Animated-when-Appearing Text

[Robert-Character Creator]

Hello! I'm interested in having text that, well, has an animation when being drawn on-screen. Specifically, I'm looking to have text in a calligraphy font, that is literally drawn as if with a pen. I would have to design the animation, of course, it's the implementation I need help with. I've looked into this, but found nothing quite like what I'm looking for. I'm not attempting to get text that is animated; on the contrary, the only animation is when it's appearing in the text box. Does this make sense? I have a few links to relevant code, but they don't discuss the concept I'm talking about.

https://www.rpgmakercentral.com/topic/39381-animation-of-draw_text/
https://www.rpgmakercentral.com/topic/39384-optimized-way-to-draw-text/
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/text-cache.1001/

I know this is an especially weird feature, even from me, so thank you if you can provide any help!

 

[TheoAllen]

Of course, they don't talk about it. When you said the text is drawn as if it's written with a pen, the program does not automatically know how to draw a specific letter like a pen. The text is considered the same as the other graphics like sprites. Means they cannot perform a specific animation as you said.

The only expensive way to get this done if you somehow managed to make a text animation in frames. The animation would do specifically as you said, then display the sprite frames containing the text animation and display it in the message box.

 

[Robert-Character Creator]

Right, that was the idea, I should have mentioned that. Edited the original post.

 

[TheoAllen]

Then you have to provide the sample animation text first before someone can take the request.

 

[Robert-Character Creator]

Hmm. You raise a good point. Won't any animation of a letter do, and I can change the specific font and animation later?
Love your inventory script by the way. <3

 

[TheoAllen]

Personally, I design the code based on the available resources. So resource first, then the code later. Resources decide how the code is done. A specific code may only capable of running specific resources (like how RM handles tileset, sprites, etc). Not sure if that goes the same with other scripters.

 

[Robert-Character Creator]

Okay, so what do you recommend? Should I have at least one or two letters in my font of choice animated before I come back to this? It'll take a bit of doing, but nothing I haven't done before.

 

[TheoAllen]

Animation for each letter could do as well. For example, letter A would need 5 frames before it's fully drawn.

 

[Robert-Character Creator]

I figured I would do one/two frames for each stroke depending on length, so that works. I have five different fonts for my game, to use in different situations. It should be fine to just have one font prepared for now, yes?

 

[Roninator2]

Does this script work for you?
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/vibrating-trembling-text.91984/

 

[Robert-Character Creator]

No, that's not what I meant. Unless you're asking if it literally functions in my project, then I could check for you.

 

[Sixth]

Not sure if that goes the same with other scripters.

I personally like my code as dynamic as possible. As a matter of fact, I write my code first, do the sample resources only after that nowadays, because I only test my code once it's fully written, be it a short script or a bigger one.

Making a base class for animated images is pretty easy. Passing the specific variables from a config file, or even as simple arguments will let you use an image-sheet formatted in any way to display animations (any amount of frames as well). It's just an example, but nearly all my code, private or public (well, the newer ones anyway), is written like that.

I already made one such base class, I can share it if that makes it easier to do this script.
I could also make the script myself, but only after the holiday season.
With that said, happy new year!

 

[Robert-Character Creator]

@Sixth , I was about to bump this thread, but I wanted to ask when you consider the holiday season over. Planning things out, and all that.

 

[Sixth]

Sometimes next week. Probably. That's when my family slowly "dissolves".

 

[Robert-Character Creator]

Ah, okay! Thank you for letting me know, and sorry for the bother.

 

[Sixth]

I managed to write a little script for this today.

Spoiler

But I did not test it with real sample image-sheets, no time to make those.
If you already made a letter image-sheet to use, maybe you could share some with us, so we can see how it looks in action (I'm kinda curious too ).

 

[Robert-Character Creator]

I haven't done so, yet. I have some fancy fonts picked out, but they cost a couple dollars each, and I'm waiting until the seventeenth to buy them. I wanted this ready for when I had the fonts, so when I finish some I'll post here again. Thank you, Sixth!