WHAT WE DID HORRIBLY ON OUR FIRST GAMES.

SimRPG 95 Tutorial - Dealing with Files

The file system of SimRPG 95 can be a little confusing at first sight. Here's a tutorial on how to deal with it.

In the main game folder, there should be four subfolders and some files. The files will have names such as ANIME.DAT, CLASS.DAT, ITEM.DAT, etc. You probably don't have to worry about these; SimRPG 95 itself should take care of them for you. There are probably also two .dll files and SRPGEXEC.EXE. SRPGEXEC.EXE is comparable to RPG_RT.exe for RM2K; it runs the game.

The four subfolders should be labeled Bgm, Bmp, Efs, and Map. Don't worry about the Map subfolder; again, SimRPG itself should take care of that. Any MIDI files you want to make background music should be placed in the Bgm folder. Likewise, any wav files you want to make sound effects should be placed in the Efs folder.

Now we get to the real fun part, and the point of this tutorial: the Bmp folder. This folder holds all the pictures that SimRPG 95 uses for your game. They must all be bmps, unfortunately.

First off, there should be a lot of files here. If there aren't, you should get some graphics (Lord Dragoon's site at lorddragoon.50megs.com is the place for that).

Types of files in the Bmp folder: (XXX or YY denotes a number)

BACK_XXX.bmp
This is a battle background. It should be 640 (wide) x 320 (tall, in pixels). XXX is the number it will show up as when selected in the Geology Editor.

UNIT_XXX.bmp
This is what you see on the battle map for a unit whose graphic number is XXX (that is, the graphic number selected for the unit's class in the Class Editor). It should be 192 (wide) x 320 (tall), and have five rows of three pictures each. The top row is the character's standing still animation; the next four are moving up, right, down, and left, respectively.

CAYY_XXX.bmp
This is a very important type, and perhaps the most confusing. These are the pictures used to form battle animations. (CA stands for "character animation.") The file should be 192 pixels tall, and 192 pixels wide for each frame (there are a maximum of 12 frames).
However, not every picture can be used for every animation, and not every animation can be used for each character. Each CA file can be used only for Animation number YY. Animation number YY is only defined once, however. Not once for each picture, once for all CAYY_???.bmp where YY is the same. So one animation is generally used with similar pictures to produce similar effects. (SimRPG 95 supports up to 80 animations; look in the Animation Editor.)
The XXX comes in for dealing with specific classes. If a class has unit graphic # XXX, that class may only use animations which are denoted CA??_XXX. (Pictures which are meant to be used as animations for that class should therefore end in that number, which is called the "Graphic #" in the Class Editor.)
So, if you're following me, you should realize that the XXX for a unit picture and the XXX for a character animation should be the same if the two pictures are meant to go together.
This was obviously intended to be a time- and space-saver, so you only have to construct a few animation sequences and can use similar graphics to allow many classes to use those animations. It's just a little confusing at first sight.

FACE_XXX.bmp
Faces, one per picture file. Each should be 128 x 128 pixels.

MAGA_XXX.bmp
Just like character animations, should be 192 tall and (192 for each frame) wide, max (I think) of 12 frames. Except that these are not specific to particular characters; the XXX is only which magic animation the picture is used for. (Magic animations are separate from character animations.)

MAPC_XXX.bmp
These are map chips. They should be 384 (wide) x 1024 (tall). Map tiles in SimRPG are 32x32. The chip in the upper left corresponds to the upper fourth of the right half of the picture. Likewise, the chip on the top row, next to leftmost corresponds to the upper middle fourth of the right half of the picture. The third and fourth chips on the top row correspond to the third and fourth quarters on the right half of the picture. (This probably sounds confusing. Open up MAPC_001.bmp and you'll probably be able to see what I mean.) If you put any of those four leftmost chips on the top row into a SimRPG map, the program will automatically try to make it look good on the boundaries by using the chips from the corresponding quarter on the right side. (Try it out and see what I mean.) The other chips on the left side have no such automatic adjustment, they're just there all alone.

Those are the main file types. In addition there are a few miscellaneous files:
GAMEOVER.BMP displays when the game ends. (640 wide x 480 tall)
TITLE.BMP displays on the title screen. (640 wide x 480 tall)
SYSTEM.BMP is your system graphic. I won't go into detail on this. (256 wide x 320 tall)
SFRAME_H.BMP are the bars at the top and bottom of your screen when you're on a map (playing). (640 wide x 64 tall)
SFRAME_V.BMP are the same, only on the sides. (H for horizontal, V for vertical.) (64 wide x 448 tall)
TELOP1.BMP shows at the start of the player turn. (All the TELOP files I have are 512 wide x 96 tall, but changing that might be allowed.)
TELOP2.BMP shows at the start of the enemy turn.
TELOP3.BMP is the map complete graphic.


Those are all the file types. There are probably a couple more things you should know to work with SimRPG graphics:

1. PURE black is always transparent.
2. SimRPG only likes 256-color graphics. Unfortunately, I don't think they're the same as the 256 colors used by some other programs. To stop pics from looking completely crummy, use the Idraw option "Set Max Color Number" and use a pre-existing SimRPG graphics file as a reference. The palette change may still make things look a bit worse, but I don't know any way to change that.

That's it, I guess. For feedback on this tutorial please write to *AN EMAIL WAS HERE*
Please. We could use a few more people interested in SimRPG.

-Dragoon Falcon