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In this tutorial, I'll be teaching you how to make a moving train/tram/other vehicle/etc. without much work! This is NOT the same as a vehicle event. This is to get the effect of movement in the background. This is something I decided to do in my remake of the first Half-Life game, for the first chapter, Black Mesa Inbound. WHAT YOU'LL NEED: RPG Maker (I use VX Ace, but I'm sure it works in any of them, given you have access to something like the below script.) HimeWorks' Map Screenshot script (or similar) First, make your train or tram. The blank background behind it is extremely important. Next, you need to make the scenery you want to have the appearance of moving - I.E: another map. A really, really long map. Once you make it, use the script to take a mapshot. Copy your mapshot into this folder in the Graphics folder of your project...: ...And then go back to your tram/train map and put your mapshot as a Parallax Background in your Map Properties. For Black Mesa Inbound, I don't need it to move very fast, so I have it on these settings: Then time it, calculate the time in frames and have the map change to the "dropoff location" (Parallel Process event). In the case of my Half-Life remake, that would be a still map where a guard walks over and lets you out, then leads you to the next chapter. What if you have to use multiple tilesets to get the effect you want? (I.E - simulating going through numerous locations) I had that same question for myself and it was an easy enough answer - make multiple maps, take multiple mapshots and splice them all together into one image. I'm having to do this for Black Mesa Inbound. What if I want background characters to move on the background instead of standing in one place? I don't have an answer for this one. I considered having the characters all be set to "Below" and "Through" and sort of shimmy in place before being set to Transparent, but that didn't quite work. In the end, having them standing there looks populated enough for my taste. If anybody has an answer to this, please comment it down below! Anyway, I hope you find this tutorial useful in your development endeavours!

I don't know where to file this in terms of forum entries. Please let me know if this is in the wrong place and I will repost. Using Yanfly Battle engine and its extensions. Want to use different side view action animations for different skills with the same skill type. ex: Character Mary has the skill type magic. She has two magic skills, 'Abrakadabra' and 'Alakazam'. These are both in the magical skill type and included in her class. Let's say I want 'Abrakadabra' to use the action animation thrust, and 'Alakazam' to use the action animation swing. How would I accomplish this? Here is the code I tried using. '<target action> preform action motion thrust: user, no weopen </target action>' With this, however, it replaces the entire move with only her doing this action. No attack, noise, damage, etc. I need help, I don't want all my magic moves to use the same motion. Why would I need more than two animations for a character attacking anyway if you can only use two (general attack and magic skill)?

This New Series Will Go Over The Basic/Advanced Functions Of RPG Maker MV! Today I will be starting my new video tutorial series on MV, well you might ask yourself, or me why I'm I doing this where there are other tutorials around. Well it's simple most of those tutorials are not for, ACE, VX, XP etc... These tutorials will focus on both old and new features of MV. The other reason for these videos is, that I'v noticed ever since MV came out a lot of new makers have been showing up with no prior knowledge of RPG Makers, so this tutorial will mainly be for those group of Individuals. After this tutorial you should be ready to make your first game and beyond. After we cover the basics and advance stuff we will be moving on to plugins. Stay tuned. Tutorial Playlist - RPG Maker MV RPG Maker MV Video Tutorial EP 1: Introduction RPG Maker MV Video Tutorial EP 2: Interface RPG Maker MV Video Tutorial EP 3: Maps and Regions RPG Maker MV Video Tutorial EP 4: Events PT 1 Alpha ABS Tutorial Playlist - Alpha ABS Tutorials RPG Maker MV Alpha ABS Tutorial EP1: Installation and configuration RPG Maker MV Alpha ABS Tutorial EP2:Skills Items and Weapon Overview RPG Maker MV Alpha ABS Tutorial EP3: Skill Setup RPG Maker MV Alpha ABS Tutorial EP4: Weapon Setup RPG Maker MV Alpha ABS Tutorial EP5: Item Setup RPG Maker MV Housing system Tutorial snippet - Snippets So far i will be covering all these topics, but i know there's a lot missing from the list , that's where you guys come in, if you want me to do a tutorial on something, post it here, pm me, or leave me a message on YouTube and I'll add it to the list.

So, before you guys smite me and hang me for how late this is, I gotta ask, "Is there such thing as a time frame?" Wait, who's talking? Who's being asked, what is going on?! Hey folks! Rez here with a continuation of character developing. This time, we'll be talking about dialogue, and using the character's personality within their words. For the sake of this example, I'll be using my gambler, Lek, and a demon named Anicor. I'll list the main aspects of their personality below. Lek's Personality: Optimistic, Level-headed, Out going. Anicor's Personality: Shy, Quirky, Energetic. When a character talks, they need to have a target person/thing they're talking to. You can't leave this open unless there's a continuation of the dialogue between two characters. For example. "Hi, bob," Jack said. "Hello," Bob responded. "How's your day?" "Good." With the example above, the first two lines show who's talking. Leaving either of those open allow for utter confusion to set in. It could be thought that Jack continued without a response, or that somebody outside of his target was responding. Also, something else that wasn't in those lines was emotion. You must convey the character's feelings, whether it is based off of their current mood, feeling of the topic, or even their personality taking over. If you don't, your game, story, or other projects will be really dull, and most will look for a new game to play. Now, there is one exception, and I've seen few pull this off. You can have a monotone-talking person be the center of a joke or some plots, but don't have them be the main focus of your game. Voices in voice acting know this rule all too well, if present, and I'm sure you've heard/read monotone language before. Reading your sentence out loud to yourself is a good way to listen for emotion, and that's where syntax--structure of the sentence and overall flow, basically--takes place. Following this, one last thing I wish to point out here is word choice. Words also help reflect emotion and give a three dimensional aspect to characters. For example: "Hey, man. I just wanted to let you know how stoked I am for the game! I hope you remember how vivid your mom's determination was about you taking me. I'll be there around eight." Vivid is a hard word to use, but if pulled off correctly, it gives a great amount of emotion, in addition to giving a better structure to your sentence/line. Determination is an emotion in its own right. Stoked is another example of emotion that takes the place of the word excited. Adding variety keeps people interested in what they're reading. Now, the moment you folks might have already wanted me to get to... Interactions. "Lek, w-what's a flower?" Anicor hid herself behind Lek as she pointed at the rather strange flower in a pot. "I didn't expect you to shiver at the sight of a fragile being. It's a plant, like grass. For the most part, they're harmless, but there are a few exceptions. Some of Scalvose's flowers, like the Phenostar and the Quiriblit, are quite harmful to some species of life," Lek moved away from Anicor, leaving her in "sight" of the flower. "Go on, touch it. It's a perfectly harmless dandelion." "What if I'm a-allergic?" she slowly stepped forward, flinching as she quickly jabbed her finger into the flower's center. She withdrew it to find her finger covered in a yellow powder, which caused her to well up in fear and start hyperventilating. "Calm down! It's just pollen!" Lek grabbed her, hugging her tightly to a chair for her to sit on. With Lek's help, she slowly regained a calm demeanor. "What is this p-p-powdery stuff?" she sniffed at it, sneezing after a couple seconds passed. "As I said, it's pollen. It's how flowers reproduce," Lek smiled, his eyes shining with enjoyment. With the example above, you can tell how Anicor is by nature, and how Lek responds to her actions and words. Anicor's nervous personality shines throughout the whole segment, and while Lek's mental opinions aren't stated, you can pick up a bit of it from his words and actions. You can also see how he feels about her, to an extent. This pretty much sums up this section of the tutorial. Part three will be focusing on relationships and external/internal factors on life, which will help shape the character into (possibly) somebody you can be yourself. (You'll understand what I mean... Don't worry!)

Heya folks, after playing games, watching movies, seeing animations, and reading stories, I've noticed there seems to be a fine line between what's acceptable for developing characters, and what isn't allowed. before continuing these points, I do want to mention that developing takes time, work, perseverance, and even error. In addition, character development is like an art, there are multiple ways to go about one method, much like the styles of shading. I've dealt with my fair share of delevoping characters, the list stretching to 177, and while I may start from a random part of my imagination, I will repeat that that this is not the only way, but could be one way that may help you in the processes. Let's start off with a name. For the purpose of examples, I'll be using my character Rilumia. Your character's name should have a reflection to the style of names your world has, whether it be Japanese, English, Scottish, some self-created language, and so on. You will also want to avoid repeating certain name aspects, as this can get the reader/player confused on name pronunciation. For example, I have two dragons by the name of Rea and Rei. The only major difference in the last letter. Rea is pronounced "Re-uh", while Rei is, well, "Re." This alone can be confusing as you try to remember what character has what name. In some cases, however, you're able to get away with this. Twins, siblings, family names, and how the family's language works are a few of possibly many exceptions. Names should also have a reason to them. Rilumia used to be a demon, thus she has a multi-syllable name that is akin to the race of demons of Scalvose. Your next step is possibly going to be determining what the character likes and dislikes, along with the personality. Rilumia absolutely adores animals, so you can feel a soft spot in the character's overall context as she grows throughout the story of the book, piece, or game. You will want to avoid basing likes off of other characters until you finish everything that the character likes on their own terms. Let's set up a small sheet below, so keep a bit of formatting while determining the character's development. Name: Rilumia Likes: Animals, the ocean breeze, flowers, food, and long walks through the forests. Dislikes: Blood, sickness, fighting, sour candies, silence. (Note: You don't have to place these in a sentence-like format. This is my style of setting these up.) When it comes to what a character likes and dislikes, or love and avidly hate, and so on, they do not have to be polar opposites. You can have a soft-hearted man who lacks a backbone love heavy metal just as much as a kid loves candy. If the character loves sour things, they don't have to hate sweet things. For every like, it adds to the character if you can provide a reason behind why they like something. Rilumia loves flowers because she can utilize them as a defensive measure when she's attacked, and the ocean breeze makes her feel unbound from other mundane tasks. She's a cook, so food is something she would enjoy. Walks through the forest allow her to see animals and plants, which increase her enjoyment down to the earth. The same goes for dislikes. Rilumia is a bit of a germaphobe, so she will definitely dislike getting sick or seeing blood, and while she isn't against injuring somebody to protect herself, if a fight is avoidable in any possible way, Rilumia will try to take that path. Disliking silence comes from her personality, which is our next subject. Personality: Sultry, gentle, adventurous, cunning, partially germaphobic, and slightly seductive. The character's personality has all rights to reflect their likes and dislikes, and don't let others say otherwise. You know your character more than the next guy down the street, so you ned to convey the reasons behind their personality. In addition, personalities can't be abstract, as they must be reflected in each word of the character in some way. However, you don't need to reflect every personality aspect in one line or word all the time. Sometimes the character can have enough mentality to know when to be mature and push their own feelings aside for a while. Or, like my character Darkness, can be complete morons and not understand much of what goes on around him, other than when he's hit for being perverted or making crude jokes. Their personality needs to exsist. Rilumia loves poking her nose towards the winds of a journey, and while she may be bothered by germs and the like, she's gentle and rarely shows her disgust. Though she doesn't mean to be, she has a seductive tone to her words sometimes, which irks others. Otherwise, being sultry, she has a passionate heart and to some, she does rather attract them. Blessings: Quick to protect those in need, Green thumb. Banes: Body scales are soft and fragile, very energetic. (Note: These can be called pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses, and so on.) Lastly, I want to talk about blessings and banes. These are things that the character excells and fully fails at, regardless of how strange they may be. Rilumia, once she fell in love with a dragon's scale, it eventually lead to her falling in love with the dragon, himself. Demon blood is severly malleable in terms of race, and thus her body started to slowly corrupt, or change into that of a dragon. She doesn't know if she still has enough demon blood in her to continue being changed, but she doesn't really care too much as it opened many new paths of life for her, whether in the form of strength, endurance, smell, and the list goes on. However, her true self is still present in her mind, which gives her a constant questioning on what has happened to her as time has gone. In term of the change, her scales are as soft as velvet, and can easily be removed like a bird feather. However, this doesn't stop her from being quick to shield blows aimed at innocent people. On the downside, the amount of energy in her body tends to keep her up at night a lot, forcing her to try and find ways to calm herself to sleep, like reading, seditives, and the old attempts of drinking warm milk. This is a basic outline to get started on fleshing out your characters, which I hope helps you all in need of it. If you have any questions, comments, or feel as if I misstated a part, please leave a comment below and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

In this video, I give you the cheat codes for creating your own personalized final boss themes for your RPG game . Feel free to ask any questions!

HOW WRITE GOOD, PART 2: DON'T DO THE THING Hey! What, you're back again? I didn't scare you off the first time? Wow... okay. A little unexpected, but okay. So, how did the story go? Mhmm... Mhmm.. ah, okay. So you: HAVE A STORY, BUT IT KEEPS ENDING UP TOO PREDICTABLE/ IT'S HARD TO KEEP TRACK OF WHAT'S GOING ON? Okay, I think I can help with that. Sit here, and let's talk about it. So you've got the story. But somehow, it keeps slipping down the mountain on one ski, ending up at the bottom in a crumpled heap so predictable that the player can see the end coming from the first thirty seconds of descent. It seems like everything's at a loss, because you can't figure out how to keep the story from crashing, despite knowing the linear narrative and all that other stuff we talked about last time. Well, here's the problem. We gotta keep that story from crashing and burning. How? Well, let's see. Why don't we try giving the story TWO skis instead of one? And maybe some ski poles so they can guide themselves down the slope? Boots and bindings would be a good thing too, so the story can actually stay on whatever ski it has, whether one or two. Are you getting the metaphor yet? I hope so... To explain in more detail: a story with no supports is the same as a skier with no supports. It's not going to end well for anyone. What the heck are supports, you ask? How can a story have supports? Well... let's think about our story from last time. A small girl with red hair lives in a shabby house on the edge of a futuristic city; she goes from her house to find her missing mother. By itself, this is technically a story. And depending on what we decided to do with our narrative, it's a good game. But it's still a little.... lackluster. How can we fix this? With supports, of course! Support #1: Setting Wait a minute, wait a minute! You say. We know the setting already, Juju! It's a futuristic city! Yes, but... do you know what atmosphere means? Not air you breathe atmosphere, but aesthetic atmosphere. This city... the girl's house is shabby. It's safe to say she doesn't live in a very futuristic part of the city. More likely, she lives in the slums. Why would there be slums in a futuristic city? What sort of people live there? Let's say, for instance, that to survive in the city as a healthy citizen, you have to pass an aptitude test that places you with a job. (a la Divergent series, almost). Those people who can't pass the test for whatever reason have no other choice but to live in poverty on the outskirts of the city. By extension, this would mean that the girl's mother also failed the test. Does this failed test play some part in her disappearance? Hmm... Is there more to the plot than meets the eye? All of this can be gleamed just from the setting of the story. Wow! Support #2: Characters and Their Locations What kind of story would it be without characters? Well, there are a few games that have only one or two characters, but in our game, we have a whole city's worth! That's a lot of work.... or is it? Get out your linear narrative that you've written in your word processor, or in the back of that shabby notebook that holds a few papers from tenth grade and a crude drawing of your gym teacher. Here's where we map out where our character will go. What do you mean, Juju? Well, again, it all comes down to organization. Personally, I use Excel for this, but in most word processors there's an option to make a table that will do basically the same thing. What we're going to do is write down where the character will go and what they might find there. For our game, I'll include a downloadable example. Let's say that the redheaded girl goes to the bus stop, an office building, a seedy diner, the neighborhood near her house, and finally a warehouse. In my real game that I'm making, there's about 15 of these. IMPORTANT: THESE ARE NOT THE NUMBER OF MAPS YOU HAVE (well, they can be, but I don't use it that way). THESE ARE ONLY THE AREAS THE PLAYER AND CHARACTER GO TO! If you look at the attached example, you can see that there are 3--Count 'em, 3-- columns. They say "Name of Area", "Enemies", and "Key Scenarios". Of course, you can add more or less columns depending on preference. I've written the name of the areas, whether I expect any enemies to be encountered in said area, and if the area holds a valuable cutscene that's used to further the story. The best thing about this is that you can always leave your story, come back to it, and remember at the very least the bare basics of what you were planning on doing to it in the game. In terms of maps, each area can have as many maps as you like. There can be three maps in the bus station, for example: the outside, the inside, and the bus itself. This is also where you can start adding an important support: Characters. In my own organization, I have an excel workbook that has many, many tabs. These tabs are labeled things like: Enemies, Items, Key Items, Skills, Characters, Areas, etc. My Character tab has the name of the Character, a brief explanation of the Character, and what Area they can be found in. Some are just NPCs, others have Key Items for the player, and others help further the story in other ways. If you don't have Excel, you can easily add a Characters row to whatever table you're working with. Why the trouble, you ask? Well, think back to that aesthetic atmosphere. Have you ever watched a show, or played a game, and found that one NPC that struck a chord with you, or that one side character that you liked better than the hero/heroine? What if they hadn't existed. Would the game still be the same without them? Of course not! Good characters flesh out a story and make it more believable. And that's what we're trying to do- sell this story and its sincerity to the player. There are plenty of more supports that I could go into, if I had the time. For homework, read up on these links. They're hand picked by me, so you know they're good 1. R.R. Martin Tells You What's What (that's the Game of Thrones guy, for those of you who aren't into that sort of stuff) 2. World Building and You: How to be an Awesome God of Imagination 3. A Sum-Up of This Lesson and Part 1, but Written by Someone Else Is that everything? I think that's everything... oh. Wait. Before you go: Don't. Do. The. Thing. Okay, so you know how we've established that skiers need supports to stop from falling down and dying? Okay, a skier with protective suit and two skis and poles is fine. But a skier with five pillows, two sets of goggles, twelve poles, nine skies, and a big marshmallow helmet will crash and burn just as easily as one with only one ski! You can't juggle that many things going on! A story with too many supports will be as bad as one with no supports at all!!!! Okay, okay! You say. How can I tell? Easy. Remember what I said was the most important part of the story? Think hard, now. The main character must have a goal. Good job! Now, every time you add a support, think to yourself: how will this help my main character achieve their goal? Think about the ski thing again. We give our skier two skis, two poles, bindings, boots, a suit, and a helmet. This is to help them reach the goal of skiing to the bottom of the mountain and making it there in one piece without dying. Just the same, your supports MUST have a way of helping the main character to reach their goal one way or another, or else it's just extra baggage that'll weigh the story down until it has no way of moving forward. Like it? Am I still stupid and know even less than before? Can't wait for part 3? Let me know!

Hey, so recently I started making a game and I wanted to incorporate a puzzle in which the player pushes 3 barrels across a river to make a bridge. That would allow the player to use the barrels to get across and, therefore, have access to the other side. However, I have no clue how to even start with this. I have looked up tutorials on how to do this but the only pretty helpful one that I found had imgur images and they were broken, which means I couldn't see the event pages in the first place :/ So, I'm sorry if it seems nooby, but I'd like to know how I could pull this off using things like switches, events and variables and preferably without a script. Any help on the topic is very much appreciated Images are helpful

Welcome to the new Pixel Dojo. In this training hall we will be focusing on making pixel art and game art for RPGMaker MV. Many of the concepts I have talked about in the past at the original Pixel Dojo apply here as well. This thread, however, will focus on the creation of resources to be used in the new MV engine. Pixel Dojo MV will also be using a new format: video tutorials! Tutorial 1: Let's Make a TV Check out the .gif in the spoiler to see what we will be making. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Tutorial 2: How to "Zombify" Your Sprites Tutorial 3: Finding Inspiration for Your Pixel Art Tutorial 4: Animating Bird Sprites + Spriting an Owl ***NEW*** -Enjoy. OCS.

Hello everyone, this my first thread about creating some stuff, i think i should share it, so what the topic is? in this thread we will create a battleback perspective look like 2.5D with some tools. and this is a tool we need to craft it. Photoshop Lightshot (if you dont have just take it with normal print screen button) Engine RMVXA step by step. 1. open your RMVXA project and create new map. make width and height like default (17 x 13) change your tileset with the tileset you wanna use. then ok 2. oke you have create one map for creating battleback then create a floor like you want, tile y(1-10) & x(1-15) is your floor, tile y(11) is your map, so you must give a border 1 tile for easy to cutting. cut it with lightshot or printscreeen button. 3. open the result of your screenshot to photoshop make the side is transparent use magic wand tool, for easy to clear. use rectangular marquee tool, to select image floor with out wall. cut it / copy it to a new layer. back use move tool, and select the image, right click choose perspective. and transform it like this. 4. then save it in png, btw the layer should be in large (544,416). Oke you have done create it, then lets use it, that will be useless if you cant use it right? oke i have a simple script to create battleback3 and battleback4, so thats will be easy us to use this. #=============================================================================== # # simple script to creating battleback 3 and battleback 4 # # created by : Cleosetric #=============================================================================== class Spriteset_Battle #-------------------------------------------------------------------------- # * aliasing initialize #-------------------------------------------------------------------------- alias oad_battle_initialize initialize def initialize oad_battle_initialize create_battleback3 create_battleback4 end #-------------------------------------------------------------------------- # * new method battleback 3 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------- def create_battleback3 @back3_sprite = Sprite.new(@viewport1) @back3_sprite.bitmap = Cache.battleback1("battle_cover") rescue "" @back3_sprite.z = 3 center_sprite(@back3_sprite) end #-------------------------------------------------------------------------- # * new method battleback 4 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------- def create_battleback4 @back4_sprite = Sprite.new(@viewport1) @back4_sprite.bitmap = battleback_setup rescue Cache.battleback1("default") @back4_sprite.z = 4 center_sprite(@back4_sprite) end #-------------------------------------------------------------------------- # * new method battleback setup #-------------------------------------------------------------------------- def battleback_setup Cache.battleback1(battleback2_name) end end and this the final result of my game because i cant upload archive file in attachment so download the material from my drive : https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_HSOB0ST6tkOXJzMFRDelVuMGc and very sorry about the large image

Hoof to: Making gif's Using GIMP Free and simple way to create awesome banners! ~ Intoduction For the second or third time, I was asked how did I make my animated banners in my signature. Though I wish the answer would be 'professional' sounding, I'm actually using a simple method. + PROS - It's very easy (assuming, that you know the basics of using GIMP) - It's 100% Free - No quality loss like it happens with movie-to-gif converters (pixel~shading corruption) '- though there is still the gif type file's color limit - FULL control on every single pixel, frame and timing - CONS - It requires some time to make gifs - It may take ages to create complex gifs - Requires patience (dependable on complexity) ~ Let's hoof it! Don't be scared by the amount of steps and text in here. ^^ There's that much stuff, because I'm showing step by step, how I'm making my gifs, but if you have your layers ready (let's say you have 5 images and you want to make a gif with them to display all of them in one image file), then simply skip the first steps and check how to create a gif with your images. STEP 1: Create a New Image [►] SKIP TO NEXT STEP IF YOU KNOW THE BASICS OF GIMP [►►] SKIP IF YOU HAVE YOUR LAYERS ALREADY AND JUST WANT TO MAKE A GIF OF IT Just click "File" tab and select "New..." or simply use [Ctrl + N] shortcut. Then select your dimensions and click OK. For this tutorial, I'll create a simple progress bar gif with a size of 300x20. And we'll get this: And you have a new image! Well done! That's it! Now export it and upload to your signature! JK! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) STEP 2: Draw or Import Your Banner [►►] SKIP IF YOU HAVE YOUR LAYERS ALREADY AND JUST WANT TO MAKE A GIF OF IT Well, now you need to draw your banner. It is important to keep things in separate layers, to not have problems later. For this tutorial, I've made a silly progress bar: STEP 3: Animate Animated Parts [►►] SKIP IF YOU HAVE YOUR LAYERS ALREADY AND JUST WANT TO MAKE A GIF OF IT Now we'll have to multiply our blue layer and make a simple animation with it. In this tutorial, I'll be simply moving these 'arrows' to the right. Complexity of the gif depends on how fast you'll get back to the beginning, for example I'll need 12 layers to make one arrow cover another, which will allow me to loop it. So first, let's duplicate the blue layer and move its content to the right by one pixel: I have marked the copied layer with purple, so now let's copy the purple layer and move it again to the right by one pixel: Repeat that action until you'll get a loop with the first frame (the blue layer): WARNING! Big gif, opening this spoiler may cause lag ( i ) NOTE: As seen on the gif above, the animation goes from the BOTTOM to the TOP, so the animation starts with the very bottom layer and goes all the way up. Now as you can see, it will loop, so now we're able to move further. STEP 4: Clean Remainings [►►] SKIP IF YOU HAVE YOUR LAYERS ALREADY AND JUST WANT TO MAKE A GIF OF IT Probably you have noticed, that the arrows are getting out of the bar and that's right, we need to remove them. Make every animated layer visible at once and you'll get this: Now you can see all animated layers at once and you can clearly see how the arrows are getting out. Now use selection tool (it can be either the normal Rectangle one or "Free Select Tool" or whatever you're comfortable with) to select the area with the arrows outside the bar: Now simply scroll though the animated layers and delete these parts. You can highlight the top frame and just press [DEL] then [ ↓ ] and again [DEL], [ ↓ ] and repeat... Be careful to not delete that part in a BASE layer etc.. After cleaning, you'll see this: STEP 5: Merge Stuff [►►] SKIP IF YOU HAVE YOUR LAYERS ALREADY AND JUST WANT TO MAKE A GIF OF IT Now let's merge the animated part with the base, but keep the percentage layer separate for future. Our awesome animation took 12 frames, so let's duplicate the BASE layer to make 12 of them and merge animation layers with the base ones, so each layer will have BASE and the ANIMATION: Now we have the base prepared! STEP 6: Put the Values! [►►] SKIP IF YOU HAVE YOUR LAYERS ALREADY AND JUST WANT TO MAKE A GIF OF IT Let's assume we have 20% of the progress, so we'll have to edit the percent layer and create a new one (I'll name it "FILL"), where we'll fill the bar: Note, that all the BASE (with animation) is at the bottom and the changeable stuff is at the top. Now SAVE all of this as a PROJECT to be able to access it (the layered version) later in case if you would like to change the percentage and move the bar etc.. As you can see, the banner looks generally ready, but we still need to put the percentage and fill on each frame, so when everything is ready, merge FILL with PERCENTAGE and duplicate it to be able to combine it with each BASE. Technically do the same as when merging arrows (animation) with BASE. Now don't save! Because you'll have troubles with editing it later as the layers will be merged. You may however, save this as a new project if you want to, but keep the raw version, because it's important. STEP 7: Exporting GIF! [◄◄] GO BACK TO SEE AN EXAMPLE ON HOW TO PREPARE IMAGES Now there's the main point of this tutorial, so if you have skipped the previous parts, because you know the basics and stuff, then you'll be totally fine from there. We have a project with 12 layers: WARNING! Big gif, opening this spoiler may cause lag Now we want to make a gif of it, then it's a very simple process. > Click 'File' tab and select "Export As..." OR simply use the shortcut by pressing and holding [Ctrl] and [shift] then pressing the [ E ] button. > Name your file and put .gif extension to it. For example name it: Progress Bar.gif > Oh noes! A warning emerged! This is because for some reason (I wasn't paying attention where it exactly happened) my layers are bigger than the image size: ~so this warning box is telling me, that I need to get rid of the extra-size of the layers in order to export the file as a gif. Don't worry it's nothing scary, just use the "Crop" skill and you'll one-hit-KO that enemy. Fun fact: When you'll click "Cancel" then GIMP will freeze for a moment. I think it's a bug, but after ~20 seconds it will un-freeze and throw an error, that you need to crop the layers or something. > Setup your gif ● Tick "As animation" box ● Tick "Loop forever" box ● Set delay between frames (it applies to ALL* frames) ~ the less, the faster '-> 15 is minimum. A value less than that, will result in slow-motion ~ the gif will be played weirdly ● Set "(replace)" in the frame disposal, so it will be displaying the layers one after another (You can use "(combine)" when dealing with transparency stuff ~ ~ one layer will be covering another and combining ~ you can experiment with that) > AND CLICK EXPORT! ^^ * ALL - I'll show how to setup different delays for each frame later, no worries. [ I I ] PAUSE HERE AND CHECK HOW TO SETUP DIFFERENT DELAYS NOW Step 8: Checking the exported gif [◄◄] GO BACK TO SEE AN EXAMPLE ON HOW TO PREPARE IMAGES [◄] GO TO PREVIOUS STEP TO SEE HOW TO EXPORT A GIF Now you have your gif file, so you'll probably want to see how it looks like. You can open it with "Windows Media Player", but this guy doesn't play gifs very well, especially when dealing with transparency. As long as you don't have any transparent points and you're basing only on "(replace)" then it should play it nicely. Personally I'm checking my gifs by opening a new tab in "Google Chrome" and just drag'n'dropping the file to the browser, then it will play the gif perfectly. Now when it does look right, upload it to image hosting sites, such as Imgur and simply use the image's URL in the text editor like with normal (like .png) pictures. STEP +: Setting Different Delays to Each Layer As you know, you can set the delay between frames during exporting the gif. You probably also noticed, that it says "where unspecified" - yes, you can set it before exporting. You just need to add 'commands' in the layer's name. for example "(50ms)" - will set the delay of this frame to 50ms. Putting for example (10000ms) in a layer's name will make it stop for a while on that frame. How it looks like in GIMP: You don't have to setup delays in every single frame. You can, for example when wanting to let's say put a delay of 2000ms in two frames and put 40ms in the rest, then you can simply add "(2000ms)" to the two frames and the rest fill automatically during exporting, where it asks what delay to set for frames, where it is unspecified. You can also during exporting tick a box, that will overwrite ALL layers and set the delay you'll enter there for all frames. [◄◄] GO BACK TO WHERE YOU'VE PAUSED (BEGINNING OF STEP 8) RESULT: With delay set to 40 ms: With delay set to 15 (minimum) ms: With the delays (with stops) set manually from Step +: THE END [ I◄ ] BACK TO THE TOP FAQ Q: What is the maximum possible delay of one frame? A: To be honest I don't know. I was using values like (20000ms) and it was working. I wasn't using higher values, but I guess you could go much higher than that. Q: How to edit the gif when I'd like to move the bar and stuff? A: That's why I told to save the project and keep the raw version. After you'll merge the layers and export the gif, it is quite difficult to edit. Having the 'raw' version will allow you to start from step 6, which is easier than struggling with each frame, though it also depends on complexity. Q: The gifs that you were posting all over the place - are they all made that way? A: Yes, all of my gifs were made using GIMP. Even this one: Q: Why it takes ages to export a gif? A: The more layers gif will have, the more time it will require to render. This process is not visible, so just wait. Q: I don't have GIMP, but I would like to download it, where I can do this and it is free? A: Yes, this program is free and you can download it from here. Q: I don't like GIMP - I'm too pro for this and I'm using Photoshop, how can I make a gif there? A: Sorry, no idea. I'm using GIMP. Q: Can I do this in Paint? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) A: I have no idea, but I doubt it ~ haven't checked, at least. Q: How big and long gifs I can make? A: I was making gifs that had about 200 frames and besides slightly long export time I've not encountered any issue, so I'm not sure if technically there's any limit. Q: For a comparison, how many frames your gifs have? A: My MLP Progress bar has 20 frames and each frame have delay set to 40ms. The MLP banner above the progress bar has 24 frames and also with delay set to 40ms for each frame. Q: lol Riki, how much time did you spent making this tutorial? A: 6 hours. Yes, I have really spent 6 hours on that (from ~8:00PM to ~2:00AM) working along the tutorial to give as much accurate images as I could and then polishing stuff at the end. If you'll have any questions or if there's a problem with something (grammar issue/typo/other) then let me know! ^^ I hope it will be useful for somebody! (= [ I◄ ] BACK TO THE TOP [ I◄◄] BACK TO GENERAL RM TUTORIALS [ I◄◄◄] RETURN TO COMMUNITY INDEX

Hi, í'm actually working in my own rpg game, i want to create my own character sprites but i don't like the chibi models, so i would like to make my characters with a mack model, but i can't find any tutorials on the internet to make them, i need tips because it's really hard (at least for me) to make a mack sprite compared to a chibi sprite, any useful help/tips/information will be appreciated. Also, just in case, the difference between those two models... Chibi sprite: Mack sprite: Basically, the mack sprites are larger and have a normal body/head size, meanwhile the chibi ones have a huge head and a tiny body.

NOTE: This tutorial is TWO part. The second part will be posted soon. The first part is a step by step (literally) tutorial for generating a parallax map with GIMP and the second part will be learning how to use Yami's Overlay Script to use our new creation. This is a tutorial for beginners and I will go through the entire process with PAINSTAKING detail. Please notify me of any errors! I will make an advanced tutorial after I finish this one. PART 1: Parallax Mapping for Beginners. Step 1: Laying our foundation OK, let's click NEW and make a decent sized map, let's do 640x480. Let's right click the "Background" layer and delete it, then right click and New Layer and let's make a transparent layer. We should be here. Now we need some resources. As I'm truthfully unsure of the rules of secondary distribution, I will provide primary links when possible for any resources used here. We all need to be on the same playing field, but be mindful that you should be learning the principles of map development here, the resources are really not the crucial part as you will soon find that you can even use the RTP to make really staggering maps. At the end of the tutorial I will give a short talk regarding everything you need to know about for resources. So -- the first step for making our map is going to be deciding what type of map we want to make. I will happily take requests for ANY type of map in the future (I prefer medieval themed). For this tutorial, we will make a autumn-themed rural area with a house. I choose this because it will give us a decent opportunity to see a bunch of various tricks. The second step we need is our foundation, a base that we can build off of. Ok - Let's get our hands on Celianna's A2 tileset, it should look like this. (I can't find it on Celianna's website, and the alternate link isn't working, it can be found HERE: http://hunter-maker.forosactivos.net/t670-tilesets-increibles) I will replace this link once I can find a proper one. If this link is removed, just google it, it's there. Please be mindful of our layers on the right. If a layer is ABOVE on the list, it will take precedence over and layers below. Click the little "eye" symbol to close the view on that layer. We have a handful of tools on the left here, they look like this. Do not be intimidated by this, once you get the hang of it, you'll do all of this mindlessly. Ok, let's take a look at three tools right off the bat, our SELECTION TOOLS. 1) Rectangular Selection, 2) Ellipse Selection, and 3) Free Selection. In my experience, only worry about the 1) and 3) and forget about 2). These tools will allow us to make a selection. They look like this: Selections are extremely important because they allow us to chop up images and only make alterations to certain parts, etc. They are crucial. Now take a look at this tool, the Clone Tool. Another crucial tool. This one will allow us to take a PATTERN and use that pattern. What's a pattern? It's simple: we take a selection (rememeber those? ) and turn our selections into patterns to draw with. In other words, we can take a selection of grass, and then turn our whole screen into grass. We can do the same for dirt, and some rocks, etc... This is how we build our base. Let's build our base, shall we? Take the following selection of Celi's A2 tilset. Right click (or shortcut) Edit > Copy then Right Click > Edit > Paste As > NEW PATTERN A window will pop up (might take a second) and let's name our first pattern "Light Grass." There's a couple things we need to do, but first let's go up top to the toolbar where you see "File, Edit, Select, View, Image...etc" and click "Select" and click "None." It's important to de-select your selections. Forgetting to do so will cause some frustrating issues. Now let's click our recent friend, the Clone Tool. Then click the Tool Tab, pictured here: The tool tab will give you the relevant tool information for whichever tool you have selected. The important ones below are "Opacity" "Size" "Hard Edge" and most importantly, "Pattern." Pictured here: Briefly, opacity will control how much of magnitude is behind whatever you are drawing. If you have a low opacity, you won't be able to see it very well. Well, why would we do that? Take a look at 100 opacity grass vs. 50 opacity. Sometimes, we just don't want the full image. Sometimes we do. Is it a light trail? Is it the deep forest? Context matters And we will be able to make the same image bend to our needs once we learn the tricks of the trade OK where were we? Right. Size will control how large your drawing size is (be mindful of the brush box which controls how we draw, which shapes, etc..). Hard Edge will eliminate opacity and always use 100% opacity if it is checked off. And lastly let's click "Pattern" and select the grass we just highlighted, Light Grass! Now let's just select Hard Edge, put the size @ 250, change the brush to the first one "Pixel." Now let's draw on the whole map and fill it with grass. Be mindful of whatever layer you're using (you should be using the new layer we made above!) Take a look: Very nice! Alright, now click that funny "eye" symbol next to our first layer and let's go back to Celi's A2 tileset. Remember what we did above to make a new pattern? We are going to do that again for the dark green grass and the dirt. Make a pattern out of the following two selected graphics, name them respectively Heavy Grass and Dirt: Make sure, after your two new patterns are added, to go to Select > None. Let's go back to our first layer. (click the eye to make it appear) and make sure that layer is highlighted. Any changes to the map will only occur on the highlighted layer, so be mindful of which layer is highlighted. I can't tell you how many times I've done TONS of work on an invisible layer only look up and wonder where all my work went. Terrible. Alright, let's go back to the clone tool, and this time uncheck Hard Edge and let's bring our opacity to 50 and select Heavy Grass. Again, let's add it all over the map. Should look like this! Only click down once, if you click again, it will be more opaque than the previous click! OK time to give our map a little bit of character! Select our dirt pattern, go to opacity 15 and lets grab that Acrylic 05 brush and fill the whole map up. Should look like this: We are almost done with our base. Let's learn about another tool, the Dodge/Burn tool. It looks like this: This tool is extremely important and it is very versatile. When you get confident to make maps on your own, you will realize that this can be used for so much. Dodging means you make the colors LIGHT and burning means you make the colors DARK. It's great for giving the effect of sun shining on one side of an object, dark on the other side. If you have SHADOWS selected, it will affect the darkest colors (black) more than the other colors. If you have midtones, it will affect (you guessed it!) colors in the middle of the darkest and brightest, and highlights will be the brightest colors. Let's select this tool and, im not joking, randomly burn and dodge on our map. Control + Z = undo if you want to take back any changes. Just swirl it about, make the grass look original. This is what I got! We have just finished our base. Now we have a base and it is OURS. ITS OURS. There are no RTP graphics for grass that look like this. There are probably no other maps in the world that look exactly look your base does. Let's compare what we have to the RTP. Don't laugh Right? Is this even a joke? The difference is enormous. And it's so subtle. And it's so EASY. That takes.. maybe.. 2 minutes to do TOPS. Alright, but our map looks awfully barren. We need.. More.. Let's grab our Clone Tool and select Dirt but this time we are going to do 50 opacity. Keep our brush on the Acrylic but let's reduce the size to 70. Now let's draw a path. You don't need to copy me exactly, but maybe it would be best to do it similar just for our current purposes. I got this: Alright, great. Now let's do some magic. Right click in the layers box and "New Layer" and name this one "BUMP." Highlight our BUMP layer and select the tool with the icon of the paint bucket tipping. Now Select the foreground color square and lets change the HTML notation to "808080" which is grey. Confused? Take a look: Once we have grey foreground color selected, just click anywhere in the screen. The bucket fill tool will fill the entire screen (or current selection, remember those?) with the color chosen. We chose grey for a reason. I won't explain now. Your screen should be entirely grey. But its okay! We didn't lose any work. We just need to re-order our layers! Drag the BUMP layer under our first layer. All should be restored! Now what do we do with the bump layer? Click the pen tool, select our Acrylic 05 tool, go to 75 opacity and 70 size for the tool. Make sure the color is now black (html code = 000000). And now, this might be confusing, but just trust me, we are going to select the BUMP layer (even though we cant see it), and we are going to trace our path with the black pen onto the bump map. Weird. The Bump layer should look like this now. But why? Let's make sure we have the first layer (not the bump layer) selected and now let's go up to Filters > Map > Bump Map. You should be here. At the top, where it says "bump map" select our bump layer. Let's put our depth at 2. Feel free to mess with the controls, but I'm going to leave the other options alone for now and hit OK with 2 depth. VOILA! We have a beaten path! Look at that. Three textures have done SO MUCH work for us! Looking good, but it just looks so empty. Let's grab some beautiful resources. Go to: http://pixanna.nl/materials/celiannas-tileset/ and find tileB(1). Drag it into our program and let's get to adding details! Please be mindful of Celianna's distribution policy. You can use her graphics if you credit her with a non-commercial game. For a commercial license, you must contact her. Always be mindful of the licensing requirements for all artists whose material you use! It's the rules. OK Remember our selection tool friends? Let's select a beautiful tree. (I erased some stuff around it to get a nice, clean selection.) Copy and paste and right click our floating selection in the layer box and click "To New Layer." Ok click the "eye" symbol to get rid of the TileB(1) layer and let's zoom out a bit. Take a look at the move tool, it looks like intersecting arrows. Click it and then under it click "move the active layer." Now lets right click our tree layer and "duplicate layer." Make a bunch and let's scatter them! WAIT. We can't just scatter them, dummies, we need to make sure where they are placed, are in positions that are not awkward for the player. (we should have done this when we made our trail, oops). It's okay. Go to Image > Configure Grid, and type in 32x32 under 'Spacing' and click OK. Then go to View > Show Grid. Take a look. This is displaying how the player will move from tile to tile -- where the player will go. We need to make sure we aren't causing weird awkward positioning for the player. Now, let's place some trees! To illustrate what I mean by placing the trees perfectly, take a look at these placements, the red is where we will assign that the player cannot walk in the program. Of course, this is all up to you, and there are lots of work arounds, but let's stick with the basics for now. Ok. We need more detail! Get your resources and ADD THEM! I'm going to this link: http://pixanna.nl/materials/celiannas-parallax-tiles/exterior-tiles/ and grabbing the second of the medieval houses. I really like these two in particular. Well, I like the building on the left, but I wish it looked a bit more worn down. Right click that building layer on the map and go to Colors > Hue/Saturation and let's do -10 for each option there. Let's look at our house now. Cool cool cool. I like the barn on the right, but not the building. Hmm.. Go to our selection tool and let's just highlight the barn and Control + X (cut) or right click Edit > Cut. And lets paste that to a new layer and get rid of the rest of it. Let's place our buildings somewhere nice. Notice that I place the house door DIRECTLY in front of a tile so the player can seamlessly trigger an event on the door. But I don't do the same for the barn because (unless you have the capabilities) we don't have any obvious interaction with the entrance of the barn like we do with the house. Shouldn't there be a path between the two? Select our first layer and let's add a path. You remember how! If not, scroll up! Remember that our path here should be a bit lighter, so maybe only 40 opacity on our black bump layer trail. My path came out a little too dark for my liking, so I dodged it a bit. Here's what I got! We are missing the most important part to any map. ...DETAILS! Find some fine resources and add some flowers, dirt, rocks, smaller trees, a well, more grass, big stones, and always keep in mind that you can add event details too, like a fluttering butterfly and some birds, etc. Here's what I got! Jeez. There's so much more to learn! But this is a great start. And there's also so much more to add! A farmer chopping wood, leaves fluttering through the air, it's all so accessible. Sound effects, too, birds chirping, wind on its way to somewhere. Feel free to send me or post your maps that you made while following along, I would love to see them. The next part of this tutorial will be how to get your map into your game seamlessly! How do we make sure the parts of the tree that are supposed to be over the player go there? What about the parts that aren't? It seems daunting, but it's all very easy, I assure you. Until then, fellow traveler

I've played a lot of games, and one thing I constantly got tired of seeing was loads and loads of tutorials in the beginning stages. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated them a load of times (I never would've figured out Dark Souls parrying system without it), but the vast majority of them are redundant. I know how to shoot the gun (unless it's some incomprehensible button like Shift) or that I'm supposed to follow the only NPC not trying to kill me. I'm not saying they aren't important for obscure parts of the game, especially if you create something original, but many seem excessive. The reason I'm bringing that up is because my game is full of combat and puzzles. Now the combat system is almost self explanatory, requiring maybe a brief overview to explain Yanfly's Free Turn Battle system to those unacquainted. The puzzles are just as simple, ranging from riddle solving with clues in the nearby environment (we're talking in the same room, and they're the only objects in the room) to switch-gates (you step on a button, switch opens or closes. Certain buttons open gates or close gates, or both. You've probably seen it). My question is this: Does any of that really require a tutorial? Unless you're a total novice to gaming in general, you've probably seen most of these sort of things before (obviously I'd give a basic premise of the controls beforehand, as many new RPG Maker game-players don't know Enter is the Action Button). Thoughts?

Auto-walk This is my first attempt at a tutorial, have a few more planned but please tell me how I could improve it or where I can clarify. Please find attached a basic demo of the Auto-walk demonstrating the features and showing the eventing in detail. autowalk demo (dropbox link) Basic premise - Using eventing a some knowledge of script calls (no scripts needed) you can have a common event that allows for the player characters to follow a road or a path 1 tile wide in any shape or path that you have drawn it - at the press of a button. This was inspired by the Witcher 3 where, if you hold down a button when riding your horse it will automatically follow the road. I have been making big maps - really big, and on these maps I've been drawing in roads, but it gets a little tiresome to explore these maps by moving around holding a direction. I'd been looking for a script that could do something like this but with no luck. Luckily, with a bit of rooting around and thinking me and my bro managed to figure out something that works for us, and might work for you. Example of a map with road drawn on - How it works - At the press of a button your character will follow a path, stopping when you press a directional button or at the end of the road or at a crossroads. you can draw any kind of road 1 tile wide on a map of any size and it should work. The only script I've used is yanfly's button to common event, but it is not necessary to get auto walk working, only for convince. you do not need the script but it does make auto-walk simpler. link to script What you'll need - 1. You will need to create 3 blank events per map, and they will all need to have the same id - the simplest way is to have them be event 1, event 2, and event 3. They should be blank and have the through box ticked. 2. You will need 1 common event slot - everything will be handled here. 3. For the terrain that you want the player to autowalk on you will need to go to the Database, Tilesets, Terrain Tags and modify the number of the terrain to something that you aren't using for any other terrain. I've set roads to terrain tag 5 and am not using it for any other terrain other then roads. Important to note I've discovered that at a normal move speed the auto-walk does not seem to work all that well - I've found that the max move speed that it works at is about 3.6. you can use a simple script call to alter the move speed - $game_player.instance_eval("@move_speed = 3.6") I've made it so the common event in the demo changes the players move speed while auto-walking, but this is not pictured in my screen shot below. Auto-walk Common Event In the spoiler you can see the whole common event that I'm using - there are a few bits that may be redundant but it more or less works (lol) The initial conditional branch is to make sure that the event does not proceed if the player is not on a road - this prevents interference on maps that you do not want the autowalk to function on. you can similarly use a switch or variable or map id for the condition. Below that starts the loop. in the demo I've included a script call to change the players speed to 3.6 - the max speed I've found that the auto walk works at properly - any faster and is doesn't seem to turn correctly. you might be able to figure out how to get it working better than me xD At the start of the loop you'll see a conditional branch by player direction - this then uses a script call to place events 1,2,3 respectively in front, and to either side of the player. this needs to be repeated for each event and for each possible direction the player can face. Just below there is a nested conditional branch that reads the terrain tags of events 2 and 3 and calls a move route for the player to wait for one frame. this makes the player come to a halt at crossroads or where multiple roads intersect. Below that is the conditional branch reading the terrain tags of event 1 - the event in front of the player. this simply reads that if the terrain tag is 5 (a road terrain) the player preforms 1 step forward, skipping if unable to move. In the conditional branch, as well as in the conditional branches that follow you'll see I've included nested conditional branches that in the case of any direction being pressed the loop will break - this is so at any point during the auto-walk you can resume control of the player character. In this conditional branch there is a jump to label: loop, taking you back to the label at the top of the common event at the start of the loop - this is necessary so that during the auto-walk the player movement prefers going forward to turning at junctions. The next two conditional branches are identical, reading the terrain tags of events 2 and 3 - in the case of event 2 it would turn the player character right by 90 degrees and step forward, in the case of event 3 left by 90 degrees and a step. You can see that I've included a wait for 5 frames after each - that is so the move has time to execute / be registered before the event loops. Nested in the conditional branches all the way to the bottom are repeated the conditional branch to break the loop by direction pressed - I'm not sure if all of them are entirely necessary, but I've included them because it was working for me xD. At the bottom, after the look (not pictured) is a script call to return movement to normal speed. Finally - The common event in the demo attached differs slightly from whats pictured, and includes the yanfly button to common event script. you should be able to see it working. Well, thats about it I reckon. This is the first tutorial I've tried my hand out, not sure how helpful it might be - I was just excited at having figured out how to do something like this and thought to share it with youse all. I hope you can find something to use in whatever project you're working on here, and in the future I might try my hand at a couple of other tuts to do with mapping or variable terrain speed. Thanks for reading! autowalk demo (dropbox link)

I'm looking for a good tutorial or set of tuts that teaches how to make Mack-Style sprites. I'm familiar with their deminsions and how to implement them into a project, I just need better tutorials on the actual art and creation of them. NOT LOOKING FOR: A sprite generator resource sprites, pre-made Anything that does all the work for you. I want to learn how to make them myself, I am just having trouble finding good tutorials as 90% of everything just points to generators and other peoples resource sprites. I don't want it done for me or to use someone else's work. All help with this is greatly appreciated

You've got this big world to play in now, which is great, Tons of monsters and loot and the like. But something's missing. And that something is a story to tie it all together. What's the point? Stories are (almost always, anyway) essentially the "bread" to your RPG, with battles and world exploration being the sweet butter. Mmmmm~ A-Anyway, a good story to explain why the world is how it is, will make your game that much better. Sure, going around killin' monsters and taking their stuff for no reason is all well and good. But that just makes you look like a dick. No, we need to know why you're doing it. Why we should care about that mystical crystal or...whatever. Where do I begin? See, this is one of the cool things about it. You can basically start wherever you want! I mean, why not right? It's your story. This is YOUR world! But there are a few things you need to remember when starting your story. Why are we starting here? Why should I care about my protagonist? Is this info relevant? You always want to make sure the player knows exactly why we're starting where we're starting. Who the main character is, and why they should give a damn, and to always keep the info you give the player at the start, relevant. Otherwise they're likely to say "Screw this." and quit. Ok, I've goten the basics I think... I just want to make this clear. No matter how many tutorials you look up, if you don't have the creativity or originality to make a good story. Then it won't happen. Yes, these tips and multiple others around the internet can help. But without the creativity, you're not gonna get far. So let me tell you what you should avoid, now I'm not saying you CAN'T make a story about these topics. I'm just saying that, more often than not, they're just...not good to use as plot points. But, don't let me stop you from proving me wrong. The "chosen" one. Heroes of Light (That's final fantasy's thing. They called it first.) The bad guy is the good guy/The good guy is the bad guy. Time Travel. Time Loops (Suggested by Maki13) Let me stress, these CAN be done well. But if not, it's not gonna end well to use these as a plot device. Let's start with the first one, The chosen one, that's the one I've chosen. This has been used more than anything else in games. RPG or not. Now I'm not saying our hero can't be "chosen". But unless there's alot of intricate and interesting stuff all circling back and explaining WHY he's chosen. It won't go over well. Almost NEVER is it a good idea to give the hero a power that everyone else doesn't have. (excluding elemental spells specific to their class.) Heroes of Light. This is obvious. Final Fantasy's been doing it forever. Now, it can be done well. But I'm just letting you know not to just say. "They're heroes of light and that's why they gotta do it." and leaving it at that. That's just not good. ...Bad! ...Bad storywriter! The good guy is the bad guy, vice versa. Now, this one isn't so much something you should avoid, as much as it is something to be careful with. It can be done, spectacularly. But you have to give good reason. Not just say "He was actually the bad guy all along! Dun dun dunnnnn!" No, we need more info, we need backstory, reasoning, etc. Time Travel. This is also, not something to flat out avoid, just something to be CAREFUL with. Time Travel is VERY easy to screw up. You need to pay attention to every single little tiny detail, and make sure to alter it accordingly with the Time Travelling plot. For instance, if there's a part in your game where, in the past, a guy is choppin' down a tree. Make the future version of this area have a tree stump, but no guy there. To show the passage of time. That's basic. Just..keep all your details in check when using this as a plot device. Maki13: Time Loops. It's a really great theme if done right, but is pretty difficult to execute. It's less fragile than Time Travel (You don't need to adjust action-reaction effects much), but can be pretty entwining in the long run. Especially if you make the characters being able to remember the loop. Even the ones that (in my opinion) executed really well, such as the Mekakucity Project, still confuses many audiences. Also I think it depends on the target audience; if one's aiming for the more curious/theory-crafter/thinker people, then Time Loop is usually more rich and stuffed to write. On the other hand if the audience is more younger and/or "ordinary", then it's probably better to stick with good ol' Time Travel. WHAT A TWIST?! So, there doesn't HAVE to be a twist in your game. But if there is, and if it's done right. It can make the player that much more interested, and impressed. A good twist is hard to pull of, but when you're attempting to do so, remember these things. Why did this happen? Does this even make sense? HOW is it a twist? The player needs to know exactly how things came to be this way. And you gotta make sure it makes sense. And it's not a twist if it's just something unexpected. No, it needs to be something that COMPLETELY changes what you thought you knew about the story. Not just a small detail or two. That's all the tips I can think of at the moment, I'm not claiming to be a master story writer myself, but I know a thing or two, and I figured I'd share those things with you. I'm truly hoping this helped at least one person in their story-writing adventures. Thank you for your time!

This is my first VX Ace tutorial which simply came into fruition by not already existing and the frustrations I went through myself going over other tutorials which while not bad, were just simply lacking in information for what myself and many others wish to achieve: Simple Lighting Effects like the ones shown below . -without the use of Scripts -how to make them -how to implement them. Now, there is already a decent bit of documentation on simple things like this but again, it's spread out in bits in pieces across the web so I've created my own tutorial that shows the entire process from start to finish with added tweaks, tips, lighting practices, and methods to get the most out of simplicity (sound complicated lol. It's 1a.m. ....i've had a lot of coffee). Step 1: Creating the images to be used for your lights. You will need an image editing software such as Photoshop or Gimp (I prefer Photoshop so this tutorial will be using Photoshop images/hotkeys but just apply the same methods in a different program and you should get the same results). In Photoshop create a new document (ctrl + N) set the Width to 333 pixels and the Height to 484 px. Next go to the View drop down menu and choose Rulers. Drag rulers onto your document from the Top and Left side rulers to set up a template like this: Each square section will be a Light Radius, the number of segments (from Left to Right) will determine the complexity of flickering light effects (Candles, Lamps, Torches, etc.) but i'll get into that a little further down. Duplicate your base layer 2x (ctrl+j), Select the 2nd layer, get your Paint Bucket Tool and make the background of Layer 2 Black, this will provide a contrast for your to work with so you can visually see the fall off radius of your lights. Step 2: Select the Elliptical Marquee tool and make a selection (holding Shift keeps the marquee uniform) of a single square on your template. Select the Gradient Tool, Set the type to Radial Gradient, and make it's fill type "Foreground to Transparent". Set your Foreground color to whatever color you would like your light to be then inside your Marquee Selection place your cursor in the center of the circle (sometimes slightly above), hold shift and left click + drag down slightly outside the bottom of the circle, this will fill it with the Gradient. At this point you should have something like this: While you technically could stop here (without the black background of course, needs to be transparent) and have a semi decent looking light, Lighting is such a beautiful and critical aspect of a game and it can completely change the mood, tone, atmosphere and many other factors of a scene so we are going to polish this up. Step 4: Next, Select your Filters drop down menu, Blur, Gaussian Blur and set the px from about 6-10px. MAKE SURE YOUR MARQUEE IS STILL THERE WHEN YOU DO THIS. If it's not and you blur the light, the color may run to the edges of the image which will cause your lights to appear square and not circular. Note: The more blur, the softer the light. Try not to go crazy with blur in your image editor as there are easy ways to tweak the softness of the light in RPG Maker, but for arguments sake, More Blur = Softer Light. That's it as far as a static light goes that will not flicker or animate. Animated Lights/Flickering Effect: This is really just a couple more steps and some repetition of the previous process with just a few simple editing rules to keep in mind while creating your lights. 1. RPG Maker reads the image sheet from Left to Right so your softest light will be at the left and the brightest at the right. 2.Logic from step 1. Flickering Lights should be ordered softest to brightest within their color range. This allows a smooth natural looking flicker/transition between the contrast tones without the player noticing any sharp ugly rapid changes in color. 3.Color Range should make sense. Let's use a candle as an example with the above template. You would have a very soft orange tone/color in box 1, a little more orange saturation/hue in box 2, then more orange/red-ish tone in box 3. Color spectrum of a light is a noticeable thing to say the least. If player walks in and your candle goes from orange to red in 1 flicker, they will notice lol. 4. THIS IS IMPORTANT: Make each Light on the grid on it's OWN LAYER ,(ctrl + shift + N for New Layer) this will save you tons of editing grief when/if you need to adjust the tone of a light. Failure to do so can result in rage inducing headaches. *CaptElfimis is not responsible for any actions a user takes during a rage inducing headace for failure to follow instructions. Once you are finished creating your lights and you are satisfied with them, delete the layer with the black background. Save your Light/Light Sheets as $Lights or whatever you want to name them as long as it has $ as a prefix and file type as .png (or atleast that's what I used, feel free to correct me if there is a better file format, I'm fairly new to this). Open your RPG Maker VXAce project, go to your Resource Manager (F10) ) Then choose Graphics/Characters Folder (That's where I put mine anyways, organize ya own mess) and Click the Import button: Choose your file and once it's imported, select it and hit preview to make sure the image appears correctly. If it did then you are free to use it as a graphic for your lights Making them work: For static lights such as lights from a window or source that will have no variation (flicker) you just simply need to follow these steps: Create New Event (Name it....for the love of god...name your events) and set it up like this: Choose your graphic Untick Walking/Stepping Tick Direction Fix/Through Priority ABOVE Characters (ignore where it says Same as Characters in that image....i need more coffee) Trigger: Parallel Process Movement Type: Custom, click move route, and add Change Blending -> Add. For a Flickering light source, follow the same steps as above but change the following: Tick Walking/Stepping Speed: Fastest Freq:Highest And Viola! Beautiful and subtle lighting effect, no scripts, no hassle. Once you get the hang of creating your own Lights, it's really a fast process to create and implement more sheets to have varying color ranges and light sources. I may in the near future just create a nice set of Light Sheet Graphics depending on demand. Tips/Tweaks: -Add Tints to your scenes that use lighting to adjust the overall light appearance of the scene. This can vastly effect the quality and atmosphere of the lighting. -If your lights appear a bit harsh/bright in game, go to the event and edit the custom move route and change Change Opacity, tweak this until your satisfied. -You can achieve Light Rays for outdoor lighting as well using this method (I'm working on that now, possibly a future tutorial depending on demand) -Experiment with a broad range of colors and light environments. I would make a map solely for testing/editing lights. -Pay attention to Shadow Placement if you really want to get the most out of your lighting. -Make sure your lights make sense. Bright Yellow/Orange lights from the sun shining through your window at night would look rather silly and break immersion for the player. -Study lights and how the interact with environments, search the web, your own home, etc. This can give you excellent perspective to work from. If you have any questions/comments or feel like I missed something, please feel free to say what's on your mind. Capt_Elfimis

Hi guys! I am working on an rpg, and some friends where asking if I'd show them how I was doing some of the stuff I've been doing for the game. So I thought I'd record them and make a little tutorial of my workflow. I'm not the best at this, I've never made tutorials before so I'm learning as I go, but I'd love to share them wit you guys if you're interested. The audio isn't very good in the first two, but the 3rd and 4rth are much better, and I'll continue to provide more from here on as I progress on my own project. BATTLE BACKGROUND 1 - BATTLE BACKGROUND 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsm5Cwsds_g RATLING BATTLER 1 - RATLING BATTLER 2 - I'll do more later, if there is anything specific you'd like to see let me know and I'll try to touch on it. Thanks for looking! Also, here are some of my old tiles if anyone is interested in them. Feel free to use them in your projects, even projects you plan to sell. Just put me somewhere in the credits! And maybe give me a free copy if you can? http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/hyptosis/ff6-recreated http://opengameart.org/content/lots-of-hyptosis-tiles-organized http://opengameart.org/content/lots-of-free-2d-tiles-and-sprites-by-hyptosis http://opengameart.org/content/mage-city-arcanos http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/hyptosis/sprites-and-tiles-for-you http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/hyptosis/tile-art-batch-5 http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/hyptosis/tile-art-batch-3 http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/hyptosis/til-art-batch-2 http://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/hyptosis/tile-art-batch-1 http://www.lorestrome.com/pixel_archive/main.htm << ignore the disclaimer, I need to update the site, everything on this link is free to use too!

How to Create an original JRPG battle theme for beginners!

Spriter's Guide To Spriting :: Trees Hello all, welcome to my first tutorial in a long time. Some of you may know me, others may not(Still others might wish they hadn't). Regardless, I am here on an important mission. I far too often find myself reading about people complaining about how hard spriting is. They more often than not end up using MS paint and creating something like this: Not saying this is bad work, per say, but not what most people are looking for. And it's true, spriting does have a steep learning curve. But the good spriters out there are good for one of two reasons: A: They were born a spriting prodigy, or B: They received proper instruction in the art. What's that? You weren't born a prodigy? Great! I wasn't either! I hope you will be able to take some of this tutorial and apply it to better yourself. In this tutorial I use GIMP, so knowing your way around it would be a good pre-requisite. With that, let's move on to... Understanding Trees (From a spriter's prospective) So this tutorial is mainly about trees. Foliage can be the most difficult of worldly items to create, especially from scratch. Unless drawn fairly simple, it doesn't really have a basic shape to attach itself too. Nature is random and plentiful, so we need to use these attributes and apply them to our in-game flora. To simplify this concept, I have two rules that, if followed, will almost always guarantee a good tree; Bushes are made of leaves. Trees are made of bushes. This may not make sense at the moment, but the meaning behind this will become apparent soon. With these rules in mind, let's continue on to our first lesson. How to sprite a Bush Well, you've made it this far. Good, the force is strong with this one. Let's go ahead and start by spriting a bush. Open a new image in gimp, about 24x24 pixels. This should be plenty of room for you to make a nice little bush. Here is an example of 10 steps from start to finish. Below the image are some tips on each and how I progressed. Setup: Pencil tool set to 1px. Color of your choice selected. Zoom to about 400%. I start off with making a shape that's relative to the shape of the finished product. Makes sense. Use a color you want to use as the base color. I then start to branch off from the circle, making it almost look like a drooping starfish silhouette. It's also ok to use the eraser to form the leaves back into the circle a bit. Choose a lighter color, and start filling in your leaves, starting with the front most one, filling back. As you work back, make note of which leaves are in front, and curve your leaves to show them behind each other. Continue until your leaves fill to the back. About 7-8 leaves is a good number. Choose a darker color than your base color, and fill in some of the outer edges, and a few of the inner ones. Fill in the back most leaves with a medium dark color or two, shading the back leaves. Grab your base color again, and use it to highlight the back leaves, using more highlight the closer it gets to the front. Pick a lighter color, and make a few (not a lot) highlights on the front leaves. Too much can over power it very easily. Finish by filling in the front most lines with a darker color to sharpen the edge. Congratulations! If you were able to follow this fairly easily, you have created a cute little bush. We can stop here, but why? This topic is a work in progress, I will update and continue the tutorial through the next couple of days. My time constraints don't allow me to write this all at once.

I decided to let fairies, in my current project have a swarm effect. What is a swarm effect? Each additional fairy adds more HP to previous existing fairies. It works with other parameters too. I created a common event called: Swarm. Thanks to Galv, I have tested different conditions for the Swarm Event. To keep it simple, the swarm size in this example is three. The three members are Elder Commander, Elder Archer, and Elder Ice. We will be focusing on just adding the Swarm Effect regarding the Elder Archer, in this example. Create a Common Event, and name it Swarm. Double click the @>, in Contents window. In the Event Commands, in Flow Control, select Conditional Branch, select the 2nd tab, choose the actor, and select In the Party. (Elder Archer) Make sure 'Set handling when conditions do not apply' is checked. Press OK. What we are doing here is checking if the actor (Elder Archer) is currently part of the party. You will be now back to the Common Events windows. We will take care of the Else Condition first. What we will be doing is checking to see if the actor (Elder Archer) is functioning and being part of the party, but is not currently part of the party. Double click the @> below the Else, in the Contents window. In the Event Commands, in Flow Control, select Conditional Branch, on the 1st tab, select Switch and press the ... find a free number (I chose 11), and name it (I chose ArcherIn). This switch designates if this particular actor is in the party or not. Double click the @> below the conditional branch just created, in the Contents window. In the Event Commands, in Actor, select Change Parameters. Select desired actor (Elder Commander), For Parameter scroll to MHP. For Operation select Decrease. For Operand input a number (I chose 15, since 15 is how much it was increased). Hit OK. Repeat this procedure for remaining party members. NOTE: Do not put the conditioned party member (Elder Archer) in this part. The do not get Swarm Effect penalties or bonuses for their own selves. After doing the last actor, double click on the next @>. In the Event Commands, in Actor, select Change HP. For Actor, select Entire Party. For Operation select Decrease. For Operand input a number (I chose 15, since 15 is how much it was increased). Note: Make sure to select Allow Knockout, near the bottom. We put this so if the subtraction result for HP goes below 1, the fairy will not die, as a result of a swarm member dying. Hit OK. Since the actor, Elder Archer is not part of the party, at this time, we want to make sure that the ArcherIn Switch is OFF. Double click on the next available @>. In the Event Commands, in Game progression, select Control Switches. When the Control Switch window appears press the ... in the Single column. Finder the item number used (11 was previously chosen, and now reads ArcherIn). Double click it. Now select Off in the Operation section, and hit OK. This previous section of the Swarm Effect handled the condition of handling the actor not being part of the party, but was previously part, and no longer part, of the party. We are now working at the top of the Contents window section. Double click the @> just below the first Conditional Branch. In this example it reads: Conditional Branch: [Elder Archer] is in the Party. In Contents window. In the Event Commands, in Flow Control, select Conditional Branch, select the 2nd tab, choose the actor, and select In the Party. (Elder Archer) Make sure 'Set handling when conditions do not apply is checked. Press OK. What we are doing here is checking if the actor (Elder Archer) is currently part of the party. This is exactly the same as when we did the previous conditional branch. Do not put anything in the @> just below this conditional branch. What this does is that if the ArcherIn switch is already on, it will do nothing. That way, we do not continually add the same bonuses, over and over and over, every time the Swarm Effect is selected. Instead we are going to work with the Else part of this conditional branch, as highlighted below. Double click the @> below the conditional branch just created, in the Contents window. In the Event Commands, in Actor, select Change Parameters. Select desired actor (Elder Commander), For Parameter scroll to MHP. For Operation select Increase. For Operand input a number (I chose 15). Hit OK. Repeat this procedure for remaining party members. NOTE: Do not put the conditioned party member (Elder Archer) in this part. The do not get Swarm Effect penalties or bonuses for their own selves. After doing the last actor, double click on the next @>. In the Event Commands, in Actor, select Change HP. For Actor, select Entire Party. For Operation select Increase. For Operand input a number (I chose 15.). Hit OK. Since the actor, Elder Archer is part of the party, at this time, we want to make sure that the ArcherIn Switch is ON. Double click on the next available @>. In the Event Commands, in Game progression, select Control Switches. When the Control Switch window appears press the ... in the Single column. Finder the item number used (11 was previously chosen, and now reads ArcherIn). Double click it. Now select On in the Operation section, and hit OK. This completes the Swarm Effect. I recommend putting this Common Event just before any Battle Processing event. Now we will focus, on what to do if a party member died in the previous battle. We will create a new Common Event. I named this one Swarm Death. Double click the @>, in Contents window. In the Event Commands, in Flow Control, select Conditional Branch, select the 2nd tab, choose the actor, and select the State option. Select Death, which is the default. Make sure 'Set handling when conditions do not apply' is checked. Hit OK. Just below this conditional branch, double click the @>. Since the actor, Elder Archer, died, we want to make sure that the ArcherIn Switch is OFF. Double click on the next available @>. In the Event Commands, in Game progression, select Control Switches. When the Control Switch window appears press the ... in the Single column. Finder the item number used (11 was previously chosen). Double click it. Now select Off in the Operation section, and hit OK. Double click on the next @>. In the Event Commands, in Actor, select Change Parameters. Select desired actor (Elder Commander), For Parameter scroll to MHP. For Operation select Decrease. For Operand input a number (I chose 15, since 15 is how much it was increased). Hit OK. Do same for each additional party member, but do not include swarm member that just died. After doing the last actor, double click on the next @>. In the Event Commands, in Actor, select Change HP. For Actor, select Entire Party. For Operation select Decrease. For Operand input a number (I chose 15, since 15 is how much it was increased). Note: Make sure to select Allow Knockout, near the bottom. We put this so if the subtraction result for HP goes below 1, the fairy will not die, as a result of a swarm member dying. Hit OK. I recommend putting the Common Event: SwarmDeath just after a battle processing. I have tested the swarm member dying and also the swarm member leaving. Both came back with desired results, of other swarm members losing the swarm benefits gained. I appreciate if any see some shortcomings I may have missed. Thanks, Jay

Talk to X Amount of People Requested by PoorCollegeGuy devonm0 made a great addition here. The first thing you want to do is make the event where the quest is. For mine, I am going to do a grandmother looking for her grandchildren. In the event page 1, you want to add the text and then make a switch that activates the quest. The next event page, you will have the conditions switch set to the quest. Next, make a variable for the quest. Make a conditional branch and set the number to the amount of people you need to talk to. Inside that, you will have the completed quest and you will turn off the quest switch and then turn on self switch B. The third page will have the self switch B on, and have the message with after you completed the quest. Now, to make the children, the simpilist thing to do is to have the variable add by 1. This will make it easy to copy and paste the event. The first page is talking to the children before the quest. The next page is to have it to where the quest is on. It should include the variable and a way to make it so that you do not keep selecting the character after you increased the variable. And that is all there is to making a quest where you need to interact with an X number of people.

Comedy Guide When I took theatre, my teacher said that comedy was the hardest genre to write. I have to agree with him on that. Not only is writing comedy one of my weakest areas in writing, but there is such a thin line you can walk with it. This guide is mainly what my teacher taught me, but please be aware that I'm not the best when it comes to comedy writing. One good feature of good comedy is intelligence and wit. This can be very difficult to accomplish, which is one of the reasons why most modern comedies use "dumb" characters and slapstick jokes. Does this mean that those comedies are bad? Of course not! But there does need to be a moderation of how much of it you use because the audience/player can get irritated or annoyed. This is the thin line I was talking about. You want to make the player laugh or at least smile, but you do not want to get to the point of being annoying, unless you have a scene that requires the player to feel a short term irritation in order to follow through with the joke. One of the more difficult parts of comedy is what is a joke and what is offensive. My teacher gave a heavy warning to not rely on stereotypes for humor since it's a cheap way to try to get laughs. However, I see it as a bit of a gamble instead of being a "cheap" way to get laughs. There is a better change of someone getting upset instead of laughing. So, how do we get the best laughs? The answer is through characters and surroundings. With the characters, the better developed they are, the better the humor can play off them. If you have the humor compliment the personality of the character, then the humor will come off natural. One way to do this is to have two characters with contrasting personalities try to get through an event. Or, even more simple, have a conversation. What you're aiming for is to have both characters well developed enough that they have chemistry in order to carry the scene and the joke. You can also use your surroundings as a way to make humor. If a character is in a strange surrounding and out of their element, this can set up for some humor depending on how you play it out. You can use actions or even the character talking to one's self as a way to further express the humor. One thing you need to watch out for is how far you take a joke with two characters. It's a very thin line from going to something being funny to being very spiteful. This can cause problems if the audience, instead of laughing, feels sympathetic towards the victim of the joke and see it in poor taste. There are comedies that can pull off violence in comedy. If you do want to use violence as comedy, the best advice I can give on that is to make it as over the top as you can. With parodies, the one important thing is to know the original source well. It's also important to research the original source material to understand the environment and characters. To get a good idea of a good parody, I would suggest Young Frankenstein. I hope this guide helps a little bit, and I'm sorry if it's not as detailed as my other one. Comedy is my weakest genre in writing, so if you do have more questions, I can try to find some links on comedy writing to help you out.