Section 1: Introduction
-----------------------

Due to the recent increase in characters getting ripped off poorly, it has come to my attention that people are getting lazy. I am sick and tired of trying out obviously ripped off characters with moves that don't do anything and just flood the debug with error messages. I mean come on, if you're gonna rip someone else off, you might as well do it right. Therefore, as a responsible Mugen user, it is my duty to show you lazy bastards how to do it right. Thus, without further ado, I present to you the right way to make a ripped off character.

Section 2: Materials
--------------------

Ok, so you wanted to make a character but don't have the time, patience, money, power, strength, endurance, intelligence, or MP. Well, here's the quick and dirty way to making that awesome DarkSuperSSJ123GokuZeonNeoRagnaShadowGoukiTurbo with Orochi l33tness. A good cook must have quality materials just as a crack dealer needs his stuff. Anyways, here's what to get:

Notepad or text editter of choice.

SFF Editors of Choice:

SFF Editors not to Use:

Alright, the following section is for those that want to spend a little effort but want to make that personal/original character. If you just want to do a direct rip off, skip to the next section.

Ah, the original/personal character. Ok, so you found out after drawing/whatever 0+ sprites by hand is just too hard and would take forever to make into a character and was wondering if there was a faster way to make him right? Here're a few tricks where you can just "borrow" someone else's sprite file and make it into your own. Remember, if they start arguing all that crap about how the sprites are theirs, you can just say that since you're ripping off of Capcom/SNK/whatever company it was originally from, he/she has no right to tell you not to rip off of him/her. Just grab their sprite file, open it up with MCM, save their sprite as pcx and open up your image editting program of choice (PS, PSP, etc). With a little ingenuity and image editting skills, you can quickily make that character of your dreams. Below is what I made in less than 30 seconds time. Can you guess where they're stolen from?

Yes, switching heads is definitely the way to go nowadays. However, if you go old school, you can always use the pallette switching technique. Remember, all you need is to switch a color and it becomes YOUR OWN WORK~! I still suggest the head switching method since that ways, nobody can tell whether the character was whose originally *wink wink nudge nudge*.

Section 3: Coding
-----------------

Mugen coding is easy, especially if you don't need to learn it all. Just grab a random character, switch a few numbers, rename a few states, and bam, you've got everything you need. Remember, this is the Internet, death threats and anal rapings are empty (unless you're stupid enough to supply them with you real name, picture, and address). Even then, the chances of the other creator coming up to you and popping you in the head is extremely slim since not that many people have the money to drive/fly/swim/whatever to your place. If you're still worried, just steal your stuff from a creator who lives in another country (if you can't stand death threats, etc, don't steal from Japanese creators).
Note: It usually helps if you use the same coding that came with sprite file that you took so you don't have to change as many things.

Ok, the def and the air files can be passed off easily so I won't go into detail on those. For the air file, just change a few numbers in the clsn boxes and blame it on the fact that you can't load airedit so you did it by approximation.

Clsn2default: 2
Clsn2[0] = -20,-88, 19, -1
Clsn2[1] = -8,-100, 15,-77

into

Clsn2default: 2
Clsn2[0] = -21,-82, 29, 0
Clsn2[1] = -10,-98, 17,-73

I can't stress the importance of making these numbers at least within +/-5 of their previous values. Don't be an idiot and have clsn boxes with values over 100 (if you go to the 1000s, you know it's time to recheck) becauses chances are, your character isn't as bloated to fit those values. If you want to be smarter than the average bear, add a couple more clsns within those ranges. Do not randomly put in numbers unless you want your character to be able to get hurt by attacks that normally do not hurt it (if you really can't resist, blame it on MuGenerator). If anyone complains, give them death threats and tell them to expect you at their front door after the next time you're let out on parole. Be creative in describing yourself and instilling fear upon the complainers. Either that or write a 50 page essay describing the digestive system of a water buffalo and insert a few coherent, somewhat related points in there at random intervals.

The cmd file is very simple to edit as well. Just skip below [Statedef -1] and grab a few states. For instance, I've stolen Elecbyte's KFM:

;Fast Kung Fu Knee (1/3 super bar)
;‘¬‚¢ƒJƒ“ƒt�[�R‚è�iƒQ�[ƒWƒŒƒxƒ‹‚P�^‚R�j
[State -1, Fast Kung Fu Knee]
type = ChangeState
value = 1070
triggerall = command = "FF_ab"
triggerall = power >= 330
trigger1 = statetype != A
trigger1 = ctrl
trigger2 = (stateno = [200,299]) || (stateno = [400,499])
trigger2 = stateno != 440 ;Except for sweep kick
trigger2 = movecontact

To make it look different, split up the || statements and combine the triggeralls (in some instances this will make the character not work like it was supposed to but hey, this is YOUR character). For example:

triggerall = command = "FF_ab"
triggerall = power >= 330

into

triggerall = (command = "FF_ab") && (power >= 330)

and

trigger2 = (stateno = [200,299]) || (stateno = [400,499])
trigger2 = stateno != 440 ;Except for sweep kick
trigger2 = movecontact

into

trigger2 = stateno = [200,299]

trigger2 = stateno = [400,499]
trigger2 = stateno != 440 ;Except for sweep kick
trigger2 = movecontact = 1

If you want to be extra tricky, change the command names, delete a few comments, rename the move, and no one will ever suspect a thing.

Now a word of advice from nodeX:

Lastly, we've got the cns/st files.