in putting down a project for a while, years even, and moving on to other shit. Sometimes the best thing is to take a long breather and clear your head... Then again sometimes the best thing to do is not go back at all, and free your time for something more valuable. It can be disheartening to put a lot of time into a project and just loose the steam to finish it on time. And having a lot of half finished projects lying around sucks, I know. The questions I usually ask myself at that point are "Of all these projects, which ones am I doing just for myself and my enjoyment of the creative process, and which ones am I doing because I want the actual finished product in front of me?" "Of the projects I want in finished form, which one do I want the most?", "Do I have time for it?" Then comes the constant unspoken battle of the creative individual, which is managing to push through the difficult shit to finish the project. That part is an exercise in self discipline in and of itself, and what you have to show at the end of the day really comes down to that. So for that phase I like to find ways to grease the wheels of the creative process... pop on some music or an audio book while working for example. Or make a thread documenting my progress and use the social motivation (be careful tho, sometimes getting the social reward before finishing the project can cause you to loose steam). Actually finishing a project is usually the hardest part. I really like to sit back and visualize the finished product completely. How does it look? What are the main components? How were they made? And keep the vision of the finished product in mind. Don't add anything crazy that's going to make it impossible to finish, just push toward that end goal, and know you can decide to go further or not once you're there. And hell, even if you give up on the project, as long as you ask yourself why you gave up, you're still learning about what kind of projects to invest in and what ones not to. I guess in the case of Mugen tho, the point is fun, and if it's not fun, there's no point. So please don't feel like a failure, or a let down because of mugen projects. Any creator knows just how much god awful fucking time and effort it takes to create all this shit, and no one can seriously fault you for not feeling like doing it for free. It's just a hobby we mess around with in our spare time. There are no real deadlines or expectations, other than the ones we make. It should be enjoyable, not a source of stress. Ok, I've been rambling for like 5 paragraphs at this point. It's just that as an artist I seriously relate to the struggle you're describing, and I just figured I'd share what I've managed to learn from going through it a bunch. Hope some of it helps :)

Darth Vader's looking pretty sweet amigo! Keep up the good work!

Sweet, keeping an eye on this one.

This looks fucking great! Can't believe I'm just finding it now.

Oh jesus. I can't believe that slipped by me. I figured out how to make that not happen to the bosses at work today, and forgot to change it when I got home. All of them probably do the same thing at this point. Thanks XP

That looks fun. If it only uses var(59) the only thing that'll effect in Wario is whether or not he has the Wrestlers Mask treasure. So from time to time his throws may be a little easier to do, and he might have access to do the triple slam chain. ----- New beta sent out to: Staubhold, Ballsdeep69, Laharl, jengra505, Pac-Trail, Clownman, Dhillon521 and W'. Most of the issues in the feedback have been resolved. Other additions: Boss summon hyper, boss emblem treasure system, crawl, touch ups to standing crouching and areal basic attacks.

1. Possibly. 2. Lunch Money Shakedown does low damage because coins add life and power to Wario. The others have been addressed. Any other under or over powered moves? 3. Fixed. 4. Fixed. 5. hmmm... not really sure what to do about that. 1. Should be working now. Some of the commands were a bit wonky. 2. Fixed. 3. Fixed. 4. Yea all the sounds going to be done at the end. 5. Haven't been able to replicate this yet. Still trying. What enemy? 6. Fixed. 7. Yes, very true. Good call. Fixed 8. Thanks! ...But what do you mean by Add004? 1. All the sound is going to be done at the end. 2. " 3. Yea, I think your right. Will fix. 4. Fixed. 5. Fixed. 6. Yep, sounds. 7. Good call. Different angles added. 8. Fixed. 9. Fixed. 10. I think all the debug messages have been taken care of. Glad you like! mmmm ah yes... fixed. 1. Yup, fixed. 2. There's a maximum of 3 bob-ombs allowed on the screen at once. 3. Ah the sounds of sounds. The moves list says how to get treasures. Any testing at all is a plus. If you ever feel like taking a more thorough look, awesome, but it's all good either way.

Ok, I know I said I'd address this stuff soon, and it's been about 3 weeks so I have to apologize. I have been busy tho, I've been writing a lot (and I mean a metric fuck load) of stuff for Tier 1's up & coming reopening. There's a sort of Mugen Training Camp in the works. That's coming along really nicely so far. Also got a lot of work done on Wario. The boss summon hyper is finished and almost all of the feedback's been addressed code wise. I'll reply to the feedback soon, but I'm pretty excited about the boss summon thing, so I'm gonna explain it. __/ Level 3 Boss Summon Hyper There are 9 treasures total. They break down into 3 groups, each with 3 treasures. Get all 3 treasures in any 1 group and it adds a boss to your boss summon hyper. So by the time you get all 9 treasures, 3 bosses appear when you do the hyper. There's Bloomsday, Large Fry and Shake King. You get their boss emblems from Shake It in the "unused silver treasure chest" at the beginning of the round. (graphics where in the game data, but never used in the game itself. Same with the palette for Bloomsday and the crystal skull, wrestlers mask, rocket sprocket, and cymbalic ring sprites that I used.) Bloomsday has his intro from Shake It, and immediately does his vacuum move, which pulls the opponent up to the flower, draining their life, then drops them in front and does the fan thing, which deals pretty heavy damage. The wind moves them around the screen whether or not they're actually hit. Bloomsdays pot acts as a barrier that p2 can't pass through but Wario can. Large Fry has his intro from Shake It, after which he floats up to the top of the screen toward player 2. When he's over them he does 3 downward slams, then floats up off the screen and comes charging in from the side for 1 last heavy hit. He also gets bigger depending on how many other bosses are on the screen. Shake King has the last part of his intro from Shake It where he drops out of the top of the screen, landing in front of p2. He does 3 fist pounds and a charge. He's also impassable to p2, so he creates some nice defense for Wario. All 3 at the same time is pretty fuckin nuts. That's the last thing that I plan to add to him besides the in game moves list which will also show the treasure, and boss emblems and explain their effects and requirements. EDIT: Added crawl.

@Big Green, yea you can contribute palettes for sure, but it's going to be a little while before that's possible. There's a couple long posts on this thread about what those sprites have been through, so I won't bother repeating, but once I get the actual sprites in and a palette template made, I'll definitely keep ya posted. @Clownman, no worries about the sounds, I got plenty to work with for now, but if you want to link me to em whenever they're ready, that'd be nice. Betas in your inboxes :)

Great feedback so far fellas. I'll address all of this very soon.

@Pac-Trail: Hells yes you can beta test him :) It's not in this update, but his 12th palette will unlock all the treasures automatically. Treasure system is finished. I was going to send him out a couple days ago, but I ran into a few snags so I'm sending him out now, to: Laharl Staubhold BallsDeep69 Jenngra505 Pac-Trail If anyone else wants to jump on that list any point point, just post the word. WHAT NEENDS TESTING: All specials, hypers, treasures and their interactions, mostly. Last beta still had a bunch of junk code left over from the original which hadn't been touched, so there were problems everywhere that weren't even worth bothering with. That made it a little difficult to tell what to focus on. That's no longer the case. Everything that's in there now should be in there. It's missing a few things still: Sounds, a variety of intros, win / lose / draw poses, taunts, in game moves list and the unlockable level 3 Bossummon hyper, but all that will be in the next update. If you're new to beta testing, if you can figure out how to break it consistently, tell me how you're doing it and how it's breaking. Screen shots are a plus.

Sure. :) This last thing I wanted to finish is taking me just a little longer than I thought it would. If everything goes according to plan, I should have him sent out either way later on tonight or tomorrow tho.

It's all good. Laharl, Staubhold and SPRI YAR ZON have been pretty on point with the technical feedback so far. Really the only thing I'd like you to do is see if you can get him to break or produce weird glitches. If you can, see if you can replicated it reliably and if so, just let me know what it is and what you're doing to get it to happen. Any suggestions you have for move tweaks and the like are welcome too. :) At this point he's pretty close to finished, so the more problems found / detail tweaks made the better.

Sweet.

Ok, confession time. I haven't refurbished the sprites yet. But I got almost everything else done. The only thing that isn't finished at this point is the in game moves list, the intros and win poses, and a potential bonus hyper. I'll send out a new beta soon, but before I do, is anyone else interested in beta testing? Ballsdeep? Clownman? All you gotta do is see if you can break him or make him do weird shit, and if you do tell me how. @Dhillon521 I haven't heard from you, are you still interested? In the meantime, here's a quick peak at a rough draft of the In Game Moves List (map scrolls behind text): Page 1: Page 2: Progress Update: Bob-ombs are finished: Behavior = Blink, face opponent, wind up 3 times, hop, repeat for 3 hops then light. Fuse burns for 2 seconds, while bob-omb begins to glow red/orange then explodes. Explosions launch other bob-ombs toward opponent, and launch either Wario or opponent away from their center. 3 bob-ombs on screen max. QCB + QP drops one in place, QCB + MP throws one, QCB + SP throws an already lit one. Works in air. Bob-ombs can be knocked around the screen be either Wario or opponent, and fireballs (or other bob-omb explosions, or fire hyper) can be used to light bob-ombs. Captain's Piledriver hyper is finished. Pretty standard pile-driver. Can be linked to from the other throw chains, in place of the last throw. Lunch Money hyper can also be linked into the same way. Ground Pound hyper is finished. Similar to the special but with much greater range and effect. Mad Bob-omber hyper is finished. Wario eats a lit bob-omb, causing him to immediately gain 3 garlics and begin to glow red, for the exact duration of the bob-ombs fuse. When it explodes, Wario bursts into flames and throws about 15 lit bob-ombs in all directions causing a massive explosion. Motorcycle special is finished. D, D, P causes the motorcycle to appear. Wario can jump on and off it freely. It can be hit and moved around the screen by either Wario or the opponent. When riding, wario can wheelie, skid turn, jump with his velocity locked to the bikes, or just jump off leaving the bike moving as a projectile. If he's going fast enough when passing the opponent it will hit. Damage is proportional to speed. Wario can also drive the motorcycle off of a bob-omb explosion, causing it to wheelie in air without knocking Wario off it. Treasure system currently being implemented. By accomplishing the REQ part, a treasure chest appears, and if Wario hits it, it opens and he gets the treasure inside. Each treasure has a specific effect (FXS) and getting all of them unlocks the Bossummon level 3 hyper. He will keep the treasures through all matches and rounds, so you can build him as you go, but when you lose a match, they all disappear. ___________________________/ TREASURES 1) Rocket Sprocket FXS: Increase motorcycles speed, accel, cornering, and wheelie control REQ: Get 100 coins 2) Short Fuse FXS: Bob-omb shorter fuse, fireballs detonate it, 1 giant hop? REQ: Fill garlic meter with mad bob-omber hyper only 3) Cymbalic Ring FXS: Increase sonic knucles range and dizzy duration REQ: 3 guard crushes in a round 4) Liquid Quick FXS: Increase walk, run and dash speed (crawl?) REQ: Use up entire power bar on dasherator hyper 5) Wicked Warios FXS: Increase jump and super jump height. 2 coins for jumping off opponent. REQ: 6 consecutive head jumps 6) Soda Pop Gloves FXS: Increase basic attacks damage by 10%, and add 1 more 100% hit before damage dampener REQ: Win a round using no basic attacks 7) Stinky Under-Armor FXS: Increase defense by 10%. Fart any time. REQ: Land a level 9 garlic fart and belch in the same match 8) Crystal Skull FXS: Continuous slow power gain, get 2 garlics for each projectile eaten. REQ: Go a round taking no damage and using no hypers 9) Wrestling Mask FXS: Unlock extra throw chain: roll / air roll / neither into 3 consecutive slams. Larger time window for throw linking. REQ: Link a full air or ground throw chain into lunch money hyper and captains pile driver

Awwww yes! Can't even tell you how stoked I am for what you're doing with MK II. Snag!!

What's your top 3 favorite fighting games? What are some of your hobbies outside of Mugen? If you could have 1 question answered with absolute certainty what would it be?

Ok, it's been almost a week, so it's probably a good time to nominate someone else. It's been fun, thanks for choosing me OMEGAPSYCHO! What say you Ballsdeep69, are you up for it?

It's rewarding to know people actually use my edits, I always wonder about that :) 1. hmm.. I'm gonna have to go with monkeys. Where robots do have the potential to make human life easier, I tend to think the cost of technological advance is usually our own nature, ...and possibly future. 2. Strawberry rhubarb pie. But icebox cake is a close second :P 1. On the surface, it's a description of my (or the readers') computer. Essentially "robot brain". The "monkey" part is an unnecessary jab at creationism: "Wut? People come from monkeys!?! I'll believe in evolution when I see a monkey give birth to a human, damn it!" <- 62% of my country actually thinks that. It's also a bit of a dig at the other end of the prophetic spectrum where you have the idea of computers replacing the human mind as part of what some people see (mistakenly, I believe) as the next step in our evolution. In short, RobotMonkeyHead is basically meant to translates to "what you're reading now is being said by a monkey brain that's evolved to the point of mechanical (non-living), i.e. our computers." 2. Duke, for sure. There were a lot of bugs in his code, and a Lot of fixing that needed to be done. Plus his animations and clsns were pretty poorly aligned. I was joking about putting him through rehab on his wip thread. Spawn was a pleasure to work on, comparatively. His code was extremely well organized and labeled. I was able to align all his animations (mostly to hold foot position), add in some extra stuff and tweak his existing moves with little to no trouble.

I don't know how into psych you are, but Paul Bloom (link's a fun watch) is well known in the field. There's are some great discussions between him and Sam Harris (a neuroscientist, philosopher, and sort of atheist pundit), one about empathy, and one about "the dark side". Common problems with characters... the most obvious common problem is horrifically placed clsn boxes. Second is misaligned anims / sprites. But for the coding, and this imo is by far the hugest problem: nothing is labeled. There are no notes. As simple as that seems, what it means is the original coder has to hold everything in their memory, and as the character progresses it just becomes more and more of a tangled knot of code. It gets easier and easier to overlook things and mess things up. Simultaneously it gets harder and harder to go back and integrate, fix or update things that are already "finished". Soooo many problems in the code, bugs etc, spring directly from this one simple thing that anyone with any level of skill can do. I have considered it yes, but don't have any in the works. That's usually incredibly easy to do as well. Just a few lines of code need updating from deprecated parameters or something. Edit's I'm most proud of: Spawn and Duke Nukem. Those got the most amount of work, and they're really where I figured out the ins and outs of coding characters.