general Tsarmina's Mini-Lab

[Tsarmina 2,611]

Good morning! Good night! Good anything-in-between!

 

It's me, Tsarmina, back again with her lab goggles and chemical explosive reactions. I feel that my Laboratory has been relatively successful, and I thought I'd spread the love, science, and art by starting a mini-lab for all you budding interns out there ^-^ I can't have you working in my lab though--it's too dangerous! So you guys get a mini-lab instead. You can explode as much stuff here as you want, because it's all for your practice!

 

I'll be posting everything I can think of helpful-wise here--art tutorials (if you want to draw like me), Photoshop and Corel guides, VX Ace step-by-step tuts, and tidbits from the depths of my crazy mind. Anything for you guys~ <3

 

I do a lot of art, though you probably wouldn't know it since I don't post a lot of art. I've only been doing manga/anime/CG-style art for a few years. This is actually my fourth year doing this style of art, and I love it. However, though I have limited experience with manga, I'm a natural-born artist and do much more than just anime people. But I have to say manga is my most natural style, and works best with my ability.

As for the VX Ace engine, I've only used it for...uh...four or five months, but I've really improved in that time--so don't think of me as a confused newbie! (Okay, well, I still am confused, but forget that.)

 

 

Basically, I created this so you guys could...learn. Shocking, I know. I had a hard time, actually, deciding on which image I wanted to use for my headers--because I thought that using my traditional Profile Picture one would get kind of confusing. But don't worry, I'm still continuing the redhead tradition. Anyway, this is basically my all-out tutorial section. For anything. Ever.

 

 

1. The Bare Bones of VXA

Forgive me if I baby you in this one, but if you need a complete beginner's guide, here you are!

Open up VX Ace. Open up a new game.

Now set up your game title, location, etc. I just called mine Test. New game file is now open!

This should pop up.

The red area I marked is our tilesets that we'll use to create a map. The yellow area is our workspace, and the green area is our map tree. (Sorry, I'm a color-coding freak.)

So let's make our first map. Click on the word "Test" (or whatever the title of your game is) and press Ins (insert).

Set the name and height. (I called mine World and did a 50x50.) Disregard the other stuff for now.

Well, at least we have a map--now what?

This is the toolbar at the top.

The red block shows your game files stuff. New Game, Open, Save. Typical. The greyed out areas are just Cut, Copy/Paste, Undo, etc.

The orange section shows your mapping modes: Map, Event, and Region. (We'll go into these later.) The yellow area shows your mapping tools. Pencil, Square, Circle, Fill, and Shadow. The green area is viewing modes, and the blue area is the background technical stuff: Database, Resource Manager, Script Manager, Music, and Character Generator.

Now that we've got that down, let's make a map. We have our hero floating in an ocean currently, and sadly, there's no land on our world map. So let's map one! Click on the circle button (under the yellow section in the color-coded above toolbar) and select a grass texture from the tilesets area. Then just drag to create a stretch of land. 

As you can see, VXA is very grid-based.

Now let's try out some more shapes. Use the rectangle shape to the left of the circle mode and drag out a rectangle shape.

All right...now try using the Pencil tool. This is good for drawing small regions or finer lines.

I was just randomly doodling...Well, you know your three major modes now, now go crazy with however you want to make your world map look like. Below, I have my finished product at 1/8 view:

(This is actually just a sample map that comes with Ace--but don't tell anyone! Shh!) So now we have our nice and lovely world map. Try not to make it too blocky--unless you're making square world, you want to make your shapes as irregular and natural as possible. From afar, this might look round, but...

Upon closer inspection, you can still see each individual tile is a square. Meh.

So now we have a nice world, but no real hero to traverse our terrain. Click on the Database to change this ^-^

This should automatically pop up. Eric is one of the default Ace characters.

You can change up the characters all you want, but when you're done let's move on to the next tab at the top: Classes.

The default classes have default stats, as you can see. You can easily edit stats by clicking on each box.

At the Tilesets tab, you can edit your tilesets. 

The red section in the tile set that you currently have. Those x's and circles are passability markings--x is non-passable, o is passable. Blue is the A tile section, all of which are autotiles. (We'll deal with those later...) Section B is for non-autotiles--we'll deal with those later, too.

Let's got to the Settings tab.

You can change your game title in the red section. I changed mine from Test to Heart of Greece. The blue section is for music effects, the yellow section is for starting positions, and the green part is for the title screen. Let's check that out now.

You can create your own title screen by piecing these together.

Once you've messed around enough with these, click OK and press the green arrow at the end of the toolbar on top to playtest!

Using the arrow keys, Eric can walk around now!

 

FAQ for 1. Bare Bones:

Q: I see a lot of games where people get different sprite characters and faces that aren't from the default. Where can I get those?

A: Google is your best friend! This is my favorite site for resources.

 

Q: So my character moves around, but there's no gameplay!

A: Chill. We'll get that in the next tut.

 

Q: I see a lot of games with cool tiles.

A: Once again, look around! There are plenty even just on this site. Mack and Celianna are great, too--but respect the artists' terms and conditions!

 

That's all for today, guys. Who knew tuts were so hard? V.V Catch you in the next tutorial later.

 

 

2. Tilesets Minilab

This is just a mini-lab for changing tilesets. It actually took me a while to understand tilesets and why  they worked as such, and let me tell you, it's easier to use when you know what's what.

Last on our tutorials...

So we currently have our World Map. Hoorah!

I don't really like the default tilesets as much as I would like a set of new ones. So...

When it doubt, go to Google! There are a lot of great tilesets artists out there. Just search and type and download. My favorites are Mack and Celianna--for Celianna, carefully read her terms of use (you need to own VX!). In this case, I have an assortment of Mack tiles and Mack seasonal edits that I'm using for my newest tileset, and they're all downloaded nicely into the Graphics--> Tileset folder of my game.

Now let's edit our tiles my clicking on Database: 

You'll see that we have a section for A tiles (A1, A2, A3, A4, and A5) and then a separate section for tilesets B, C, D, and E. A tiles are autotiles, which are basically tiles that will conform to spaces by themselves. For example, if you'll notice, when you place two roof tiles together, they will automatically meld together to make a smooth transition. Those are autotiles.

A1 is listed as "Animation." They are basically any animated tiles! That mostly means waters. Here I've selected the A1 tileset that I want:

Same with A2. A2 is Ground.

Now just run through and choose all the tiles you want. You have limited space, so keep that in mind!

Here's my finished tileset:

You'll notice those X's and o's. These mark passability. X is non-passable, and o is.

On pages B-E, you'll notice you have three settings instead of two: o, x, and star. Star means the player can pass behind it. Make sure the top left corner tile, which should be blank, is marked star. 

Once you've marked passability on your tiles, you're done with making a new tileset. Now I want to change my world map from Field set to my new Exterior 2.

Exit the Database and select World from the map tree, then press Space. Go to the dropdown arrow under Tileset and choose your new set.

When you click OK, all the tiles in your World map will be converted to your new tileset. This might look a little strange.

My world is now made of water, carpets, grass, and tables. Yay~

But no worries. Now we just have to go through and fix it up using our various mapping tools.

Once you've edited your map back to perfection, you can start putting in details. And voila! You've created your new tileset. As far as I know, you can create as many tilesets as you want (up to 999).

This mini-lab is very easy and virtually un-mess-up-able. Enjoy, and see you in the next lab! ^-^

 

FAQ for 2. Tilesets Mini-lab:

Q: Where did you get those tiles?

A: It's all on Google! I prefer using Mack and Celianna ^-^

 

Q: What's 4-Direction Passability?

A: It limits which directions you can move. For example, if I have a star tile on top of a o tile but I don't want you to be able to move from the star to the o, I'll make those arrows pointing up and down into dots.

 

 

3. Static Opening Cutscenes!

*customizable

Hey guys! Let's make an opening cutscene. I'm making mine very simple, but you can, of course, go for more extravagant measures. ^-^

First you're going to want to go into the Database -> System and check that Transparent ON is checked.

Done. Okay, now let's get to the real game. Here's what I'm working on.

Ignore all the other rubbish maps for now. Let's make a map called "Start" or "Open Cutscene."

Now make a small event, just blank, and here will be our cutscene. Set it on Autorun so your player won't accidentally move around or offscreen or whatever strange things people do when they're distracted.

Very nice. Now let's spice it up. I'm going to Tint Screen first, and set it to black.

(I unchecked Wait and set the frames to 1 so it'll tint quickly.) Also feel free to Fadeout Screen to super-ensure nothing goes wrong, and pop in some haunting background BGM to listen to while you have your cutscene. (I'm using Aaroan Krogh's music.)

And add some nice text...(this could be a trailer or something.)

Play around with this until you're happy. You can add in Movie clips (.ogg format), pictures, more music, whatever. I'm just giving you the gist here. I set my music to fade out (Fade out BGM) and voila! It's actually that simple.

Tada.

 

FAQ for 3. Opening Static Cutscene

Q: Uh...how do I get my cutscene to stop repeating over and over?
A: Oh, that's easy. Just Transfer Player to a different map ^-^

 

Q: Does VXA take Windows Movie Maker?

A: Sadly, no. You'll have to convert your clip somehow.

 

Q: What's with the ivory/ebony thing you got going there?

A: Haha, that's just part of my game. Don't mind it. 

 

Q: Where'd you get all that music??

A: Aaron Krogh. Seriously talented musician.

 

BONUS!! (Extra Credit Opportunity~)

As a bonus, you can lead your player gracefully out of the cutscene, straight into real gameplay (or into another different cutscene...or anything at all!) It's really easy to do, and this bonus actually will transfer right into the next Ace lab.

So we have our fun little cutscene, but now we have to get out of it. Easy.

Go to Transfer Player on page two of Events and move your player somewhere else. In this case, I'm leading my character right into a Character Select!

Make a new blank map, set it on Autorun also, and transfer to there.

Easy. Done. Hardly worth a bonus, but it's just a quick little touch!
 

 

4. Turning to Watch

A quick tutorial on how to make people on the street turn towards you as you walk past. I tossed this together as a sample for someone, so it's nothing fancy.

Make your pedestrians, and make their settings to this:

When you click Custom Route, this will pop up. Check these:

Now try it out! Your pedestrians should look at you as you walk by ^-^

That's not creepy at all!

FAQ:

Q: I have to copy/paste all of them?

A: Make one event for each pedestrian! Just copy/paste the pedestrian event and change the graphic. Or make it a Common Event.

 

Sorry for the briefness. It's getting late ^-^

 

 

 

A quick notice to all those who are going to go through my Art Labs: Please read!

I use, for almost ALL my art labs, a Wacom Bamboo pen and tablet, Adobe Photoshop Elements Ver. 8.0, and Corel Painter Essentials Ver. 4.0.  (And occasionally, I'll even use Microsoft Powerpoint ^-^) If you happen to have all of these, great! If you do not have these materials...open the corresponding spoilers.

-I have a different Version of Photoshop/Corel!

No worries! Since the different version models are very similar, there should be little problem. At any rate, none of these labs are timed so take as long as you want to figure out the placement of all your tools! ^-^

 

-I have a different tablet!

Meh, that's fine. As long as it's functional

 

-I don't have Adobe/Corel!

If you have another program like Paint Tool SAI or Paint.NET, then just use those ^-^ Shouldn't be too much of deviation.

If you do not have a graphics program at all: Uh...that's a bit of a problem.  I would suggest buying either Photoshop Elements or Corel Essentials. If you have just enough money to spare, I'd suggest Photoshop over Corel. Elements costs 'round 99 USD--however, if you also need a tablet you can buy the tablet and BOTH these programs together as a package deal.

If you really can't, try your best. Take a look at some free programs online or use a free trial for now.

 

-I don't have a tablet at all!

Try to use a mouse. Both Paint Tool SAI and Paint.NET are really great at mouse vector graphics--they'll be exactly what you need. ^-^ Though I would suggest getting a tablet if you often do traditional drawing art with paper/pencil because it'll be more familiar for you~

 

-I don't have Microsoft Powerpoint!

Okay, honestly I'll be using Powerpoint for like, one lab. It's fine. Chill. 

 

 

 

1. Hair Colors

Okay, so it's not the most magnificent title ever, but it's functional, okay?? Today we're going to assume you have a functional lineart, and we're going to color some beautimous hair

I am, of course, using Corel Painter Essentials 4.

As seen here.

Photoshop files will import into Painter beautifully

This layer should be UNDERNEATH any lineart layers. Hopefully you have, like, at least one, even if it isn't in black.

Now we need to lay down flats, or the basic color. I usually use Fine Camel in Thin Paints section to lay 'em down, with a large brush.

Marked in green.

Here's a nice colorfest...

Now pick a slightly darker color just by moving the color slider down.

Take a soft brush like this one:

Read the sticky note.

This entire time I'm using Basic Round Brush.

READ THE FOLLOWING. VERY CAREFULLY. STUFF IT IN YOUR BRAIN.

Now we're going to do some blending! Hurrah! Just Add Water is one of the best ones out there--it makes blending very easy for lazy people like me

Now, blend, blend, blend. Do it with a fairly small brush (8-ish) and use long, sweeping strokes, not little dabs.

 

OPTIONAL: Add sharper highlights. If you want this, pick the Fine Tip Pen. I RECOMMEND doing this on a duplicated layer in case you don't like it.

Make the following sort of smallish, flowing marks in small areas together. See the above image for combined effect, and below image for a small example.

Magnificent, right?

Now blend the edges...

 

Take a step back and compare.

Original:

Highlighted:

Depending on the style, what you choose is up to you.

FAQ for 1. Hair Colors:

Q: How do I know what color to pick?

A: Unless your character has streaky multiple-color hair (which is possible), pick a tint/shade in the same hue.

 

Q: Where do I apply shadow and where do I apply highlight?

A: Find your light source. Mine is sort of just overhead, but slightly to the left.

 

Q: My highlights look flat, not round.

A: You have to follow the curve of the hair. Pay attention to lines of motion.

 

Q: What about Burn/Dodge?

A: Ehhh. They're overrated.

 

Q: It still doesn't look right? T_T

A: Practice! It'll get better as you work!

 

Q: Her eyes are scary!

A: Shush! That has nothing to do this with tutorial.

 

That's all for the first Art Lab, see you all later! ^-^

 

2. I'm Watching You: Eyes

Heya, guys. Today we're going to be painting in a beautiful set of eyes. (I say beautiful because they're girls' eyes, but this easily applies to guys, too.) Start up by opening your picture in Corel Painter Essentials 4 or whichever program you're using. Then you're going to want to create three new layers: White, Black, and Colorfill.

Put them in this order, too. Fill white with white, black with black, and colorfill with any color you want. Simply out of habit I usually use a bright color for colorfill, but whatever. Turn them all off except for white.

Now:

...but above the fill layers.

I'm going to use Basic Round Brush for this--entirely. It's soft, smooth, and blends easily--which is what we need for eyes.

What color shall you use? Dawn here has blue-green eyes. Simply pick a base color.

Now pick a shade:

It's okay if it bleeds a little, just clean it up later. As for the highlights, it's okay to color over them.

Pick a tint:

Blend it gently. Also, use a smaller brush size and a higher opacity for this part, as you need the highlighted crescent to be noticed--just enough.

Color. It's okay to bleed.

Erase out the little round circle highlight that you colored over earlier.

 

BONUS: Lashes

Pick a color (she has red hair) and color. It's okay to bleed, just clean it up later!

^ I added bits of darker red and hints of light orange.

Tada!

 

FAQ for 2. I'm Watching You:

Q: Who's that?

A: Dawn. Character for my game

 

Q: How did you get those shadows pre-made in the hollows of her eyes?

A: I shaded them lightly with brush while I was still making the lineart.

 

Q: What brush did you use?

A: Basic Round Brush.

 

Q: How'd you get it look real??

A: Practice! And a little bit of natural talent

 

Enjoy! ^-^

 

 

11/27/13: The Mini-Lab is open for all scientists! <3 Also have 1. Bare Bones open, but it's like...baby steps.

11/28/13: Second tutorial is added ^-^ Just a mini tileset lab.

12/04/13: Art Materials requirements added.

12/11/13: More tutorials! I'm so happy ^-^

01/02/14: The FIRST art tut

01/08/14: I'm Watching You!!!

 

 

Support me!

[Wren 179]

Tutorials are always welcome, and yours is pretty looking with lots of pictures and easy explanations.  Good job, looking forward to more episodes/lessons.

[+ Sughayyer 163]

Good job! Congratulations and thanks for all the contributions!

 

And of course, it's always great to learn how to stretch the limits of the RTP resources using them fully!

[Tsarmina 2,611]

Aww, thanks guys. I thought that since my first tutorial was such an easy one (to use, not to make--that took forever!) people would blow it off...^-^" Later I think I'll do some work with extra tilesets, because I usually don't use just RTP and I'm getting irritated with limiting my tutorials with RTP. So I'm probably going to do a Tileset Edit tut and then work from there...because I can't stand not having my other tiles T-T No offense to RTP, of course. ^-^

[joeyhugg 5]

I would love to see some art tutorials, especially from you!

[Tsarmina 2,611]

Aww, thanks! ~~^-^~~ I'm actually working on an art tut right now...except it's on Coralie and I really don't think that was a good idea because she's super-complicated. So I'm working on Pip simultaneously, I think he might fare better ^-^"

[Tsarmina 2,611]

Added a little blurb under Art Labs. Sadly my art lab isn't up yet as it's really long, but just a heads-up for those who will be following my little art labs.

[Dmariin 22]

 

 

First a resource lab and now this?

Looks like we have a mad scientist on our hands!

 

 

I think this might be the first mapping tutorial I've seen involving a tileset other than default

It's a good tutorial and it's good to see some variety here

I'm sort of looking forward to the art labs

Might be good for me to improve from doodling on lecture hall desks...

ANYWAY

Cool tutorials so far, I'll be supporting this!

[Tsarmina 2,611]

 

Yep! The Laboratory is for the (red)Head Mad Scientist, and the mini-lab is for all you soon-to-be mad scientists ^-^ Think of it as an internship!

 

Yea, I figured we need to spice up the whole tilesets thing! In a couple projects I'm pretty sure I'll use the other tilesets just because I'm getting tired of default limits...=.=" And yes, art labs. I just take screenies while I'm working XD It's a way to kill two birds with one stone!

 

...I love birds D":

[Tsarmina 2,611]

Heya guys!

 

I'm planning to put up some quick eventing tutorials soon (as it seems lot of newcomers have some easy-to-solve eventing issues and I think these can help), but the Art Lab will....not be up for a while.

 

Yeah, I'm busy ^-^"

[Tsarmina 2,611]

Update! 

 

I just posted a fun little STATIC opening cutscene lab for the Ace labs. It's not much, but you'd be surprised at how useful easy directions are...

[Tsarmina 2,611]

I'm thinking of putting up a slightly EASIER art tutorial before I upload the super-detailed, super-complicated Photoshop/Corel one (okay, so it's not THAT complicated...but it sure looks complicated). Maybe a quick Powerpoint one, even :3 What do you guys think? General thoughts from the peanut gallery?

[Jeff-Andonuts 8]

Mapping tutorial? Possibly? For the people who can't map for ****?

[Tsarmina 2,611]

Possibly XD Mapping is great, unfortunately I almost always use non default tilesets so that might be an issue. Or people could just upload them :3 I might. But no parallaxing

[Jeff-Andonuts 8]

Ugh, I can't even find a good tileset for my game... It's a horror btw, plus whenever I map bigger locations (in buildings, like mansion insides)

It always just seems empty... That's a problem...

EDIT: The horror game is not the one you're making the emosets for.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Jeff-Andonuts

[Tsarmina 2,611]

Celianna has a beautiful range of tilesets ranging from farmland to gothic BUT make sure you follow her TOU. 

 

P.S. Good ^^" I can't stand horror games. They scare me.

[Jeff-Andonuts 8]

Mine won't be too scary, more along the lines of disturbing, like total nightmare fuel.

[Tsarmina 2,611]

...

Yeah, good. They scare me. *sticking to original statement*

[Tsarmina 2,611]

Edit: Whoops, wrong place.

[Tsarmina 2,611]

Well, for example if you have a light sprite and you put it on Stepping Animation (and direction fix? I don't recall), then you have to set it on PP for it to continuously work. For it to also have something else...well, actually, I'm not sure. I'm no eventing expert. Do you want me to move this to General RM for you? You might get more answers.

[Jeff-Andonuts 8]

Yes please do, I need to have lights restore sanity if you interact with them, but I need them animated and giving off light too, so it'll be a hard decision whether to take a risk at low sanity or to have light.

[Tsarmina 2,611]

Topic moved to General RM, Jeff you may want to format it ^-^ and add tags.

[+ Dark Influence 251]

Interesting place you got here... -Text omitted-

 

-Text omitted-

 

I'm interested in finding out more about your digital art tutorials as I seriously need to learn how to draw digitally in some way at some point, I await them eagerly!

 

Text was omitted because I hate words, inaccurate form of communication.

 

-Text omitted-

[Tsarmina 2,611]

Awww >///////< Thanks! I probably still won't be able to get one up anytime soon, and it'll also probably be REALLLLLLY long...but...it should be good once it's out ^-^

[Tsarmina 2,611]

I'm back! (After like, forever....) And I proudly present to you my first Art Lab, which is lamely named "Hair Colors." Oh, well. Enjoy it anyway