Note: in this FAQ, the term ponies also refers to zebras, dragons, cats, and other various animals. We do not discriminate here at PonyAR.

What does this thing even do?

It applies the colour scheme of one pony to another pony. With the list on the left, you pick which pony you want to recolour. With the list on the right, you pick which pony's colour scheme you want to use. Voilà! You'll get a brand new pony with some weird colours.

So it takes the colours from one pony, and then dyes another pony with it?

Basically.

This looks a lot like Pokémon Fusion. Except with ponies.

Pony Fusion is heavily inspired by Pokémon Fusion. The idea and part of the layout were used as a base to create this ponified version. All of the code is original, though: nothing was actually taken from Pokémon Fusion, apart from the idea.

Unlike Pokémon Fusion, the ponies don't swap their faces or their cutie mark or something else!

It would be a bit harder to do something like that. But who knows, maybe at some point!

Can I use the result of one of the fusions somewhere else?

You can share a link to this page anywhere you want, of course. As for the image itself, I don't hold any right to what the application creates. Just make sure to click the source link to check what the creator of the original vector allows you to do with it.

One of the vectors you used is mine, and I'd like you to remove it.

No issue! I made sure that I could use all the vectors I put here, and I take care to put a link back to the original, but if I made a mistake or if the conditions changed, don't hesitate to contact me using the Contact link at the bottom of the page. Once we've cleared everything, I'll remove your vector and use another one.

You're missing [some pony from the show who only appeared in season 4]!

For now, I decided to stop at season 3 and wait until the end of season 4 to see if I'll add any pony that appeared during it. Check back later!

Are you going to add [some pony from the show who appeared prior to season 4]?

I added all the ponies that I found to be relevant or interesting, which meant leaving out some of them. If I get some requests for a particular pony, though, I'll consider it. Just remember that it needs to be a pony that appeared prior to season 3.

Are you going to add [some OC] or [some non-canon pony]?

Sorry, but no. I want to stay focused on the ponies we actually see on the show. Including everyone's OC would be a never-ending task.

Some combinations look really weird.

Since a lot of the process is automatic, some combinations may end up just looking extremely silly. I like to think it's part of the charm. Also, keep in mind that we're so used to how some ponies look that seeing them with a wildly different colour scheme is just going to look weird. Using Rainbow Dash's scheme on anyone usually results in something quite...unusual.

One combination in particular looks really weird. I think there's something wrong, even.

If it looks that weird, then it may be from an error in how the program works, or how I created the image. Send me an email with the combination you used or a link to it, and what the issue seems to be, and I'll see what I can do.

You say the application is under the GPL, but I don't see any way to get the whole code anywhere.

You can get the full source code at https://github.com/Tailszefox/Pony-Fusion. It's a git repository, so you're free to do whatever you want that you usually do with git repositories!

Can I fork that repository and make my own version?

Feel free! That's what the GPL is for.

Do you accept pull requests?

I can if the change made is really important or corrects a critical flaw. Otherwise, I prefer not to: if you see a small thing that you would like changed, don't hesitate to contact me instead and I'll see if the change in question can be done.

Where's that little GPL icon from?

http://becomingaglider.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/a-change-of-copyright-plus-free-gpl-banner/. This icon is under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

So did you do each individual combination yourself?

Fortunately, no. With the number of ponies, that would amount to...well, quite a lot. The process of swapping the colours is automated. The only thing that is done manually is creating a palette for each pony. See the answer below for more details.

So how does the recolouring works?

Basically: I reduce all the vectors to a limited set of colours. aka a palette. Each pony has its own palette. I make sure that each palette contains the same number of colours, and that each colour at a particular place in the palette always represents the colour of the same thing. For example, colour 0 in the palette is always the coat's colour, colour 5 is the eyes' colours, etc. Each pony ends up with a total of 15 colours in their palette, though some ponies have slightly less colours. In this case, and to keep things consistent, the colours are just duplicated.
What the application does is load the image of the pony you want, then load the image of the pony whose colour scheme you want to use. It then extracts the palette from the second image, and swaps it with the palette of the first one. Since all the colours correspond to the same element, each one gets the appropriate colour even when swapped. Thus, the colours of the coat are swapped, as well as the colours of the cutie mark (or lack of), etc. The process itself is pretty simple in the end, but it requires a bit of tinkering with the original image to make sure it can be reduced to the appropriate number of colours, and to make sure the palette is ordered correctly.

What about the names of the fusions?

Those are also mostly automatic. Each pony's name is separated into two parts. The applications takes the first part of the name for the pony selected on the left, and appends to it the second part of the name of the pony selected on the right. Which often ends up with something completely silly. This is also why combinations taking Applejack and Apple Bloom as a base have the same name: the first part of their name is the same, "Apple". I wonder why. Probably something to do with how they like pears.

I have another question that's not covered in the FAQ.

I'll be happy to answer it directly: just use the Contact link at the bottom and we'll see how it goes.

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