IAmThaDoot
Member
Kay here's my first tutorial, I made this originally a long time ago for some friends who were starting out with VX, and it covers what a beginner SHOULD KNOW, and some extras such as eventing tips and how to use scripts. Like it, hate it, rate it, spit on it, I don't care. But what I DO care about is how I could improve this tutorial, make it more detailed and relevant. Remember this is for a newbie's mindset, and I wanna keep it simple. If I get enough ideas for more in-depth features to add, I might throw together an intermediate tutorial. But for now, help me improve on this one.
After opening RPG Maker VX, you want to go to File > New Project. Then you will get a prompt like this:
It's pretty self explanatory, choose your Game Title well!
Then you should get a new blank project, which looks like this:
Looking at that, get to know your interface... the options will be covered in much more depth later, but right now we want to get a basic idea. Basically, you have two toolbars... these both contain the same things for the most part, the toolbar with all the icons on it, below the top one, is just quicker. I mostly use the icon toolbar instead of the menu toolbar, so I'll cover that. The icons are pretty self explanatory, and if you want to know what they do, hover your mouse over them to get the name of the icon. I will cover them all in much detail throughout this tutorial, so you don't need to worry about the absolute specifics right now.
You have three frames inside your window below the toolbars. These are all dealing with maps and the things on the maps. The top left frame is your tilesets. Initially, you get FIVE tilesets only. But don't get freaked out! There is a script that allows for more than five tilesets (as many as you want), and it is really simple to use (look up Multiple Tilesets on the forums). Moving on, the lower left frame is your map folder, which contains all your maps, and I will also cover that in the maps section. To the right is your workspace where you build and place objects and events on the maps. Once again, covered later on.
Now that you are familiar with your work area we can learn how to use it.
It's pretty self explanatory, choose your Game Title well!
Then you should get a new blank project, which looks like this:
Looking at that, get to know your interface... the options will be covered in much more depth later, but right now we want to get a basic idea. Basically, you have two toolbars... these both contain the same things for the most part, the toolbar with all the icons on it, below the top one, is just quicker. I mostly use the icon toolbar instead of the menu toolbar, so I'll cover that. The icons are pretty self explanatory, and if you want to know what they do, hover your mouse over them to get the name of the icon. I will cover them all in much detail throughout this tutorial, so you don't need to worry about the absolute specifics right now.
You have three frames inside your window below the toolbars. These are all dealing with maps and the things on the maps. The top left frame is your tilesets. Initially, you get FIVE tilesets only. But don't get freaked out! There is a script that allows for more than five tilesets (as many as you want), and it is really simple to use (look up Multiple Tilesets on the forums). Moving on, the lower left frame is your map folder, which contains all your maps, and I will also cover that in the maps section. To the right is your workspace where you build and place objects and events on the maps. Once again, covered later on.
Now that you are familiar with your work area we can learn how to use it.
Navigate to the Resource Manager. This is what you should see:
There is no need to place your resources directly into your project's actual folder, instead you can do this via the Import option of the Resource manager. Of course, if you'd prefer to place your resources in your project folder instead, this also works. When you import a new resource, it will show up with a red icon. The resources with the blue icon are the game default resources. I'd suggest that before you replace any default resource, use the Export option to make a backup of the default resource somewhere. Also, note that if you import a resource that does not already contain transparant areas, you will have the option to choose a color on the graphic to become transparant, by left and right clicking the desired color.
You initially have 11 folders within Resource Manager. Some scripts that you may install for graphical enhancements may require you make another folder inside your project folder. These folders will not show up in Resource Manager. Now I will describe what each folder is for:
Graphic/Animations - This is where all your animations are stored. Animations are used for attacks and also can be shown on the map.
Graphics/Battlers - This folder is for enemy graphics; basically these images are how your enemy appears on the battlefield.
Graphics/Characters - All your character sprites that go on the map are stored here.
Graphics/Faces - Character portraits (the face images that appear in a dialogue box along with the text, as well as on menus) are stored here.
Graphics/Parallaxes - On your map you may want to use a parallax, which you can set on your map properties. Parallaxes show up in any transparent area on the map and can scroll along the transparent areas if desired.
Graphics/Pictures - Any images that you want to use in the game that don't belong to a specific resource go in here. Later on I will explain how you can display any image anytime you want somewhere on the screen.
Graphics/System - These graphics are important ones to the system, including your windowskin (the interface for menus within your RPG), title and gamover screens, tilesets (if you have the tileset extender script installed, you will need another folder for your tilesets, and I will explain this later), balloons (animated balloons that appear above a character's head), battlestart (this is the short animation that appears when an enemy is encountered), and iconset (icons that display on a menu beside of attacks and items). Some scripts may require you to put additional images in your System folder.
Audio/BGM - This is background music that plays on your maps and during battles.
Audio/BGS - Background sound enhancements that relate to the environment of the map (includes sounds like a ticking clock, rain, wind, etc or whatever else you want to add).
Audio/ME - Other various sounds and effects uses throughout the game. Includes audio such as game over music.
Audio/SE - Sound effects used primarily for animations.
Now I will discuss resource specifications. For audio, it is really up to you what the length of your audio will be. Just choose wisely, for example, you don't want battle start audio that continues way on into the battle and disrupts your battle music, just as you don't want battle end audio that you will still hear while walking around on the map after your battle. For audio formats, you can use the following filetypes:
I personally use OGG for everything, because it loops well and is excellent for saving space (trust me; I once distributed a game that was packed full of WAV sounds, and everyone complained about the game's filesize!). If you need a way to easily convert your audio, use Audacity. It's freeware. If you have Audacity and are wondering how to convert, you simply open your audio file (side note: I'm talking about Audacity, not VX), and go to File > Export As (format).
As far as graphics go, the specifications are very... well, specific. If you're a few pixels off, your graphics will not look right or work right. Some graphic specifications are more lenient than others, but I will cover all of them now. All of this can be found in VX's Help file but I will break it down for you:
Animations - To make your own animations, you need a minimum of five 192x192 images (if you desire less, leave the rest blank). These images are to be lined up horizontally. Each 192x192 block is one animation frame. You can have up to 20 of these blocks. In order to add more than five blocks, you must stack the first set of five blocks onto a second set of five blocks (vertically). Remember that the minimum AND maximum total width of an animation is 960 pixels. Also, the order of the blocks does not matter, because you can rearrange the blocks in VX's animation editor.
Battlers - There is no limit to the size of the battlers, but the largest that could still fit on the screen would be about 544x300.
Characters - If you desire bigger characters than the VX default, it IS possible, however, you will have to do your own calculations. The VX default character sheet size is 384x256. This sheet can contain up to eight spritesets. Each spriteset is all of a single character's positions (from top to bottom: front, left, right, back), and you may include sprite positions other than the basic walking positions, if you like, but you will need an event to change to that position (explained later). Each spriteset has 3 of each position, the right and left ones being walking positions, and the center ones being standing still positions. Here is an example of a spritesheet. Feel free to use it to base your own characters off of:
Faces - Each face is 96x96 in size, strictly, and cannot be larger or smaller. Line up two vertical rows of four faces horizontally, for a total of eight faces. If you want to use less than eight faces, leave the unused 96x96 blocks blank. Here is what a face set should look like:
Parallaxes - There is no limit to the size of parallaxes. If you want to set the parallaxes to loop, remember to make the edges match.
Pictures - You can make these any size you want.
System Graphics - Often you will want to find premade System Graphics online, and these are preferable because they're already put together for you and easy to modify. However if you want to make them yourself, refer to the Help section of the RPG Maker VX program. I will, however, cover a couple that are simpler to make. The Icon Set is made up of sixteen 24x24 horizontal icons, and I don't think there is a vertical limit; the Game Over and Title screens each are 544x416 images of whatever you want them to be.
Tilesets - There are two types of tiles: autotiles and regular tiles. I've personally never made autotiles before, so I'd rather direct you to VX's Help file to learn how to make them (check the Resource Manager section). As far as regular tiles go, each regular tile is 32x32 in size. An entire tileset of these tiles is 512x512. There are five tilesets in VX that you may use at any one time. The "A" Tiles (A1-A5) are the autotiles. The "B" through "E" files are the regular tiles. The regular tilesets can be anything that you want. Only "B" is slightly different, because you always have to leave the top left 32x32 corner empty. If you place anything there anyway, you can't use it. The rest of this tileset and the others are yours to do whatever you want.
There is no need to place your resources directly into your project's actual folder, instead you can do this via the Import option of the Resource manager. Of course, if you'd prefer to place your resources in your project folder instead, this also works. When you import a new resource, it will show up with a red icon. The resources with the blue icon are the game default resources. I'd suggest that before you replace any default resource, use the Export option to make a backup of the default resource somewhere. Also, note that if you import a resource that does not already contain transparant areas, you will have the option to choose a color on the graphic to become transparant, by left and right clicking the desired color.
You initially have 11 folders within Resource Manager. Some scripts that you may install for graphical enhancements may require you make another folder inside your project folder. These folders will not show up in Resource Manager. Now I will describe what each folder is for:
Graphic/Animations - This is where all your animations are stored. Animations are used for attacks and also can be shown on the map.
Graphics/Battlers - This folder is for enemy graphics; basically these images are how your enemy appears on the battlefield.
Graphics/Characters - All your character sprites that go on the map are stored here.
Graphics/Faces - Character portraits (the face images that appear in a dialogue box along with the text, as well as on menus) are stored here.
Graphics/Parallaxes - On your map you may want to use a parallax, which you can set on your map properties. Parallaxes show up in any transparent area on the map and can scroll along the transparent areas if desired.
Graphics/Pictures - Any images that you want to use in the game that don't belong to a specific resource go in here. Later on I will explain how you can display any image anytime you want somewhere on the screen.
Graphics/System - These graphics are important ones to the system, including your windowskin (the interface for menus within your RPG), title and gamover screens, tilesets (if you have the tileset extender script installed, you will need another folder for your tilesets, and I will explain this later), balloons (animated balloons that appear above a character's head), battlestart (this is the short animation that appears when an enemy is encountered), and iconset (icons that display on a menu beside of attacks and items). Some scripts may require you to put additional images in your System folder.
Audio/BGM - This is background music that plays on your maps and during battles.
Audio/BGS - Background sound enhancements that relate to the environment of the map (includes sounds like a ticking clock, rain, wind, etc or whatever else you want to add).
Audio/ME - Other various sounds and effects uses throughout the game. Includes audio such as game over music.
Audio/SE - Sound effects used primarily for animations.
Now I will discuss resource specifications. For audio, it is really up to you what the length of your audio will be. Just choose wisely, for example, you don't want battle start audio that continues way on into the battle and disrupts your battle music, just as you don't want battle end audio that you will still hear while walking around on the map after your battle. For audio formats, you can use the following filetypes:
- MID
- OGG
- WMA
- MP3
- WAV
I personally use OGG for everything, because it loops well and is excellent for saving space (trust me; I once distributed a game that was packed full of WAV sounds, and everyone complained about the game's filesize!). If you need a way to easily convert your audio, use Audacity. It's freeware. If you have Audacity and are wondering how to convert, you simply open your audio file (side note: I'm talking about Audacity, not VX), and go to File > Export As (format).
As far as graphics go, the specifications are very... well, specific. If you're a few pixels off, your graphics will not look right or work right. Some graphic specifications are more lenient than others, but I will cover all of them now. All of this can be found in VX's Help file but I will break it down for you:
Animations - To make your own animations, you need a minimum of five 192x192 images (if you desire less, leave the rest blank). These images are to be lined up horizontally. Each 192x192 block is one animation frame. You can have up to 20 of these blocks. In order to add more than five blocks, you must stack the first set of five blocks onto a second set of five blocks (vertically). Remember that the minimum AND maximum total width of an animation is 960 pixels. Also, the order of the blocks does not matter, because you can rearrange the blocks in VX's animation editor.
Battlers - There is no limit to the size of the battlers, but the largest that could still fit on the screen would be about 544x300.
Characters - If you desire bigger characters than the VX default, it IS possible, however, you will have to do your own calculations. The VX default character sheet size is 384x256. This sheet can contain up to eight spritesets. Each spriteset is all of a single character's positions (from top to bottom: front, left, right, back), and you may include sprite positions other than the basic walking positions, if you like, but you will need an event to change to that position (explained later). Each spriteset has 3 of each position, the right and left ones being walking positions, and the center ones being standing still positions. Here is an example of a spritesheet. Feel free to use it to base your own characters off of:
Faces - Each face is 96x96 in size, strictly, and cannot be larger or smaller. Line up two vertical rows of four faces horizontally, for a total of eight faces. If you want to use less than eight faces, leave the unused 96x96 blocks blank. Here is what a face set should look like:
Parallaxes - There is no limit to the size of parallaxes. If you want to set the parallaxes to loop, remember to make the edges match.
Pictures - You can make these any size you want.
System Graphics - Often you will want to find premade System Graphics online, and these are preferable because they're already put together for you and easy to modify. However if you want to make them yourself, refer to the Help section of the RPG Maker VX program. I will, however, cover a couple that are simpler to make. The Icon Set is made up of sixteen 24x24 horizontal icons, and I don't think there is a vertical limit; the Game Over and Title screens each are 544x416 images of whatever you want them to be.
Tilesets - There are two types of tiles: autotiles and regular tiles. I've personally never made autotiles before, so I'd rather direct you to VX's Help file to learn how to make them (check the Resource Manager section). As far as regular tiles go, each regular tile is 32x32 in size. An entire tileset of these tiles is 512x512. There are five tilesets in VX that you may use at any one time. The "A" Tiles (A1-A5) are the autotiles. The "B" through "E" files are the regular tiles. The regular tilesets can be anything that you want. Only "B" is slightly different, because you always have to leave the top left 32x32 corner empty. If you place anything there anyway, you can't use it. The rest of this tileset and the others are yours to do whatever you want.
There are two modes: Map mode and Event mode. Make sure Map mode is on. To create your map, right click in the map folder area (lower left frame) and click New Map. It will give you several options:
Note the MAP ID. This is often something that you'd need to add to a script that you might use. Remember how to find it. The MAP ID is NOT the name of your map, it is at the top of the window. In this picture, the ID is 1.
The name of your map may not only be used inside your project, but during gameplay as well, as there are scripts that display the map name. So if you plan to use one of these scripts, name your map carefully.
The width and the height are NOT pixel size; they are block size; ie., how tall and wide your map is in 32x32 blocks. I think the limit is 100x100.
Other options... if you choose a scroll type, your map will loop at the edges so that it appears as one big map. You can also set the BGM and BGS of the map here, both are optional.
One more thing is that you can set your parallax here and how it loops (the higher the number, the faster the loop).
A final important thing to set for the map is random encounters, assuming your game has that type of battle system. The Steps Average is how many steps you take approximately before a random encounter.
To edit your map, there are four tools for "drawing in" tiles. You select one of the tileset tabs on the left, and above the tabs you pick your tile. You can right click and drag in the tileset frame to pick multiple tiles, then left click in the workspace to place your tiles. This is assuming you're using the pencil tool. You can also use the fill tool to fill an empty area or specific group of tiles with another group of tiles. Finally, you can draw a rectangle witih the tiles, or you can draw an ellipse with the tiles.
You can also use one of the zoom options to zoom in or out on your map.
One other way to create maps is using the Random Dungeon Generator to make a map using autotiles. You can access this by right clicking your map on your map folder. To set passability of tiles, if whether you're using VX or TilesetEditor to edit your tiles, O is an area that you can walk on, X is an area that you can't walk on, and (star) is an area that you can pass behind.
Note the MAP ID. This is often something that you'd need to add to a script that you might use. Remember how to find it. The MAP ID is NOT the name of your map, it is at the top of the window. In this picture, the ID is 1.
The name of your map may not only be used inside your project, but during gameplay as well, as there are scripts that display the map name. So if you plan to use one of these scripts, name your map carefully.
The width and the height are NOT pixel size; they are block size; ie., how tall and wide your map is in 32x32 blocks. I think the limit is 100x100.
Other options... if you choose a scroll type, your map will loop at the edges so that it appears as one big map. You can also set the BGM and BGS of the map here, both are optional.
One more thing is that you can set your parallax here and how it loops (the higher the number, the faster the loop).
A final important thing to set for the map is random encounters, assuming your game has that type of battle system. The Steps Average is how many steps you take approximately before a random encounter.
To edit your map, there are four tools for "drawing in" tiles. You select one of the tileset tabs on the left, and above the tabs you pick your tile. You can right click and drag in the tileset frame to pick multiple tiles, then left click in the workspace to place your tiles. This is assuming you're using the pencil tool. You can also use the fill tool to fill an empty area or specific group of tiles with another group of tiles. Finally, you can draw a rectangle witih the tiles, or you can draw an ellipse with the tiles.
You can also use one of the zoom options to zoom in or out on your map.
One other way to create maps is using the Random Dungeon Generator to make a map using autotiles. You can access this by right clicking your map on your map folder. To set passability of tiles, if whether you're using VX or TilesetEditor to edit your tiles, O is an area that you can walk on, X is an area that you can't walk on, and (star) is an area that you can pass behind.
Events control just about everything that takes place on your map. In order to create an Event, go to Event mode, and choose the area you want to place the Event, then either right click it and click New Event, or double click the area. You will see this screen:
Don't worry about Conditions for now. You'll pretty much just be using Switches, Self Switches, and possibly Variables and I will explain that later. Right now I will discuss commonly used Events.
How to interact with the environment - Choose the spot on the map that you want your character to interact with. If you want your character to have to press a button to interact with the place you chose, make sure Action Button is selected under Trigger (at the bottom). If you want your character to interact when they walk across the area, choose Player Touch. After that just add one of the events, which I will explain later.
How to interact with an NPC - Generally the same, but this time, pick a character graphic by double clicking the box under the word Graphic. From there you can easily add an event. Note that the character stays fixed in place, with the exception of turning, unless you choose one of the Autonomous Movement options. You can also choose custom and pick a move route for the NPC. If you want the character to stay in place without turning or moving at all, make sure that Fixed is selected, and Direction Fix under Options is checked. If you want to be able to walk through the NPC, check Through under Options.
Showing text - Keep in mind what I said about interacting with the environment or an NPC, because now you can use it. In the big lined space under List of Event Commands, doubleclick. Now click, Show Text. Choose your options for the text box (its background and position). Type your text in the box, and if you want, add a Face to it by doubleclicking the box under Face Graphic. OK everything.
Showing choices - Under Event Commands (which I will now call EC for short), pick Show Choices. You can type up to four choices in. This can go along with Show Text to ask a question and require an answer. Under When (choice), enter an event there for what should happen when the choice is selected. For example, you might want to put a Show Text event for each choice, but there are many other events you can use.
Getting rid of an NPC or other non-tile object on the map - After your text or whatever interactions with the NPC, you could do Erase Event, but the NPC will come back when you exit and open the game again. So what you would probably want to do is use a Self Switch. Under EC, go to Control Self Switch, then don't mess with anything and click ok. You just picked the Self Switch A. Now, click New Event Page. On this New Event Page, don't go to EC and do the same click again, but this time, under Conditions on the left, check the Self Switch box, and make sure you have A selected. Don't choose a graphic or anything, leave everything blank. The result will be that the NPC will disappear after you have interacted with them. This same thing goes for opening treasure chests, or anything else that involves getting rid of an object on the map permanently.
How to "warp" an NPC from one map to another - First of all, keep in mind that it will appear to the player that the NPC has warped, but in reality, you have made one NPC disappear in one place and another appear in another place. Also, this uses Control Switches, NOT Self Switches. Self Switches only work within the same event, while Control Switches can span any number of events. Now you want to make absolutely positive that the switch you want to use is NOT already in use by a Common Event. If it is, at the point in the game where the Control Switch is to be activated, the game will freeze up.
Now, let's begin.
1. First of all, you want to insert a Control Switches event right after the last thing you want the NPC to do/say before they disappear and reappear on the other map; you want it to be Single, and ON. Press the "..." beside of the switch's number to be taken to a window where you can name your switch. It doesn't matter what you name it, the point is to prevent confusion in the future (but one final thing to keep in mind; take note of the comments/readmes on scripts because certain scripts will "reserve" certain Switches so that by using those particular Switches you will possibly interfere with the script).
2. Now, make a new, blank page, and check the FIRST Switch box to the left, and choose the switch you just named. Leave this page completely blank, its the one that causes the NPC to disappear.
3. Now, go to your second map. Make a new event there, with your NPC's graphic and events. Once again, check the first Switch box to the left, and choose your switch.
4. To make sure that this worked correctly, do a playtest and first of all warp to the second map to make sure the NPC is not there. Then warp to the first map to make sure the NPC IS there. Then interact with the NPC and make sure that they warp to the second map. All should go well if done correctly.
Have a party member speak but only if that member is in the party - Now you will learn how to use Conditional Branches. A Conditional Branch basically means that if something is going on right now, something else will happen, but if that particular instance isn't happening, something else will not happen. Go to Conditional Branch, and tab 2, click the actor radio button, chose your actor, and make sure 'In the party' is selected. Make sure you have your event trigger set up. You will see under the list of EC, Conditional branch (member) is in the party, and under that, @> At that symbol, you place your Show Text. Under Else at the second @> you can just leave that blank. Now the member will only speak if they are in the party.
More about Conditional Branches - The "member speak if in party" instance was just an example of what you can do with conditional branches. Another example would be "If (item) is in inventory" and then you could have someone trade the item with you, but only if you have that item. To do that, it would look something like this:
Conditional Branch: (item) is in Inventory
Change Items: (item) - 1
Change Items: (second item) +1
So basically to the player of the game, it would appear you are trading with the NPC, when in reality you're just instantaneously losing one item and gaining another.
One more trick with Conditional Branches is to change a character's clothes according to what armor they're wearing. First off, there is a slight drawback to this method; you have to place it as an event on every map that you want to use it on, which is why I suggest making a common event out of it first. There ARE scripts to cover this, but this is much more lightweight and simple if you just want a quick fix and don't mind creating new events per every map. To start with, make sure your Conditional Branch says Actor (actor's name) then under Armor, choose your Armor. Now, simply go to Change Actor Graphic, and choose a sprite that you made of the character wearing the armor; that's all you have to do.
There are many other things than this that you can do with Conditional Branches... my advice is to be creative and play around with them to get the feel of what they can do.
Transform a character into another character - Under EC, just go to Set Move Route, and click Change Graphic, and pick the new character. At the upper left there is a dropdown menu. Look to the upper left of the entire Event window, where it says ID: which is the number you need. Pick that number from the dropdown menu. OK everything. You can also use this to change your own character's graphic, by just choosing Player. However, the graphic will stay the same until you change it back with another event.
Display a picture on the screen - Go to Show Picture, and select the graphic you imported to Graphics/Pictures. Play with the coordinates. Remember if you choose the Center origin that it's not always necessarily centered. The picture will display until you use an Erase Picture event.
Set up shop - Just go to Shop Processing and set up your items.
Force a battle - Go to Battle Processing. You can only select an enemy that's under Troops in your database; if the enemy is just under Enemies, you can't choose them. You can select the escape option, or to not get a game over when defeated.
Finally, I just recommend that you play around with the EC some. All of the Events do just what they say, like Recover All fully recovers all of the party members, Show Balloon Icon displays a balloon above a character's head, and Change Battle BGM changes the BGM of a battle.
Don't worry about Conditions for now. You'll pretty much just be using Switches, Self Switches, and possibly Variables and I will explain that later. Right now I will discuss commonly used Events.
How to interact with the environment - Choose the spot on the map that you want your character to interact with. If you want your character to have to press a button to interact with the place you chose, make sure Action Button is selected under Trigger (at the bottom). If you want your character to interact when they walk across the area, choose Player Touch. After that just add one of the events, which I will explain later.
How to interact with an NPC - Generally the same, but this time, pick a character graphic by double clicking the box under the word Graphic. From there you can easily add an event. Note that the character stays fixed in place, with the exception of turning, unless you choose one of the Autonomous Movement options. You can also choose custom and pick a move route for the NPC. If you want the character to stay in place without turning or moving at all, make sure that Fixed is selected, and Direction Fix under Options is checked. If you want to be able to walk through the NPC, check Through under Options.
Showing text - Keep in mind what I said about interacting with the environment or an NPC, because now you can use it. In the big lined space under List of Event Commands, doubleclick. Now click, Show Text. Choose your options for the text box (its background and position). Type your text in the box, and if you want, add a Face to it by doubleclicking the box under Face Graphic. OK everything.
Showing choices - Under Event Commands (which I will now call EC for short), pick Show Choices. You can type up to four choices in. This can go along with Show Text to ask a question and require an answer. Under When (choice), enter an event there for what should happen when the choice is selected. For example, you might want to put a Show Text event for each choice, but there are many other events you can use.
Getting rid of an NPC or other non-tile object on the map - After your text or whatever interactions with the NPC, you could do Erase Event, but the NPC will come back when you exit and open the game again. So what you would probably want to do is use a Self Switch. Under EC, go to Control Self Switch, then don't mess with anything and click ok. You just picked the Self Switch A. Now, click New Event Page. On this New Event Page, don't go to EC and do the same click again, but this time, under Conditions on the left, check the Self Switch box, and make sure you have A selected. Don't choose a graphic or anything, leave everything blank. The result will be that the NPC will disappear after you have interacted with them. This same thing goes for opening treasure chests, or anything else that involves getting rid of an object on the map permanently.
How to "warp" an NPC from one map to another - First of all, keep in mind that it will appear to the player that the NPC has warped, but in reality, you have made one NPC disappear in one place and another appear in another place. Also, this uses Control Switches, NOT Self Switches. Self Switches only work within the same event, while Control Switches can span any number of events. Now you want to make absolutely positive that the switch you want to use is NOT already in use by a Common Event. If it is, at the point in the game where the Control Switch is to be activated, the game will freeze up.
Now, let's begin.
1. First of all, you want to insert a Control Switches event right after the last thing you want the NPC to do/say before they disappear and reappear on the other map; you want it to be Single, and ON. Press the "..." beside of the switch's number to be taken to a window where you can name your switch. It doesn't matter what you name it, the point is to prevent confusion in the future (but one final thing to keep in mind; take note of the comments/readmes on scripts because certain scripts will "reserve" certain Switches so that by using those particular Switches you will possibly interfere with the script).
2. Now, make a new, blank page, and check the FIRST Switch box to the left, and choose the switch you just named. Leave this page completely blank, its the one that causes the NPC to disappear.
3. Now, go to your second map. Make a new event there, with your NPC's graphic and events. Once again, check the first Switch box to the left, and choose your switch.
4. To make sure that this worked correctly, do a playtest and first of all warp to the second map to make sure the NPC is not there. Then warp to the first map to make sure the NPC IS there. Then interact with the NPC and make sure that they warp to the second map. All should go well if done correctly.
Have a party member speak but only if that member is in the party - Now you will learn how to use Conditional Branches. A Conditional Branch basically means that if something is going on right now, something else will happen, but if that particular instance isn't happening, something else will not happen. Go to Conditional Branch, and tab 2, click the actor radio button, chose your actor, and make sure 'In the party' is selected. Make sure you have your event trigger set up. You will see under the list of EC, Conditional branch (member) is in the party, and under that, @> At that symbol, you place your Show Text. Under Else at the second @> you can just leave that blank. Now the member will only speak if they are in the party.
More about Conditional Branches - The "member speak if in party" instance was just an example of what you can do with conditional branches. Another example would be "If (item) is in inventory" and then you could have someone trade the item with you, but only if you have that item. To do that, it would look something like this:
Conditional Branch: (item) is in Inventory
Change Items: (item) - 1
Change Items: (second item) +1
So basically to the player of the game, it would appear you are trading with the NPC, when in reality you're just instantaneously losing one item and gaining another.
One more trick with Conditional Branches is to change a character's clothes according to what armor they're wearing. First off, there is a slight drawback to this method; you have to place it as an event on every map that you want to use it on, which is why I suggest making a common event out of it first. There ARE scripts to cover this, but this is much more lightweight and simple if you just want a quick fix and don't mind creating new events per every map. To start with, make sure your Conditional Branch says Actor (actor's name) then under Armor, choose your Armor. Now, simply go to Change Actor Graphic, and choose a sprite that you made of the character wearing the armor; that's all you have to do.
There are many other things than this that you can do with Conditional Branches... my advice is to be creative and play around with them to get the feel of what they can do.
Transform a character into another character - Under EC, just go to Set Move Route, and click Change Graphic, and pick the new character. At the upper left there is a dropdown menu. Look to the upper left of the entire Event window, where it says ID: which is the number you need. Pick that number from the dropdown menu. OK everything. You can also use this to change your own character's graphic, by just choosing Player. However, the graphic will stay the same until you change it back with another event.
Display a picture on the screen - Go to Show Picture, and select the graphic you imported to Graphics/Pictures. Play with the coordinates. Remember if you choose the Center origin that it's not always necessarily centered. The picture will display until you use an Erase Picture event.
Set up shop - Just go to Shop Processing and set up your items.
Force a battle - Go to Battle Processing. You can only select an enemy that's under Troops in your database; if the enemy is just under Enemies, you can't choose them. You can select the escape option, or to not get a game over when defeated.
Finally, I just recommend that you play around with the EC some. All of the Events do just what they say, like Recover All fully recovers all of the party members, Show Balloon Icon displays a balloon above a character's head, and Change Battle BGM changes the BGM of a battle.
Your database stores lots of information about your game, and I will cover that now. At first the database can appear overwhelming, but rather than go tab by tab, I will start at the "easiest" tab, and progressively get into more advanced tips and tricks.
Terms - Covers different vocabulary as seen on menus and such. Just judge by what the Terms are, and think of ways you'd improve that particular Term. If you can't think of anything, just leave it alone.
System - As simple to edit as terms, the System tab covers the following items: Initial Party (the party that you start out with in the game of course), Starting Position (which doesn't really need to be worried about, because you can edit this on your map), Game Title (in case you aren't satisfied with what you named your game), Vehicle Graphics (self explanatory), Element Names (change maximum to 0 if you don't want any elements in your game; completely optional), and finally Music and Sound Effects (use BGM, ME, and SE depending on which audio option you're trying to edit).
States - States are conditions in battle that follow certain rules. You can make as many States as you want, no States, or use the default States of course. Here are examples of common States:
Commonly known as KO or Death - No matter what game you are making, it's highly likely you will require this state. Without this state, battles can't end except by escaping. It occurs when a character is out of HP. It should be one of the default states.
States using Slip Damage - If you have ever played an RPG before, you may know of Poison. This is an example of Slip Damage; it means that a character's HP will gradually go down by a very tiny amount during each turn. You can combine Slip Damage with other parameters in order to make the character not be able to move or evade attacks while receiving the damage for example, or any other available parameters.
Equipment
Items - Items are used typically for healing, attacking, growth, and quests. Like Weapons and Armor, you can set a name, description, graphic, animation, and price for the item. In order to create a healing item, choose an ally or user scope, and put the desired number under recovery effect, placing it depending if you want to heal HP or MP. If you wish to make a recovery or resurrection type item that removes the KO/Death state, follow the same step except this time choose an ally (Death/KO/etc) scope. The occasion is important as well; you might want your healing items to be used always. In order to create an attack item, you fill in your number under damage effect, and choose an enemy scope. Likewise with occasion, it would make the most sense to use an attack item only in battle. In order to make a growth item, simply set the growth effect of your choice. Also, keep in mind that in the case of most of these types of items, you will want to consume them, that is, use only once, so choose yes for consume. Finally, with quest items, they are usually paired with the event of your choice, and the preferable settings would be an occasion of never, and no consume, and to not mess with any sort of changes except the basic name, description, etc, as well as a price if you like.
Classes - Classes are simply there to tell what sort of equipment your characters are able to use, as well as the skills that your characters are able to learn. It also covers the more advanced efficiencies. For now, just know to name your Classes, or don't name them if you don't want to, also set your characters equippable Weapons and Armor, and what sort of skills they will be learning (which I don't think has a limit). Actors (aka characters) - This is where you set your characters' initial state as well as growth parameters. First, give your character a name, Class, graphics, and initial level. You can also choose your characters' starting equipment and additional options, but keep in mind as mentioned before that you cannot set both a Shield Armor and a Weapon to the same character initially, you have to choose one or the other. To set EXP curve, both numbers are each typically somewhere between 25 and 40, basis being the initial required experience to get to the next level, and inflation being the additional amount. If you don't really understand this, just pick numbers between 25 and 40. Setting parameter curves is not as difficult as it looks. They can pretty much come out to be random. First, doubleclick a parameter, then you have two options: play around with quick settings in order to generate an automatic curve until you find one that you like, or manually input level 1 (or whatever your character's initial level is) and then put the amount for that parameter that you think it should be initially.
Common Events - Basically the same thing as events, only, you can call a Common Event from a regular event, like a shortcut, in order to save time. This is often used when you're doing the same events over and over. However, there are a few other things you can do with common events, for example, once you learn more about Skills (which I'm covering next), I will go over how to use my method for creating a summon using a Common Event.
Skills - As with items and such, make your name, description, graphic, etc. Also like using items, you can set your scope and occassion. Everything is pretty much filled in as it says. Under Base Dmg, set a positive number for an attack, and a negative (-) number for a heal. Under Use Message put (space)uses Slash!, for example. If you don't put the space before the "uses" in battle, instead of looking like "Actor uses Slash!", it will look like "Actoruses Slash!".
Summon Skill - Now I will teach you how to make a summon. This is a method I discovered pretty much on my own and it is highly effective. You create the summon through a common event. Here are the steps:
1. Create a character, name it whatever you wish, give it parameters just like any ordinary character, graphics aren't really necessary but I suppose it depends on your game. I'd suggest to manually set a low HP (but not low enough so that the summon can get knocked out within the first turn or two) and a high MP. 2. Go over to Skills and set a Skill for your summon, 0 base damage, "Only In Battle" occassion (this is to prevent the summon from showing up in party after the battle). 3. Go over to Common Events, and do the following:
Animations - Refer back to the Resources section if you cannot remember the specifications for animations.
1. First, name your animation (a good practice is to name it the same as the attack it goes with, if you're using it as an attack animation).
2. Next, pick the graphic(s) that you want to use in your animation. You can have up to two graphics; remember that each animation graphic can have a maximum of 20 frames, so the most frames you could possibly have in an animation is 40; however, this is highly unnecessary and will probably lag your game when the attack is used.
3. Under position, in most cases you want to use "center". Under max, put a good estimate of however many frames you think your animation will take (this means after editing, not necessarily the same number of frames that you imported). You can adjust the max anytime. You can use the change target option to preview what your animation will look like when used with that particular enemy on the field. If you want to see the animation by itself, I'd suggest to make a blank battler and change the target to it.
4. In order to place a frame in the animation, click on the frame, then click on an empty area inside the animation. To place the second frame inside the animation, click on the next numbered frame on the left, then follow the same instructions as previously, and so on. You will notice that an empty square will appear inside the animation after a frame has been placed inside the previous numbered frame. This represents the previous frame, so that you can line up the frames much more easily.
5. In order to edit basic attributes of a frame, right click the frame inside the animation and click properties. The following are frame properties you can adjust:
Moving on, Tweening is an option to make animation frames that are already very similar to one another animate more smoothly. In order to use Tweening, click the option and fill in your start and end frames to use the Tweening on. Then click OK. Tweening may not always produce desired results, and in some cases may erase frames, so make sure to apply all current changes to your frames before trying Tweening. Cell Batch is simply an option used to apply animation properties (as mentioned above) to more than one frame at once. The rest of the options I'd say are pretty self-explanatory.
Now we will learn to use SE and flashes in an animation. You can have as many of these as you want.
1. Doubleclick the area under SE and flash timing and a window will pop up.
2. To use an SE in an animation, browse for the SE and beside of the SE you just chose, type the number of the SE's beginning frame.
3. In order to use a flash, that is, a color (usually a brighter color) that flashes on the screen, choose either target (only the target enemy will flash), screen (the whole screen will flash), or hide target (the whole screen will flash and the enemy's graphic will not be displayed during the flash).Now play with the colors (red, green, blue) until you find one you like. Strength is the opacity of the flash and works exactly like the opacith frame property. Duration is how many frames the flash should last. You can also set a SE and a flash to begin in the same frame.
4. One last tip: flashes start as the most solid part of the color, then fade out. In order to make a "reverse" flash, all you have to do is choose the color you want, and place it in one of the frames of your animation. Next, cover up the animation frames that you desire to flash in reverse with the colored frame at a zoom of a large number (about 500), and set the colored frame's opacity beginning at a low number, and progressively going to a higher number. The result is just like a flash, however, run in reverse.
Enemies and Troops - Under the Enemies tab, you can set all your enemy's parameters (pretty self-explanatory). You can also set up to two drop items (or more, but you'd have to look up a script for it). The probability is, of course, the odds that you will receive the item after battle. For exampe, 1/1 is a 100% chance; 1/2 is a 50% chance, and so on. Action patterns is where you set the actions that the enemy will take in battle, usually Skills. One idea is to set it so that the enemy will only use an extra strong attack or heal when their HP is low; this can be acheived by setting HP (under conditions) to between 0 and a smaller number.
You cannot set a battle to process anywhere unless you have the enemies you created under Troops. Troops can be one or many enemies. Simply add your troops to the graphical window, in which you can preview how the enemies will look in battle. If you click "arrange" it will order the Troops by centering them on screen. One thing you can do on the Troops page is set events that deal with what can happen during that particular battle. For example, if you wanted to show text at the beginning of the battle, under condition, you would set turn number 0 + 0, then choose to Show Text.
Terms - Covers different vocabulary as seen on menus and such. Just judge by what the Terms are, and think of ways you'd improve that particular Term. If you can't think of anything, just leave it alone.
System - As simple to edit as terms, the System tab covers the following items: Initial Party (the party that you start out with in the game of course), Starting Position (which doesn't really need to be worried about, because you can edit this on your map), Game Title (in case you aren't satisfied with what you named your game), Vehicle Graphics (self explanatory), Element Names (change maximum to 0 if you don't want any elements in your game; completely optional), and finally Music and Sound Effects (use BGM, ME, and SE depending on which audio option you're trying to edit).
States - States are conditions in battle that follow certain rules. You can make as many States as you want, no States, or use the default States of course. Here are examples of common States:
Commonly known as KO or Death - No matter what game you are making, it's highly likely you will require this state. Without this state, battles can't end except by escaping. It occurs when a character is out of HP. It should be one of the default states.
States using Slip Damage - If you have ever played an RPG before, you may know of Poison. This is an example of Slip Damage; it means that a character's HP will gradually go down by a very tiny amount during each turn. You can combine Slip Damage with other parameters in order to make the character not be able to move or evade attacks while receiving the damage for example, or any other available parameters.
- No Magic/MP - Simply set a restriction of "Cannot use Magic".
- No Attack - Set a parameter change of 0 Attack.
- Attacking certain characters - Set a restriction of "Always attack allies" or "Always attack enemies".
- Parameter changes - Adjust parameters by adding or subtracting certain amounts from 100, the usual amount to use for an "Up" is 150 and for a "Down", 50.
Equipment
- Weapons are what your characters attack with primarily. Even though they are used for mainly attack, they can also increase defense or other parameters, depending on the changes you set. You can customize how your Weapon's graphic appears in inventory, as well as the inventory name and description. Another option to set is the price of the Weapon to buy or sell. The animation you set will be the one that your character displays in battle when the Weapon is used. In the case of most Weapons, you want to keep your hit ratio about 95. You can also choose the element (if you chose to have them) that your Weapon is based upon, as well as possible States to inflict when the Weapon is used. There are several other options to set for Weapons. Be careful to choose Dual Attack, because this means that your character's Weapon can attack twice in a row.
- Armors can be set in pretty much the same way as weapons, with a few slightly different options, including Evasion, which is a number between 0 and about 5. Also, there are four types of Armors: Shield, Helmet, Body Armor, and Accessory. Your character can only equip one of each of these kinds at the same time; also, remember that a Shield Armor and a Weapon CANNOT initially be equipped at the same time.
Items - Items are used typically for healing, attacking, growth, and quests. Like Weapons and Armor, you can set a name, description, graphic, animation, and price for the item. In order to create a healing item, choose an ally or user scope, and put the desired number under recovery effect, placing it depending if you want to heal HP or MP. If you wish to make a recovery or resurrection type item that removes the KO/Death state, follow the same step except this time choose an ally (Death/KO/etc) scope. The occasion is important as well; you might want your healing items to be used always. In order to create an attack item, you fill in your number under damage effect, and choose an enemy scope. Likewise with occasion, it would make the most sense to use an attack item only in battle. In order to make a growth item, simply set the growth effect of your choice. Also, keep in mind that in the case of most of these types of items, you will want to consume them, that is, use only once, so choose yes for consume. Finally, with quest items, they are usually paired with the event of your choice, and the preferable settings would be an occasion of never, and no consume, and to not mess with any sort of changes except the basic name, description, etc, as well as a price if you like.
Classes - Classes are simply there to tell what sort of equipment your characters are able to use, as well as the skills that your characters are able to learn. It also covers the more advanced efficiencies. For now, just know to name your Classes, or don't name them if you don't want to, also set your characters equippable Weapons and Armor, and what sort of skills they will be learning (which I don't think has a limit). Actors (aka characters) - This is where you set your characters' initial state as well as growth parameters. First, give your character a name, Class, graphics, and initial level. You can also choose your characters' starting equipment and additional options, but keep in mind as mentioned before that you cannot set both a Shield Armor and a Weapon to the same character initially, you have to choose one or the other. To set EXP curve, both numbers are each typically somewhere between 25 and 40, basis being the initial required experience to get to the next level, and inflation being the additional amount. If you don't really understand this, just pick numbers between 25 and 40. Setting parameter curves is not as difficult as it looks. They can pretty much come out to be random. First, doubleclick a parameter, then you have two options: play around with quick settings in order to generate an automatic curve until you find one that you like, or manually input level 1 (or whatever your character's initial level is) and then put the amount for that parameter that you think it should be initially.
Common Events - Basically the same thing as events, only, you can call a Common Event from a regular event, like a shortcut, in order to save time. This is often used when you're doing the same events over and over. However, there are a few other things you can do with common events, for example, once you learn more about Skills (which I'm covering next), I will go over how to use my method for creating a summon using a Common Event.
Skills - As with items and such, make your name, description, graphic, etc. Also like using items, you can set your scope and occassion. Everything is pretty much filled in as it says. Under Base Dmg, set a positive number for an attack, and a negative (-) number for a heal. Under Use Message put (space)uses Slash!, for example. If you don't put the space before the "uses" in battle, instead of looking like "Actor uses Slash!", it will look like "Actoruses Slash!".
Summon Skill - Now I will teach you how to make a summon. This is a method I discovered pretty much on my own and it is highly effective. You create the summon through a common event. Here are the steps:
1. Create a character, name it whatever you wish, give it parameters just like any ordinary character, graphics aren't really necessary but I suppose it depends on your game. I'd suggest to manually set a low HP (but not low enough so that the summon can get knocked out within the first turn or two) and a high MP. 2. Go over to Skills and set a Skill for your summon, 0 base damage, "Only In Battle" occassion (this is to prevent the summon from showing up in party after the battle). 3. Go over to Common Events, and do the following:
- Change Party Member, Add (summon party member's name)
- - Conditional Branch: Enemy is (state Death/KO/etc), Remove Party Member (summon party member's name)
- Conditional Branch: (summon party member's name) is (state Death/KO/etc), Remove Party Member (summon party member's name)
Animations - Refer back to the Resources section if you cannot remember the specifications for animations.
1. First, name your animation (a good practice is to name it the same as the attack it goes with, if you're using it as an attack animation).
2. Next, pick the graphic(s) that you want to use in your animation. You can have up to two graphics; remember that each animation graphic can have a maximum of 20 frames, so the most frames you could possibly have in an animation is 40; however, this is highly unnecessary and will probably lag your game when the attack is used.
3. Under position, in most cases you want to use "center". Under max, put a good estimate of however many frames you think your animation will take (this means after editing, not necessarily the same number of frames that you imported). You can adjust the max anytime. You can use the change target option to preview what your animation will look like when used with that particular enemy on the field. If you want to see the animation by itself, I'd suggest to make a blank battler and change the target to it.
4. In order to place a frame in the animation, click on the frame, then click on an empty area inside the animation. To place the second frame inside the animation, click on the next numbered frame on the left, then follow the same instructions as previously, and so on. You will notice that an empty square will appear inside the animation after a frame has been placed inside the previous numbered frame. This represents the previous frame, so that you can line up the frames much more easily.
5. In order to edit basic attributes of a frame, right click the frame inside the animation and click properties. The following are frame properties you can adjust:
- Pattern - Don't change this if you want to keep the current frame.
- X and Y Coordinates - The exact position of the frame in the animation.
- Zoom - How large or small you want the frame to be.
- Angle - The degree at which the frame is turned.
- Flip - Flip the frame horizontally.
- Opacity - How transparent the frame is. 0 is completely invisible, and 255 is as solid as possible, depending on your blending mode.
- Blending - Normal means the frame is entirely solid and looks just like the frame that you made in the original frameset; Add means the frame is partially transparent with a sort of blending that changes the color tone slightly and will have different appearance depending on how frames are stacked within your animation; Sub is like the opposite of Add, very dark and usually like a negative. Animation frames by default are set to Add.
Moving on, Tweening is an option to make animation frames that are already very similar to one another animate more smoothly. In order to use Tweening, click the option and fill in your start and end frames to use the Tweening on. Then click OK. Tweening may not always produce desired results, and in some cases may erase frames, so make sure to apply all current changes to your frames before trying Tweening. Cell Batch is simply an option used to apply animation properties (as mentioned above) to more than one frame at once. The rest of the options I'd say are pretty self-explanatory.
Now we will learn to use SE and flashes in an animation. You can have as many of these as you want.
1. Doubleclick the area under SE and flash timing and a window will pop up.
2. To use an SE in an animation, browse for the SE and beside of the SE you just chose, type the number of the SE's beginning frame.
3. In order to use a flash, that is, a color (usually a brighter color) that flashes on the screen, choose either target (only the target enemy will flash), screen (the whole screen will flash), or hide target (the whole screen will flash and the enemy's graphic will not be displayed during the flash).Now play with the colors (red, green, blue) until you find one you like. Strength is the opacity of the flash and works exactly like the opacith frame property. Duration is how many frames the flash should last. You can also set a SE and a flash to begin in the same frame.
4. One last tip: flashes start as the most solid part of the color, then fade out. In order to make a "reverse" flash, all you have to do is choose the color you want, and place it in one of the frames of your animation. Next, cover up the animation frames that you desire to flash in reverse with the colored frame at a zoom of a large number (about 500), and set the colored frame's opacity beginning at a low number, and progressively going to a higher number. The result is just like a flash, however, run in reverse.
Enemies and Troops - Under the Enemies tab, you can set all your enemy's parameters (pretty self-explanatory). You can also set up to two drop items (or more, but you'd have to look up a script for it). The probability is, of course, the odds that you will receive the item after battle. For exampe, 1/1 is a 100% chance; 1/2 is a 50% chance, and so on. Action patterns is where you set the actions that the enemy will take in battle, usually Skills. One idea is to set it so that the enemy will only use an extra strong attack or heal when their HP is low; this can be acheived by setting HP (under conditions) to between 0 and a smaller number.
You cannot set a battle to process anywhere unless you have the enemies you created under Troops. Troops can be one or many enemies. Simply add your troops to the graphical window, in which you can preview how the enemies will look in battle. If you click "arrange" it will order the Troops by centering them on screen. One thing you can do on the Troops page is set events that deal with what can happen during that particular battle. For example, if you wanted to show text at the beginning of the battle, under condition, you would set turn number 0 + 0, then choose to Show Text.
Using scripts is extremely simple, in fact, it doesn't require any sort of scripting knowledge whatsoever. All you have to do is follow the script writer's instructions, which are included typically in a readme file packaged with the script or in the comments (green text) at the beginning of the script. There are many scripts that require no modification at all and are simply copy/paste scripts; once pasted into the Script editor, they should run immediately.
One VERY important note to keep in mind when using scripts; in most cases (I say most cases because there is a highly unstable XP to VX conversion script out there; also, a few scripts are cross-compatible), XP scripts are NOT compatible with VX. This is because XP and VX run on two different scripting languages; XP runs on RGSS, and VX runs on RGSS2. So keep in mind when looking for scripts, that the script you want to get has to say VX or RGSS2.
One more note, sometimes when you run a script for the first time, and you test play, you get an error. If this error is upon loading one of your save games, or sometime during gameplay shortly after loading the save game (especially when you're at a point in the game that the script is suppose to run), that means that the script has corrupted your gameplay's save data. It doesn't affect your project at all; you just have to start a new game in test play mode. This is why it's good practice to install scripts, especially larger ones, earlier on into your game, or before you even start test playing at all.
I will now review another example script; this one interacts with events.
Script: Instant Player Transfer
Description: By default, VX puts a small fade in between transfers from map to map. This script serves a couple of purposes: first of all, it will make it appear like two maps are connected as one; second, if you have two similar maps with only a slight change, you can transfer from one map to the other without ever appearing that you left the first map.
The script:
How to use: Copy the entire script and paste it on a new line in Script Editor. It should work instantly. In order to connect two maps to appear as one, first, place a Transfer Player event one square above the bottom of the first map, and one square below the top of the second map. The top map's event should transfer to one square below the bottom map's event, and the bottom map's event should transfer to one square above the top map's event. If that's too confusing, look at this diagram:
Assuming the squares are events, the top blue square should transfer to the bottom blue square, and the bottom red square should transfer to the top red square.
There are many, many more scripts out there than this. The possibilities are pretty much limitless with what you can do with your RPG using scripts.
One VERY important note to keep in mind when using scripts; in most cases (I say most cases because there is a highly unstable XP to VX conversion script out there; also, a few scripts are cross-compatible), XP scripts are NOT compatible with VX. This is because XP and VX run on two different scripting languages; XP runs on RGSS, and VX runs on RGSS2. So keep in mind when looking for scripts, that the script you want to get has to say VX or RGSS2.
One more note, sometimes when you run a script for the first time, and you test play, you get an error. If this error is upon loading one of your save games, or sometime during gameplay shortly after loading the save game (especially when you're at a point in the game that the script is suppose to run), that means that the script has corrupted your gameplay's save data. It doesn't affect your project at all; you just have to start a new game in test play mode. This is why it's good practice to install scripts, especially larger ones, earlier on into your game, or before you even start test playing at all.
I will now review another example script; this one interacts with events.
Script: Instant Player Transfer
Description: By default, VX puts a small fade in between transfers from map to map. This script serves a couple of purposes: first of all, it will make it appear like two maps are connected as one; second, if you have two similar maps with only a slight change, you can transfer from one map to the other without ever appearing that you left the first map.
The script:
Code:
class Scene_Map
$fade_time = 0
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
# * Player Transfer Processing
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
def update_transfer_player
return unless $game_player.transfer?
fade = (Graphics.brightness > 0) and $fade_time != 0
fadeout($fade_time) if fade
@spriteset.dispose # Dispose of sprite set
$game_player.perform_transfer # Execute player transfer
$game_map.autoplay # Automatically switch BGM and BGS
$game_map.update
Graphics.wait($fade_time / 2)
@spriteset = Spriteset_Map.new # Recreate sprite set
fadein($fade_time) if fade
Input.update
$fade_time = 0
end
endHow to use: Copy the entire script and paste it on a new line in Script Editor. It should work instantly. In order to connect two maps to appear as one, first, place a Transfer Player event one square above the bottom of the first map, and one square below the top of the second map. The top map's event should transfer to one square below the bottom map's event, and the bottom map's event should transfer to one square above the top map's event. If that's too confusing, look at this diagram:
Assuming the squares are events, the top blue square should transfer to the bottom blue square, and the bottom red square should transfer to the top red square.
There are many, many more scripts out there than this. The possibilities are pretty much limitless with what you can do with your RPG using scripts.