Spin-wave modes are studied under the gradual transition from a flat thin film to a full (one-dimensional) magnonic crystal. For this purpose, the surface of a pre-patterned 36.8 nm thin permalloy film was sequentially ion milled resulting in magnonic hybrid structures, referred to as surface-modulated magnonic crystals, with increasing modulation depth. After each etching step, ferromagnetic resonance measurements were performed yielding the spin-wave resonance modes in backward-volume and Damon-Eshbach geometry. The spin-wave spectra of these hybrid systems reveal an even larger variety of spin-wave states compared to the full magnonic crystal. The measurements are corroborated by quasi-analytical theory and micromagnetic simulations in order to study the changing spin-wave mode character employing spin-wave mode profiles. In backward-volume geometry, a gradual transition from the uniform mode in the film limit to a fundamental mode in the thin part of the magnonic crystal was observed. Equivalently, the first and the second film modes are transform into a center and an edge mode of the thick part of the magnonic crystal. Simple transition rules from the $n^{mathrm{th}}$ film mode to the $m^{mathrm{th}}$ mode in the full magnonic crystal are formulated unraveling the complex mode structure particularly in the backward-volume geometry. An analogous analysis was performed in the Damon-Eshbach geometry.
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