New Here, Bare With Me - Learning RGSS

[Legion Kreinak]

Hello everyone. I'm new to these forums. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but where do I go to learn about RGSS? I remember a tutorial on a forum awhile back, but I dropped out of the RPG Making world. I'm back now, and would love to stick to it.

I downloaded RMXP. This site also seems to have a lot of resources. I've played RPGs all my life, and have so many ideas lurking in my mind. I know I could come up with an incredible game, provided I got all the information I needed. I figured I'd start A.S.A.P., so I'm here to ask for help:

Can anyone point me to RGSS tutorials and guides to get started?

Can anyone tell me how long (roughly) it takes to "master" (or get really good with) Ruby?

Is it wise to rely on Ruby so much? Does it really allow you to do that much more with your game?

Anything else anyone wants to tell me? If I posted this in the wrong place, or missed a thread with this info already, I apologize. If not, then I await responses. Thank you all!

 

[Anonymous]

Knowing Ruby allows you to fully customize your game. While you can make an excellent game by only using the default systems or systems premade out there, you can only really make something with unique gameplay if you script it yourself. Or get someone to script it especially for you which is unlikely.

I don't consider myself a master, but it took me about a year to get good enough with RGSS to make a decent CBS, ie, something that wasn't just a simple DBS edit. For a CMS, maybe a month or so. But I had some previous programming experience.

Try the scripting academy, it should be starting soon.

 

[Legion Kreinak]

What's the scripting academy?

I have no scripting experience. It's all foreign to me. It's hard to grasp how you could lay out a battle system, entirely customized, from scratch. How long does it take to CREATE one, once you know how? You know, do you type code up for months before it's ready? Or a week of some hard work?

Thanks for the speedy reply. It's nice to get help quickly, so I can get started.

 

[Anonymous]

Scripting Academy - should start any day now.

How fast it goes really depends on

1) How fast you code and how much time you can devote to it each day, since long breaks help you forget what you're doing

2) How good you are, newcomers code slower than veterans

3) Whether you've done similar tasks before, making a CBS is faster if you've made other CBSs before

4) How much you plan ahead, design documents are your friends

5) How difficult the task is, an real-time active battle system with sideview sprites will take less time than a full-movement active battle system, which will take less time than a tactical battle system

6) How much the logic error deamon gets into you. Damn logic error deamon.

A CBS from complete scratch will probably take about a month to a year, depending on how complex it is and how good the scripter is.

 

[Legion Kreinak]

A month to a year? Haha, damn. Well, I guess I got a good deal of work ahead of me, depending on what I want to do. And I need to learn Ruby to begin with!

The Scripting Academy sounds very cool! I'm enrolling in that. Hopefully they won't mind some stuff being late, as I have real school, plus work, plus training, plus a social life to hold on to. Oh, and trying to get enough sleep AS IS.

Thanks for the help so far. Any other pointers? Perhaps good places to go for resources? Can I make everything on my own? Graphics and the like? I already make my own music, stories come easy for me, so graphics and scripting customized stuff is where I'm weak. Advice for that?

 

[Anonymous]

Well, always remember that you can go with a heavy DBS edit, too. Almost all the CBSs around here are just DBS edits. It's easier when you use the default system as a base.

For spriting, I haven't progressed much beyond heavy edits, myself. But I learned a lot about it by editing sprites and tilesets starting with just recolors and headswaps. If you're just looking for premade stuff try here and the sites in the RTPers thread in Resource Analysis. Beware of sites pulled up on Google, many don't properly credit the original artist.

 

[Legion Kreinak]

Well, always remember that you can go with a heavy DBS edit, too. Almost all the CBSs around here are just DBS edits. It's easier when you use the default system as a base.

For spriting, I haven't progressed much beyond heavy edits, myself. But I learned a lot about it by editing sprites and tilesets starting with just recolors and headswaps. If you're just looking for premade stuff try here and the sites in the RTPers thread in Resource Analysis. Beware of sites pulled up on Google, many don't properly credit the original artist.

So what programs could I (or should I) use to edit sprites and graphics? Tile sets and all that good stuff?

 

[Chaosg1]

Graphic Gales, Photoshop these are the ones that I use.

Also I took about 2 weeks to realy know what I was doing wih RGSS, an a month to start writing scrips from scracth, so just stay with edits, read other people scripts, will help you seing commands you don't know etc. That's What I did. Good Luck!

@Raju-"Or get someone to script it especially for you which is unlikely."

Not realy, I think people would help you if you offer something in return, and if you are lucky they will do it for free.

 

[Anonymous]

The chances of someone scripting a completely custom CBS for you are pretty much nil unless you're paying. You can find people to make little scripts, like CMSs or little add-ons, but not anything really big.

I personally use The Gimp for spriting, it's free. Photoshop and The Gimp are a little like swatting a fly with a bazooka, though. Graphicgale or Paint.NET has everything you need. I don't care for Paint since it doesn't have layers but some people swear by it, the masochists.

 

[Legion Kreinak]

Graphic Gales, Photoshop these are the ones that I use.

Also I took about 2 weeks to realy know what I was doing wih RGSS, an a month to start writing scrips from scracth, so just stay with edits, read other people scripts, will help you seing commands you don't know etc. That's What I did. Good Luck!

@Raju-"Or get someone to script it especially for you which is unlikely."

Not realy, I think people would help you if you offer something in return, and if you are lucky they will do it for free.

Is Graphic Gale free? Photoshop? What about paintshop pro?

Raiju, what's paint.net?

I guess I need to learn this stuff before I start on a game.

 

[niSs]

You are not alone

 

[Lettuce]

To answer the original question, you can find a few useful tutorials here:
http://www.rmxpu.net/staff/sephirothspawn/One-Winged Angel Inc/index.php
(click on Links)

:yes: :thumb: