ENGINE TIPS, TRICKS AND BITS (OF INFORMATION)

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Right, so I'm making this topic for something we'll probably be doing on the site (if we get enough). Basically, share some tips, tricks or small bites of information as directed below. The best ones will be used. It's not a competition, but it is something that will be used for the site.

Directions

- One short sentence containing the information/tip/trick.
- No more than 50 words.
- Any engine.
- Keep it basic and simple - something that anyone with passing familiarity with the engine could understand.
- Use the name of the engine (or well-known nickname) in the sentence.
- In the case of it being for the RM series, if it's only to a particular RM, use that engine name, otherwise just use RM.
- If you're having trouble wrangling the sentence a bit, try adding "Did you know..." to the start and writing it like that.
- You may put more than one tip/trick/info bite.

Samples:
The higher the Luck stat in Ace, the higher your chance is to defend against or inflict a status effect, buff or debuff.

In all RM engines, if you hold right-mouse button down to place a tile but want to undo it, just click the left-mouse button at the same time and it will erase that placement.

Double-click right-mouse button on the map area in RM2k/3 and it will change to the other layer.




Ace
  • You can change most (if not, all) of the system messages in Ace by editing the 'Vocab' Module in Ace's Script database.
  • You can have more than 8 faces in each faceset in Ace.
  • In Ace's 'Game_System' script, you can disable certain aspects of the game like Encounters, Saving, Formation, and Access to the Menu.



These are all for RM VXA. Not really sure if they'll work on other engines. You'll need to access the Script Editor (via F11) for these. No knowledge of scripting needed, though.

* You can change the name of your game's save files. You go to 'DataManager' and change the word 'Save' in Lines 119 and 132 to anything you'd like.
Example:
!Dir.glob('Custom Save_Name*.rvdata2').empty? #found in line 119
sprintf("Custom Save_Name%02d.rvdata2", index + 1) #found in line 132
Do make sure that both entries are exactly the same. If not, the game might not recognize your new save files and will not load them.

* You can have a switch or a variable set to a certain value every time the player creates a new game.
Just add a
$game_switches[n] = true #or false
or
$game_variables[n] = 12335 #any number
$game_variables[n] = 'even text' #double quotes "" also work
inside the 'setup_new_game' function found in line 99 of 'DataManager'.
(Useful for having switches/variables that set to a default value at the start of the game. It'll save you an event page, which is also nice)

* In 'Game_System', you can disable certain aspects of the game like Encounters, Saving, Formation, and Access to the Menu. You can set them here to save you an event page, instead of manually disabling them thru eventing at the start of the game.

* You can have alternate window skins for your menus and stuff! Just insert this line under the target window's 'initialize' function (usually the first one).
self.windowskin = Cache.system("AltWindow")
Remember to place the file 'AltWindow' in the 'System' folder, under 'Graphics'.

* You can change most (if not, all) of the messages spurted out by the system in the 'Vocab' Module.

Aaaaand I just broke the 50-word rule. Sorry :3
You can have more than 8 faces in each faceset.

only thing I remember xD
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=JosephSeraph
You can have more than 8 faces in each faceset.only thing I remember xD


Wait, really!? Do you just keep adding more rows?
author=unity
author=JosephSeraph
You can have more than 8 faces in each faceset.only thing I remember xD
Wait, really!? Do you just keep adding more rows?


Yeah! Mess around with it. The resource selector sometimes freezes up a bit (if the face you select is empty on the next faceset you click, the cursor freezes up until you return to the big one) but that also happens if you go from an 8-faces faceset to a 4 faces one, and it's basically an editor bug, it doesn't hurt the game engine at all.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I dunno how much common knowledge this is, but, for VX Ace (Probably VX too) I know that putting "$" at the beginning of graphic files to indicate that they are meant to be processed as single characters, rather than a collection of characters. This works not just for sprites, but for portraits too!
Oddly enough, no. I just have a hard time remembering left from right. I always have to consciously think about it or look at my hands to figure it out. It's weird. >.<;

(Though it might always be that I'm always mixing up left and right-mouse click because you use the left-mouse button more often and since I'm right-handed I might be projecting my ease of using right-hand onto the ease of use that comes from always using the left-mouse button and the fact that the right-mouse button is always the secondary one. Maybe.

Or I could just be bad at telling left from right. ;p )

Since fixed.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
I have to really think about East and West or I get them confused, myself >.<;;

author=JosephSeraph
author=unity
author=JosephSeraph
You can have more than 8 faces in each faceset.only thing I remember xD
Wait, really!? Do you just keep adding more rows?
Yeah! Mess around with it. The resource selector sometimes freezes up a bit (if the face you select is empty on the next faceset you click, the cursor freezes up until you return to the big one) but that also happens if you go from an 8-faces faceset to a 4 faces one, and it's basically an editor bug, it doesn't hurt the game engine at all.

AWESOME! I knew you could do that with Icons, but not with facesets. Can you do it with anything else? Like maybe Battle Animations or something? :DDDD
we used to have a windrose glued to all our monitors because none of us in my family could tell left from right. It was funny somehow, still we got lost more often than we wanted.

Also me playing Final Fantasy:
"Figaro is to the South" FUCK
WHAT IS SOUTH
MOMMY TELL ME PLEASE

mom:"Oh dear, you know I don't know."

3 days later:

"Oh, it means DOWN. why didn't they write FIGARO IS DOWN"


Anyway yeah, I knew about the '$' symbol , but what about the '!' symbol? does it have anything to do with the character size, perhaps?

EDIT: unity, probably! I think that's the way vxa handles its graphics. Perhaps it even works with charsets! However I don't know scripting, but since it's loading the graphics from a larger file it may generate lag depending on the procedure (?) so a scripter may say it`s not advisable to have all your graphics in a single giant set HAHAH xD

(on a second though it obviously won`t work with charsets because they are dynamically sectioned, unlike facesets that are divided by still numbers xD)
The '!' Symbol indicates that the specified sprite will not be offsetted by 8-ish or 12-ish pixels off of the grid.
It's supposed to help make the character sprites stand out from the background map (the offset, I mean).

So by default, important character sprites like npc's and the player, are floating a few pixels off of the actual 32x32 grid.

About the charsets... I think you can! *tries* Yep, you can! Awesooooooome -w-
The same should go with the rest of the graphics stuff (animations and etc).
That's so helpful! Because I actually drew my charsets offseted off of the grid. And wondered why it never looked right. Hahahah.
Seems like I don't need to! Sankyu~
I have some questions:

Does anyone here know what the small coloured boxes found in Window.png are for? I read somewhere that they're supposed to be the colours for the text (called using the \C{n} tag), but they don't seem to match at all.

Also, does anyone know why VXA whines when the Shadow.png file is not found (when creating an rtp-independent game) even though it is never even used anywhere? I'm thinking that the only time it is used is when an Airship is flying (it will be spawned beneath it, as its shadow). Could there be a hidden reference to it somewhere in the Forbidding RM Engine?

PS. Liberty, are you going to compile this somewhere (after it gets more content)?
They are the text colours but the count starts at 0. That is, instead of \c{1} being white, it's \c{0} that is white - the first colour. The colour in the second spot is called with \c{1} and so on - all off-set by one number.

It'll be used for something on-site. The thread, like all others, won't be deleted (I'd like to remind people of the handy-dandy save post feature. If you save a post here you'll always be able to find it under your subscription areas in your profile.)


Oh, and I believe the pixel offset for ! is 2 pixels. It makes the sprites with ! in front flush with the grid (doors and chests that need to align with walls, for example). You can use ?! or !? in conjunction, too.
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
Be very sure you won't need to access or reference the status of an event from the 'outside' before you decide to have it operate on Self Switches rather than regular switches.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
author=karins_soulkeeper
Also, does anyone know why VXA whines when the Shadow.png file is not found (when creating an rtp-independent game) even though it is never even used anywhere?

I think Shadow.png is used for when players are on board the airship to indicate where it would land? I have no idea, though, since I've not messed with vehicles at all!

*Edit: I did a quick-check and, yeah, it's pretty much exactly this.
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
Double-click right-mouse button on the map area in RM2k/3 and it will change to the other layer.


Oh yeah, I wish I had known this during the LIKE 10 YEARS when I was using that engine lol.
author=Marrend
I think Shadow.png is used for when players are on board the airship to indicate where it would land? I have no idea, though, since I've not messed with vehicles at all!

*Edit: I did a quick-check and, yeah, it's pretty much exactly this.
But... it keeps complaining even though the airship does not exist at all...

author=Max McGee
Be very sure you won't need to access or reference the status of an event from the 'outside' before you decide to have it operate on Self Switches rather than regular switches.
You *can* still use it actually, using
$game_self_switches[[map_id, event_id, 'self_switch']]
but yeah, it's extra work.
Why do you want to get rid of it, in any case? It's a tiny file compared to some, and it's not like it's doing anything to change the quality of your game in any way, shape or form. You could just open it in an image program, delete the image, then save as a blank image and viola, it'll never bother you again.
For RPG Maker 2003, having to do with the Battle Events pages for a Monster Group:

- Pages are only run if they have a trigger (a page with no triggers listed will never run).
- Page triggers can be divided into two categories: high-priority ("Turns Elapsed", "Monster X has taken Y turns", "Hero X has taken Y turns", and "Hero X uses the Y battle command") and low-priority ("Switch X is ON", "Variable X is above Y", "Party Exhaustion is between X% and Y%", "Monster X HP is between Y% and Z%", and "Hero X HP is between Y% and Z%"). If a page has a high-priority trigger, it will check whether it can run before the action of that turn. It will also check again after the action if it had a low-priority trigger that failed, such as a switch being on (since the action may have changed that). If a page has only low-priority triggers, it will check only after the action. Also, pages with only low-priority triggers will be skipped entirely if the action taken was a hero battle command of the Link to Event archetype.
- The trigger for a variable's value being "above a number" really means greater than or equal to that number.
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