Character Effects

[Galv 1,387]

Character Effects - Version 1.8
By Galv

 

Introduction
Been playing with character graphics trying to fumble my way to learn more about sprites. It might be noticeable that I like to do things to improve the visual aesthetics of the game.


Features
This script was made to provide some additional effects for events, followers and the player on the map. Currently it has 4 effects:
- Lower reflections (for uses like glass floor or water)
- Shadows that are drawn from specified light source locations (these shadows are only drawn on characters, not tiles)
- Mirror reflections (use a region to define which walls will act as mirrors).
- Icons above characters

Reflections can use custom charset or be disabled for actors and events (vampires don’t have reflections and perhaps you can see if someone is good or evil by their reflection).
These reflections are drawn above the parallax layer – meaning it is not newbie friendly as you will need some basic skills such as using a graphics program to make water tiles partially transparent or even better - using parallax mapping.


Screenshot



How to Use
Place script under Materials and above Main.
Read the instructions in the top of the script. There are a LOT of them.
Get the demo for examples of using each effect in different map setups.
(The demo is located at the top of the script page, link below)


Script
Get it here


Credit and Thanks
- Galv


Author's Notes
I've only tested this in the test environment so I am be curious to see how(if) people get use out of it. Remember - I don't advise people over-use these effects as doing so may cause lag on low end computers.


Updates
2013-02-23 - Version 1.8 - added ability to draw multiple shadow sources
2013-02-22 - Version 1.6 - added displaying icons
2013-02-22 - Version 1.5 - more bug fixes and tweaks
2013-02-21 - Version 1.3 - bug fixes and tweaks
2013-02-21 - Version 1.0 - release Edited February 23, 2013 by Galv

[INDOJIN 70]

Whoa, this looks real good! I'll try it and post feedback.

 

 

Edit: The tried the demo and I have to say the reflection system is awesome. Overall, great script.

Edited February 21, 2013 by INDOJIN

[Choco-Elliot Wyvern 25]

Very Nice Galv

 

I'll be sure to use it

[Darkanine 116]

Looks really smooth,I smell a dungeon of mirrors :3

[West Mains 1]

I'd love to use this. I'll try and get it going tomorrow and I'll let you know what I think of it.

[Lisah 2]

Hi there Cap'n!
 
I ran across your Character Effect V.1.9 in your website earlier. I really like how this script has many features including mirroring and reflecting different charsets.
 
I have one request please if you can help me make this work. I plug and play this script and everything works including NPC reflection but however, the actors reflection does not show. I finally found the culprit and its the Schala Battle System in which i copied it under spoiler below. Can you please take a look at this and see why the actors reflection is not showing up. I would very much love to use this awesome but at the same time, Schala BS is my pref of BS. Please help me in making this work Cap'n and bring light into my project. Thanks Cap'n =D.

 

Schala BS components:

VXAce_SP1

http://pastebin.com/WCBv8Vmi

 

Schala BS

http://pastebin.com/WuMFi3dL

[Galv 1,387]

Add this after both scripts:

class Sprite_Reflect < Sprite_Character

  def update_angle;end

end

[Lisah 2]

I love you CAP'N!!! 

[djDarkX 11]

Love this.  I have almost every default water tileset ready.  The only ones not made transparent is world ocean water and the desert water from the exterior.  I may end up finishing them for anyone that wants them so it'll be easier, along with the PSD Photoshop files in case they want to change the opacity to something else.

 

The only bad thing is the non-rocky water tiles in exterior because they were made to be on top of the rocky tiles, thus you still see the rocks.  I may end up just making a copy of the rocky tiles, putting the non-rocky on top of them and cutting out the rocks to make them seamless.  Who knows.

 

But yeah, this script is awesome.  The shadows were too laggy for my PC< but not the reflections, so I'll use that instead.  Works well with Khas's light effects!

[Sakuraba 19]

This is awesome, but i can't use it if i have your Character Animations V2, any patch will be made?

 

the error msg say:

script 'sprite_base' line 33 error

disposed sprite

[Galv 1,387]

Thanks for letting me know. I don't have any time to look at that soon, but I will look into it when I can.

[djDarkX 11]

Well, I found that the deep water autotiles still overlap with the rock water tiles in Outside_A1 (programmed that way I assumed?) and can't get that to work the way I was hoping, but I just need to transparent the beach/sandy water tiles and they'll be ready for release to be used with your script.

 

EDIT:

Quick edit.  Recently, I've been getting an interpreter error.  It keeps saying "nil can't be coerced into Fixnum" even though nothing has really changed, sans autotiles, starting player position and text changes on various NPC's.  Even when nothing is changed, it will do that as well even if it worked before.  It can happen when running water reflection, all options correctly input and either when they are on a teleport event or on a parallel event that erases after running.  Here's my script call:

 

: char_effects(0,true)
: char_effects(1,2,3,false)
: reflect(:all,true)
: reflect_options(1)

 

Any ideas?

 

EDIT #2:

Nevermind.  I didn't know I wasn't supposed to keep calling the reflect calls and instead just recall char_effects.  Fixed it on my own.

Aside from that, fantastic script!  I fixed the "issue" with the autotiles.  I just reverted the new "deep water" tiles back to normal and replaced the snow water tiles with the green grass instead.  It works perfectly that way and the original can be used and a copied version of "Exterior" with the new one can be used in a map that doesn't use snow.  Will release very soon since the beach tiles are ready as well.

Edited July 17, 2013 by djDarkX

[djDarkX 11]

For anyone that needs them, here are the tileset's with transparency for Galv's Character Effects (Water Reflection).

 

Quick Note: The only ones included are the RTP Dungeon_A1, Inside_A1, Outside_A1 and a modified version of Outside_A1 named Outside2_A1.  That one replaces the snow grass lake with normal grass lake with deep water since the deep water tiles automatically go transparent and still show the rocks from the original grass lake autotiles.

 

Also included are the source PSD files I worked with.  They have the transparent water and surrounding ground tiles separated so people can set their own transparency if they wish.  Water tiles are currently at 40% opacity.  Enjoy and thanks again to Galv for this awesome script.  I'm enjoying it a lot.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?7xac681isc5ppr7

[TERROR2K12 0]

Hey wassup Galv I updated to your newer script 1.9 and now my mirrors make the characters backwards? Is there something I can do to make them normal mirrors?

[Galv 1,387]

Not sure why it's doing that for you. Please check for script conflicts, I suspect another script might be the cause.

[TERROR2K12 0]

wow you were right it was the xp scipt. deleted it and was working fine again.thanks.

[Zoecyta 2]

Really nice script man. A question, is there a way to set it up so the whole map is a lightsource, and only the character has shadow all the time ?

[Galv 1,387]

Not sure what you mean by the whole map is a lightsource but I don't recall adding that functionality. You can put the lightsource off the map if needed

[Zoecyta 2]

mmmm what I tried to say is that well, with the script, you make an event in the map and put with scriptcall the coords for differents lightsource to make shadow etc. That's ok, but, what I asked, it's if there's a way so u make like 1 only place in the map that produces a "lightsource" for the whole map, so there's always a shadow beneath the character. It would be like a constant shadow script if you get me. Is it possible with this ?

[Galv 1,387]

The script wasn't designed for that but you could try changing the intensity of the shadow really high number?

[Zoecyta 2]

no, the intensity is for the "blackness" of the shadow... mmmm is there a way to increase the shadow distance? for example I make one event in the middle of a 30x30 map and the shadow distance is 15 ?

[Galv 1,387]

I don't think so without modifying the script but sorry, I don't have time to do requests

[MrSte 5]

Very Nice , great job

[spector7 0]

he there GALV i was wondering if i could use your script for a game i want to make

[Galv 1,387]

Yep, you can. I put it up here so people can use it