🥊 Character Maker — Complete Guide

Build a fighter from scratch or from a sprite sheet, give it animations and moves, test it against the AI, and publish it for everyone to play. The maker exports real MUGEN-format files (SFF, AIR, CNS, CMD, SND), so what you build runs on the actual fighting engine.

You must be logged in to use the Character Maker. This guide is long on purpose — skim the table of contents and jump to what you need.

1. How a fighter is built (concepts)

A MUGEN-style fighter is four things working together. The maker hides most of the file-format detail, but understanding the pieces makes everything click:

• Sprites (SFF) — the pictures. Each sprite is palette-indexed pixel art with an axis (the origin point — for a fighter this is the feet center). Sprites are grouped: group = which animation, image = which frame.
• Animations (AIR) — ordered lists of sprites with a time (how many ticks each frame shows), optional position offsets, flips, and collision boxes. Each animation has an action number.
• States (CNS) — the state machine. "Standing", "walking", "throwing a punch" are all states. A state plays an animation and contains controllers (deal damage, change velocity, play a sound, etc.).
• Commands (CMD) — input definitions ("quarter-circle-forward + x") and the launcher that says "when this command is detected and I have control, change to the punch state."

The key mental model: an attack is an Action number that is BOTH an animation and a state. You draw/import the animation under, say, action 200; you add a move whose Anim/state # is 200 and whose Input is the button that triggers it. Press the button → the engine changes to state 200 → it plays animation 200 and applies the hit.

2. Interface tour

The maker is three columns with a test area underneath.

Left column

• 🎨 Palette — your colors. Slot 0 is always transparent. Click a swatch to select it; use the color picker + SET SLOT to change the selected swatch's color. Importing a sheet rebuilds the palette automatically.
• ✏ Tools — Pen, Erase, Fill (flood), Pick (eyedropper); Clear frame; Copy Prev (duplicate the previous frame's pixels); the Onion-skin slider.
• ▾ Character — Name and Recovery ticks; a note about the canvas size.
• 🖼 Import sprite sheet… — opens the large importer (section 4).

Center column

• Sprite Editor — the zoomable pixel canvas for the current frame, with the box-drawing controls beneath it.
• Animation — tabs for each animation; Action # + Name; the frame strip with + FRAME / DUPLICATE / DELETE / SET LOOPSTART; and per-frame fields (time, x/y offset, width, flip).
• 🥊 Moves — the move list (command → attack state).
• 🔊 Sounds — import + attach audio.

Right column

• ▶ Live Preview — loops the current animation; "show boxes" overlays the Clsn boxes.
• ☁ Your account — Save to account, Publish to community, project Load/Delete, Save/Load project file, Download files, Validate.

Bottom — ⚔ Test Your Fighter

The full fight area: a roster, library pickers, stage, P1/P2 controls, the fight canvas, and FIGHT — so you can build and test in one place.

3. Standard action numbers

The engine triggers specific action numbers for built-in behavior. Number your animations to match so your fighter behaves correctly. Action 0 is required — it's the resting/idle animation; without it the fighter won't show.

Action #	Used for	Notes
0	Stand / idle	Required. Played whenever the fighter is at rest.
10–12	Crouch (down, hold, up)	Played while holding Down.
20	Walk forward	21 = walk back.
40	Jump (up)	41/42 = jump fwd/back; 43–47 = land/air-transitions.
100	Run / dash forward	105 = hop back.
120–155	Guard (stand/crouch/air)	Played while blocking.
200	Stand light attack	The default punch move points here.
210 / 230 / 240	Strong punch / light kick / strong kick	Add more attacks on these.
5000–5080	Get-hit / hurt / knockdown	5000 = light stand hit; great to have at least one.
190	Round intro pose	Plays once at round start, then returns to idle.
180	Win pose	Plays on victory.

You can use any number for custom moves (e.g. 1000, 1010) and point a move's Anim/state # at it. The numbers above are the ones the engine looks for on its own.

4. Importing a sprite sheet

Click 🖼 Import sprite sheet…. A sprite sheet is one image holding many small poses. The importer turns regions of it into animation frames, one move at a time.

Step by step

1. Choose File — load a PNG or JPG. The full sheet appears, scaled up.
2. The top-left pixel is treated as the transparent background. Make sure your sheet's background is a flat color in that corner.
3. Drag a box around the first sprite of the move you want. The selection sets the cell's position and size. You can fine-tune the numbers by hand: Col offset (x), Row (y), Cell W, Cell H.
4. Set the target Action # (see section 3) and how many Frames to grab.
5. Choose how to import:
   • ⬆ Import row → action — grabs Frames cells in a row, each Cell W apart. Best when the sprites are evenly spaced.
   • ＋ Add 1 frame — appends just the selected cell as one frame. Use this for messy sheets where sprites are different sizes / unevenly spaced: drag a box around each pose individually and add them one by one. Each frame keeps its own width, so nothing is squished.
6. The frames you've imported for the current Action # appear in the frame strip. To fix a frame that's cut off: click it in the strip, drag a new (wider) box on the sheet, then ↻ Replace selected.
7. Change the Action # and repeat for the next move.

Importer options

Control	What it does
Col offset (x) / Row (y)	Top-left corner of the first cell, in sheet pixels.
Cell W / Cell H	Size of one sprite cell. Height becomes the canvas height on the first import; width is preserved per-frame by aspect.
Frames	How many cells across "Import row" grabs.
Action #	Which animation the imported frames go into.
Colors	Max palette size (e.g. 32). More colors = closer to the source, bigger palette.
BG tolerance	How aggressively near-background pixels are made transparent. Raise this for JPGs whose "white" isn't pure white (kills speckles).

5. Drawing & the pixel editor

You can build or touch up any frame by hand.

Palette

Click a swatch to paint with it. Slot 0 = transparent (the "erase" color). To recolor a swatch, pick a color in the color box and press SET SLOT.

Tools

• Pen — click/drag to paint the selected color.
• Erase — paint transparency (slot 0).
• Fill — flood-fill a contiguous region.
• Pick — eyedropper; sets the selected color to the pixel you click.
• Clear — blank the whole frame. Copy Prev — copy the previous frame's pixels into this one (great for animating in small steps).

Onion skin

The slider ghosts the previous frame underneath the current one so you can line up motion. Set it to 0 to turn it off.

Per-frame width

Each frame has its own width (px) field. If a wide pose (an extended punch, a projectile) is being clipped, increase that frame's width. The height stays uniform across the character.

Flip H / Flip V

Mirror the current frame horizontally or vertically — handy for reusing a pose facing the other way, or flipping a knockdown.

The axis

The gold crosshair is the axis (the fighter's feet center / origin). Keep the feet near the bottom of the canvas and centered on the vertical axis line so the fighter stands correctly and lines up with the floor and the opponent.

6. Animations & frames

• Animation tabs list each animation by name and number. + ANIM adds a new one. Use the Action # and Name fields to renumber/rename the selected animation.
• Frame strip: + FRAME (insert a blank frame after the current), DUPLICATE, DELETE, and SET LOOPSTART (the frame the animation loops back to when it repeats).
• time — how many engine ticks (≈ 1/60 s each) the frame is shown. -1 means hold forever (good for the last frame of a non-looping pose).
• x off / y off — nudge the sprite relative to the axis without redrawing it.

7. Hit & hurt boxes (Clsn)

Collision boxes decide what connects. Under the editor, toggle draw Clsn2 (hurt) or draw Clsn1 (attack), then drag on the canvas to add a box; click an existing box to delete it.

Box	Color	Meaning
Clsn2	Blue	Hurtbox / body — where this fighter can be hit. Put one on (almost) every frame, covering the body.
Clsn1	Red	Attack box — where this fighter hits the opponent. Put one only on the active frames of an attack (the frames where the fist/foot/projectile is out).

The rule: an attack lands only when the attacker's current frame has a red Clsn1 that overlaps a frame of the opponent that has a blue Clsn2. If your attacks pass through the enemy, you're missing a red box on the active frame (or the enemy is missing body boxes).

• Use multiple blue boxes to follow a crouch or a leaning pose.
• Keep the red box on the limb that's striking, and only during the strike — not on startup or recovery frames, or the move will hit too early/late.
• For a multi-hit attack, put red boxes on more than one active frame.

8. Moves & commands

In 🥊 Moves, each card maps an input to an attack. + MOVE adds another.

Field	What it means
Command	A name for the move (e.g. punch, fireball). Just a label.
Input	The button or motion that triggers it (section 9).
Anim/state #	The action number the move plays. This is the one field that ties the move to its animation/attack (e.g. 200).
Type	normal, projectile, or throw (below).
Damage	Life removed on a clean hit.
Knockback	How far the opponent is pushed/launched.
Hit-stun	How long the opponent is stunned after being hit (in ticks).
Sound	Optional voice/SFX played when the move fires (section 10).

Move types

• normal — a melee attack. Lands via its Clsn1 box (section 7).
• projectile — spawns a travelling projectile from the move's animation; it flies forward and hits on contact. Good for fireballs.
• throw — on contact it grabs the opponent and forces them into a thrown/knockdown reaction instead of a normal hit.

9. Input notation & controls

Directions are relative to facing

Inputs are written the way fighting games do, relative to the way your fighter faces:

Token	Means
F / B	Forward (toward opponent) / Back (away)
U / D	Up / Down
DF DB UF UB	The four diagonals
a b c x y z	The six attack buttons
~	Release (e.g. ~D = release Down — used in charge moves)
/	Hold
commas	Separate steps of a motion, in order

Examples:

• x — just press the x button (a light attack).
• ~D, DF, F, x — quarter-circle-forward + x (a classic fireball motion).
• ~B, F, x — a "charge back, forward + x" special.
• F, F — double-tap forward (a dash).

Keyboard & gamepad mapping

So you know which real keys press which buttons:

	Move	Jump	a b c x y z	Start/Pause
Player 1	WASD	W	FGHVBN	R
Player 2	Arrow keys	↑	Numpad 456123	Numpad Enter
Gamepad	D-pad / left stick	—	Face + shoulder buttons (standard layout)	Start

So a move with Input x is pressed with the V key (Player 1). A move on y is the B key, and so on. A key only does something if a move uses that button — unmapped buttons do nothing by design.

10. Sounds

In 🔊 Sounds, import WAV files. Each is stored at a (group, sample) address and packed into the character's .snd. Attach a sound to a move via the move's Sound dropdown (a hit voice / swing SFX), or set the intro voice that plays during the round-intro pose. Keep clips short; they play once when the move fires.

11. Character settings

• Name — shown in fights and in the community library.
• Recovery ticks (when hit) — how long the fighter is stunned/controllable-again after taking a hit. Lower = recovers faster.

12. Testing your fighter

Scroll to ⚔ Test Your Fighter at the bottom of the maker:

1. Press → Add to test roster (center column) to send your current fighter down to the roster.
2. Add an opponent from the built-in or community library (the + Fighter / + Add buttons), and optionally pick a Stage.
3. Click two fighters in the roster to set P1 and P2.
4. Set P1 to a controller (Keyboard / Gamepad) and leave P2 on AI (or pick AI difficulty).
5. Press ▶ FIGHT!
6. Mid-fight, press P / Esc / Start to pause — your fighter's move list is shown on screen with the exact keys to press.

13. Save, publish, export

In the ☁ Your account panel:

• 💾 Save to account — stores the entire project (sprites, sounds, moves, everything) in the cloud. Reload it any time from the project dropdown (Load / Delete). This is the safest backup — it preserves sounds.
• ⬆ Publish to community — shares the finished fighter so anyone can pick it in the libraries. This is the single Publish button.
• ⬇ Save project (.json) / Load project — a local backup file on your computer.
• ⬇ Download files — exports a real MUGEN character folder:

  File	Contents
  .sff	Sprites
  .air	Animations
  .cns	State machine (states, hit data, constants)
  .cmd	Commands + the launchers that trigger moves
  .snd	Sounds

• ⚔ Validate — a quick round-trip + headless test fight to catch obvious problems before publishing.

14. Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause & fix
Fighter is invisible / T-poses / won't move	No action 0 (idle). Import or draw one and number it 0.
Part of a pose is cut off	That frame's width (px) is too small. Increase it, or re-import the frame with a wider box (↻ Replace selected).
A pose looks squished/stretched	The import cell's aspect didn't match. Re-grab it with ＋ Add 1 frame using a box that matches the sprite's shape.
Attacks pass through the opponent	Missing a red Clsn1 box on the attack's active frame, or the opponent has no blue Clsn2 body box.
The attack hits too early or too late	The red box is on a startup/recovery frame. Put it only on the strike frame(s).
A button does nothing	No move uses that button. Map a move's Input to it (remember x = the V key for P1).
White speckles around imported sprites	Raise BG tolerance in the importer (especially for JPGs). PNGs with real transparency are cleanest.
Sounds didn't carry after publishing	Community publish ships the fighter's logic + sprites; use Save to account to preserve a project with its imported sounds.

15. Glossary

Action	An animation, identified by a number. Also doubles as the state number for moves.
Axis / origin	The reference point of a sprite — the fighter's feet center.
Clsn1 / Clsn2	Collision boxes: attack (red) / hurt-body (blue).
Tick	One engine step, ≈ 1/60 of a second. Frame times and stun are measured in ticks.
State	A mode the fighter is in (idle, walking, attacking). Moves are states you switch into.
ctrl	Whether the player has control. You can only start a move when you have control — that's why you can't cancel mid-attack.
Hitstun	The time the victim can't act after being hit.
SFF / AIR / CNS / CMD / SND	The five MUGEN files: sprites / animations / states / commands / sounds.

16. Full walkthrough — blank to published

1. Name it. Set the Name in the Character panel.
2. Get an idle. Open the sprite-sheet importer, drag a box around a standing pose, set Action # = 0, and ＋ Add 1 frame for 2–4 standing frames. Close the importer — you should see your fighter in the Live Preview.
3. Add a walk. Re-open the importer, set Action # = 20, and add 4–6 walking frames.
4. Add an attack. Set Action # = 200 and add the punch frames (startup → strike → recovery). Set the strike frame's time a touch longer so it reads.
5. Box it. On every frame give the body a blue Clsn2. On the punch's strike frame, add a red Clsn1 over the fist.
6. Wire the move. In Moves, confirm the default punch / x / 200 (or edit it); set Damage/Knockback/Hit-stun to taste.
7. Test. → Add to test roster, add an opponent, set P1 to Keyboard, FIGHT, and press V to punch. Pause with P to review the moves.
8. Polish. Fix clipped frames (per-frame width), tune box timing, add a hurt (5000), intro (190), and win (180).
9. Save + publish. 💾 Save to account, then ⬆ Publish to community.

That's everything. Build something ridiculous — and remember, the house keeps the bugs.