Shiny Variants

Shiny Variants

Give any species several alternative shinies, each with its own sprites and appearance conditions. Open a species in the Pokédex and click ✨ Shiny variants.

How a variant works

When a wild Pokémon appears, variants are rolled in the order of the list — the first one that hits wins. If none hit, the normal shiny roll applies as usual. A variant makes the Pokémon shiny and uses its own sprites (any missing sprite falls back to the normal shiny).

Each variant can combine:

• Rarity — its own "1 in N" chance (normal shiny is 1 in 8192 in the base engine).
• Weather on the map, time of day, season (any of the checked ones).
• Specific maps, a game switch, and a level range.
• Only form # — restrict to one form of the species.
• Manual only — never rolls at random; you give it from an event: pbSetShinyVariant(pkmn, "variantid"). Perfect for gifts and bosses.

The variant is stored on the Pokémon itself: it survives evolution, trades and saving.

Creating the sprites: the palette editor 🎨

You don't need to draw anything:

1. Save the variant, then click 🎨 Edit palette.
2. The editor extracts the palette of the original sprite (shiny or normal, your choice) and lets you remap each color, plus a global hue/saturation/lightness shift, with a live preview.
3. On save it generates the front, back, icon and walking sprites with the same recolor.

Prefer your own art? Use the 📁 buttons to upload PNGs (same size as the species' shiny sprites).

Where the data lives

• PBS/shiny_variants.txt (editable text, compiled automatically for the game).
• Sprites next to the species' shiny ones, with the _variantid suffix (e.g. FrontShiny/001_albino.png).