This section contains information about problems you might encounter while using Mugen.
Q : I’ve downloaded your character, but I can’t unzip it.
A : Your downloaded file is most likely corrupt, download it again. This happens most often when you download something at the same time I’m updating it, or when your download is not finished due to a connection problem. If the problem persist, and you get the same, corrupt file every time you try downloading it, it most likely got corrupted while I was uploading it, in this case, let me know as soon as possible and I’ll fix it. The files need 7Zip for unpacking.
Q : How do I add the characters into MUGEN?
A : The usual way (If you never did that, by editing the file “Select.def” in Data) , but in a few cases you might need to specify the folder name and the .Def file where their names don’t match.
Example : Clow\Sakura.def
However, I highly recommend using Visual Select, which is a tool to add characters using the mouse through traditional windows Open File dialogs. It’s very newbie friendly.
VSelect thread with downloads
Q : Do I need to do anything special when installing the characters?
Yes. First, make sure you ARE using the latest MUGEN. Currently, this means 1.1Beta or 1.0Final. In the future, some characters might require 1.1, but none require higher than 1.0 as of yet.
Then, open your mugen.cfg file, and set up the values according to what you see in the download page. This is important, if you don’t, it can result in all kinds of problems (most often effects not being displayed)
You can get the latest version from Elecbyte’s official page, here :
Q : What are the recommended settings, and what are they for?
GameHeight, and GameWidth are your screen resolution.
GameWidth can be any number your computer can handle, with the most common values being 640,800,960,1024, and 1280.
GameHeight needs to be exactly 3/4 th of your GameHeight. So for 640, make it 640*3/4=480, for 800 -> 600, etc.
This is referred to as using a 4:3 screen ratio. The default, HD resolutions are 16:9, using those will result in stuff cut from the top and bottom of screen, for example the card displays will be missing.
ExplodMax should be 2048. This is the number of special effects the game can display at once. Since I’ve coded a lot of special moves that consist of a large number of small sprites, like a snowstorm for example, this setting needs to be high. Don’t worry too much about performance, the size of the explods on screen matter more than the number of them.
LayeredspriteMax also needs to be 2048 or higher. This is basically how many things together, can the game have on screen, including explods, players, etc, so it should be higher than ExplodMax.
Playerprojectilemax should be 512, although, the only character that actually requires that much is Princess Silver. If you don’t use her, 128 will do, but there is no harm in a higher maximum.
Time A lot of characters can recover health, so 60 or 99 seconds are often not enough, especially when you use a defensive strategy. If you want to actually be able to finish most of your fights, I recommend setting this to 199. You shouldn’t set it much higher than that because in rare cases, stalemates can happen.
HelperMax must be 56. Low numbers can make attacks do nothing if too many things happen at the same time. This is the most important out of all settings.
Q : The cards for the card system aren’t on the screen, why?
You didn’t set your screen resolution properly. Mugen 1.0′s default resolution is 1280*720, a widescreen, 16:9 ratio screen resolution. Unfortunately, this mode is NOT giving the game a larger screen compared to the old 4:3 one, it instead is achieved by upscaling the entire screen by four, and CROPPING the upper and lower parts to achieve the different ratio, so the actual area displayed is SMALLER, and due to that, stuff displayed at the bottom of the screen, like the cards, is cut off.
To solve this issue, use a 4:3 screen ratio, like 640*480, 800*600 or 1280*960. Anything is good as long as the ratio of width to height is 4 to 3.
Q : When I select your characters, I get an error message like Unknown trigger : AILevel or Unknown trigger : Cond.
Q : After adding the characters to my select.def file, they don’t show up, and the portraits are empty.
You need Mugen 1.0 or above to run the characters at the moment. If you have anything older, the characters won’t show up because winmugen can’t read mugen 1.0′s SFFV2 format.
Q : Character attacks aren’t displayed correctly, some of the effects are missing!
A : You have to increase the settings in mugen.cfg for explodmax, layeredspritemax, and helpermax.
Recommended numbers are 2048,2048,56.
Q : Princess Silver’s Rainbow Laser doesn’t seem to hit.
A : You have to increase your PlayerProjectileMax setting in mugen.cfg.
Use PlayerProjectileMax = 512 or higher.
Q :Some of the attacks cause bugs or work incorrectly in simul mode, what to do?
A : Simul mode is not supported and is broken by nature, not to mention that the current engine version does not support a lot of coding options that would be necessary for it to work well.
Play Simul at your own risk.
Q : Your characters are too strong, I can’t win.
Q : Your characters are too weak, there is no challenge.
A : Go to options, and check the difficulty level. Medium-4 is the normal difficulty level, 1-3 are easier, 5-8 are harder. Select the difficulty you play taking your character’s abilities into account. Some characters will have no problem beating anything at the highest difficulty if you are skilled enough, but some might not be able to win at the harder levels if they are at a disadvantage.
Generally, 1 and 2 are intended to practice purposes, 3-5 for regular play, and 6-8 if you are already skilled with the character and want a bit more challenge.
Q : Is your character “x” open source?
A : Mugen requires the source code of the characters because it is an interpreter type engine. So it is impossible to make them “closed source”. All mugen characters ever created are open source.
I believe in the freedom of information, so ALL of my works are open source.
Q : You used code/sprites/sounds from, or edited “character name” without permission.
A : See above, I don’t believe in permissions. I believe in sharing information freely between everyone. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. If someone already made something that is good enough to use, it is better to use that than to make the whole thing again. The result is the same, but the amount of time spent is a big difference.
I will usually credit the person (feel free to remind me in case I forget) who made the sprites for the character if it’s original for Mugen, but that’s about it.
Q :Am I allowed to release edits of your characters?
A : Sharing of information is a holy act everyone can benefit from. If you think your edits are good enough for other people to enjoy at least as much as mine, you are welcome to do it.
Q : Am I allowed to host/upload your work to sites? Can I include them in databases?
A : As I update my works often, it’s recommended to post a link to my site so people can always get the latest, most updated versions even if you provide downloads on your site as well.
Q : How about zooming support and Mugen 1.1?
I might add zooming support to characters at a later time. Doing so will make them 1.1 exclusive, so before I start, I want to give appropriate amounts of testing to the current, 1.0 versions, as they will not receive updates after I start working on 1.1 ones. This will probably happen much later, as not enough people use 1.1 yet to worth the extreme amount of time it’ll take to do this. I will not do this until Mugen supports at least a few hundred helpers.