RMXP Resource Knowledge Database

[BlueScope]

This topic is supposed to be a comprehension about resource defaults (graphics and audio), their special behaviours and how you might be able to modify some defaults by script. Just in case you wonder about the in-depth specials of a certain filetype I suggested, please read my RMXP Graphics Guide for reference.

Spoiler: Basic Knowledge

RMXP Screensize: 640 × 480
RTP Directory: InstallDrive:\Program Files\Common Files\Enterbrain\RGSS\Identity\ (both Audio and Graphics)
Graphical Support: Up to 24bit supported, Alpha Channels supported, animated GIFs not supported (will only show the first frame)
Supported Audio filetypes: MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG, MID/MIDI (BGM/ME only)
Additional Audio filetypes [untested]: RMI, FLAC, APE, AIFC, AU

Spoiler: Animations

General information: Animations are used on maps and in battle to show a serie of pictures which consist of up to 8 frames each. An animation file may have as much vertical lines as desired by the artist, each row taking 192px in height.

Suggested filetype: PNG
Size (width × height): 960 × [192]
Cut in parts (horizontal / vertical): 5 / x
RTP file amount: 30

Spoiler: Autotiles

General information: Autotiles are special tiles holding an amount of 48 tiles in total, while the artist only has to draw 12. If you want to view the full set of your autotile, double-click on the desired autotile in the map edit screen and a window showing all generated tiles will open. Remember that you can add as much autotile sets (each 96 × 128) next to each other in one file to create an animated autotile. Look at the default water autotile for an example.

Suggested filetype: PNG
Size (width, height): [96] × 128
Cut in parts (horizontal, vertical): (x*3) / 4
RTP file amount: 81

Spoiler: Battlebacks

General information: Battlebacks are shown in the behind all other graphics on the battle screen. They take up almost 3/4 of the screen.

Suggested filetype: JPG/JPEG, PNG
Size (width, height): 640 × 320
RTP file amount: 50

Spoiler: 640 × 480 Battleback Graphics

There's a very easy way to enable 640 × 480 battlebacks. First, open up the script editor and load Spriteset_Battle. You should be able to find the @viewport1 definition:

@viewport1 = Viewport.new(0, 0, 640, 320)

As you can see, this line limits a certain viewport to a height of 320. You have to believe me that it's the battle background viewport. Well, just change the line to something like this:

@viewport1 = Viewport.new(0, 0, 640, 480)

You can use a 640 × 480 battleback picture now, but you might also want to use a 640 × 320 battleback you got somewhere. If so, you might want to zoom the picture to fit the screen. To do this, head for this line in Spriteset_Battle:

@battleback_sprite = Sprite.new(@viewport1)

Insert the following line directly below that...

@battleback_sprite.zoom_y = 1.5

Well, you won't see anything below the 320 pixel-border, because there's a window located the... to be exact, it's Window_BattleStatus, so if you want to do something about it, you have to open it up in the script editor. Head for this line in the initialize method:

self.contents = Bitmap.new(width - 32, height - 32)

Directly below that, insert one of the following lines, according to your needs/preferances:

self.back_opacity = 160 # Changes the opacity of the window background

self.opacity = 160 # changes the opacity of the window (background and border)

Spoiler: Battlers

General information: Battlers are shown in the status window on the battle screen. Each character has one, and they're displayed next to each other, so although there's no limit in size for these, you should take care not to overlap other battler images too much.

Suggested filetype: PNG
Size (width, height): No Limit
RTP file amount: 100

Spoiler: Characters

General information: Characters are used on the map screen to represent the hero, non-player characters, objects and might also be used for light effects or similar. There is no limit in size for these unlike previous RPG Maker versions, the set will just be divided through 4 both ways.

Suggested filetype: PNG
Size (width, height): No Limit
Cut in parts (horizontal, vertical): 4 / 4
RTP file amount: 200

Spoiler: Fogs

General information: Fogs can be blended over a map to force a special feeling, create atmosphere or simply fake an underwater environment. There's no limit in size, but you should use a reasonable size to prevent lag. They can be assigned to maps in the Tileset tab in the Database.

Suggested filetype: PNG
Size (width, height): No Limit
RTP file amount: 10

Spoiler: Gameovers

General information: A single gameover picture is shown every time the party is defeated before the player is taken back to the title screen. The fullscreen size is reasonable, though you might use smaller images which will be aligned to the upper-left corner of the screen.

Suggested filetype: JPG/JPEG, PNG
Size (width, height): 640 × 480
RTP file amount: 1

Spoiler: Icons

General information: Icons can be assigned to items, weapons, armors, and skills. If you draw them larger than 24x24, they'll still be displayed, but everything beyond this size will be cut off.

Suggested filetype: PNG
Size (width, height): 24 × 24
RTP file amount: 50

Spoiler: Panoramas

General information: Panoramas are used to show a map's background (transparent space in the tileset), which might be a mountain range, sky with clouds or even magma. Just like fogs, you can add these graphics to a map in the Tileset tab in the Database.

Suggested filetype: JPG/JPEG, PNG
Size (width, height): No Limit
RTP file amount: 7

Spoiler: Pictures

General information: Pictures can be almost everything you can imagine. You might use them as a black border to fake a widescreen format or have a dark surrounding around the player to make the screen look like you just can see what's directly around you. This graphic type also has no restrictions in size, but remember that you can only see 640x480 at once anyway...

Suggested filetype: JPG/JPEG, PNG
Size (width, height): No Limit
RTP file amount: 0

Spoiler: Tilesets

General information: Tilesets hold tile graphics which are used to draw the map piece by piece, each of those being 32 × 32 large. A tileset might contain as many tiles as desired, but there have to be 8 tiles in each line.

Suggested filetype: PNG
Size (width, height): 256 × [32]
Cut in parts (horizontal, vertical): 8 / x
RTP file amount: 50

Spoiler: Titles

General information: The title image is just a background used on the title screen. Just like the gameover image, it's default size is 640 × 480, though that might be cut to whatever fits.

Suggested filetype: JPG/JPEG, PNG
Size (width, height): 640 × 480
RTP file amount: 1

Spoiler: Transitions

General information: Transitions store the information for a from-map-to-battle transition. The responsible script will delete all colors, one after another, from dark to bright, until the battle screen is fully visible and the map screen is disposed totally. You can setup the transition in the System tab in the Database for battle transitions or use the "Prepare for Transition" and "Execute Transition" event commands for map-to-map transitions.

Suggested filetype: PNG
Size (width, height): 640 × 480
RTP file amount: 20

Spoiler: Windowskins

General information: A windowskin is a collection of several small images used together to draw the ingame windows with. Because it's kind of difficult to explain these measures with words, I made a handy image which might also be used as a template and is liked further down. It also includes the sizes of each part, width and height equally.

Suggested filetype: PNG
Size (width, height): 192 × 128
Cut in parts: Image
RTP file amount: 1

Spoiler: BGM (Background Music)

General information: BGMs are used in almost every map, in battles, the title screen, the gameover screen, ... You can use MIDI files for this kind of music.

Suggested filetype: MID/MIDI, MP3
Loop: Yes
RTP file amount: 64

Spoiler: BGS (Background Sound)

General information: BGSs are used for rain effects or other audio overlays to add additional atmosphere to the surroundings. BGSs can be used with or without a BGM.

Suggested filetype: OGG, MP3
Loop: Yes
RTP file amount: 20

Spoiler: ME (Music Effects)

General information: MEs are similar to BGMs, just that they're only played once and aren't looped. They're used for victory themes or hymns for gathered items, for example. You can use MIDI files for this kind of audio effect.

Suggested filetype: MID/MIDI, MP3
Loop: No
RTP file amount: 16

Spoiler: SE (Sound Effect)

General information: SEs are used to play small effects like animal voices or attack sounds. They're usually very short which is why they suit OGG files so great.

Suggested filetype: OGG, WAV
Loop: No
RTP file amount: 180

Spoiler: Video Files

General information: As I just found out, you can play AVI files with RMXP in a seperate window (exits fullscreen and minimizes your Game.exe). You can play the files with the audio play event commands, like "Play [insert audio resource type]". Depending on what resource type you choose, your replay settings will slightly change (explained below). Note that your video must be in the correct directory, e.g. Audio\ME\ to be selectable from the list.

Replay from BGM command: Oversaturated movie display, looping
Replay from BGS command: Normal display, looping
Replay from ME command: Normal display, not looping
Replay from SE command: Normal display, not looping

I hope this compilation has been somewhat useful for one or another reader... thanks for your attention, see you next time... and make sure to drop in feedback ^_^

I'd also like to thank Selwyn who helped me on creating and testing the video section, and also vgvgf for pointing out that you can use several more audio filetypes.

 

[Atnas]

Woah, this is useful, Blue. I was having a few questions on the size of animations. Great tut for newbies and oldbies alike who aren't completely sure of everything.

 

[BlueScope]

Hehe, I guess there are always things that are new to advanced users... I got hexagonal eyes when I discovered that autotile display ^_^

Anyway, I updated the battleback spoiler with a tutorial on how to enable 640x480-battlebacks... it's also anything that comes in my mind that's worth to mention besides a 8-way or 8-frame system for characters, which I won't explain :P If you have any ideas, throw them in!

EDIT: I also updated the post with audio resource types now... I'd like to have an input from you musician guys if I got something wrong because I'm rather unexperienced at that ground... ^_^

 

[Selwyn]

Nice, but you should also put that you can play .avi files as a ME or SE. (can't remember which one.)

Nitpicky but, MP3 isn't MPEG3, MP3 is MPEG1 - Layer 3.

MPEG3 is a video compression format type.

 

[BlueScope]

I corrected the MP3 stuff, but all tests I did regarding the AVI sounds failed... instead, a movie player opened within Game.exe that played the movie O_o Something I haven't seen before ^_^ Anyway, could you please test it yourself quickly and tell me how you can do this AVI thing?

 

[Selwyn]

It did exactly what it was supposed to do.
You can play .avi movies through the play SE (or whatever) function.

 

[BlueScope]

Ah, okay O_o Well, according to my tests, I have these results:

BGM: Oversaturated movie display, looping
ME: Normal display, not looping
SE: Normal display, not looping
BGS: Normal display, looping

I wonder if you or someone else could double-check this, to make sure it isn't just my stupid PC and I won't write crap in the tutorial post :P

EDIT:

Hehe, I guess there are always things that are new to advanced users...

XD

 

[Selwyn]

I tested it out and I got the same results as you. So I guess you can go with this.

 

[BlueScope]

Okay, thanks for your hint and of course for the efford, I'll update the post now...

EDIT: Updated, and you got credit :P

 

[vgvgf]

RPG Maker XP can play .rmi midi files, too.

 

[BlueScope]

Besides the fact I've never heard of this filetype before (geez, screw my music knowledge... ^_^ ), I mentioned MIDI files, and it's obviously one... I'll add it to the list in the first spoiler nevertheless, if someone can approve this (I'd dislike adding something to one of my tutorials I haven't tested myself or I'm not absolutely sure).

 

[vgvgf]

I have uploaded one rmi file: Mozart1.rmi
Download and test it if you want.

The .rmi(RIFF MIDI) files are riff based midi.

http://filext.com/detaillist.php?extdetail=RMI

 

[BlueScope]

I tested it and it didn't worked, neither in RMXP's Audio Preview not InGame; neither as BGM, nor as BGS, ME, or SE... can you tell me what you did to play the file?

 

[Selwyn]

erm, it works fine with me...

 

[XP Learner]

Actually there's a way to increase the limit on icon sizes.

 

[BlueScope]

Actually there's a way to increase the limit on icon sizes.

Yes, and it's pretty easy as well, but it requires changes in all of the icon windows to set the cursor_rect right, edits in Window_Selectable to offset each item by [desired size of icons] instead of 24, and finally, you'd have to change the icon's Rect to display an image larger than 24x24...

@Selwyn: Wow, now I'm confused... as stated before, I'll add it to the list now that I have a second confirmation, but I'll try to find out the reason why it won't work for me...

 

[XP Learner]

I had Raziel help with that. if you like i can post the snippets of code here on how it works.

This also can work for skill icons.

 

[BlueScope]

Well, this is not Submitted RGSS Scripts, but Tutorials, so just posting codes is a no-no... I might cover that in the future, but for now, I'll leave it as it is... (if you have a link to the thread Raz gave you the script, that'd be okay, though)

 

[Plubyblop]

Thanks for this, I needed it.

 

[vgvgf]

These audio files can be played, too:
.ape
.flac
.aifc
.au

I tried to play these files, and they work fine for me.