Animating Tiles?

[noughtshayde]

So...this may seem like a noobish question, but...

How do you animate tiles?

I've been looking all over the place, but have not found one post that explains this concept. It seems like something that should be covered, considering the fact that anyone who wants to make a custom water tile really needs to know this so they can do water effects, but I haven't truly found a from-the-ground-up tutorial yet.

Basically, all I need to know is how to animate custom water tiles. I have tried everything. The closest I have gotten is importing the water tiles as a character sprite, starting it as an event, then making a custom movement route. What I did was I set it to its center tile, then make the event turn down, turn up twice, and loop. What ended up happening was it animated correctly for a few frames, then went white for half a second before repeating.

So my question is:

How do you get rid of that half-second of whiteness in the animation? If I can't and I am doing it wrong, what is the correct alternative?

Once again, I am sorry if this is a noobish question, but it has been driving me crazy, especially considering the fact that I know how to make custom tiles, custom spritesets, heck, even custom animated cutscenes, but I can't figure out something as basic-sounding as water effects.

 

[Shaz]

You don't make animated water tiles using events. And the method you used is not how you animate event tiles either.


Check the help file (F1 from within the engine). RPG Maker VX Ace > Reference Material > Resource Standards > Tilesets. Also export an A1 tileset and take a look at how it's made.


An animated water tile is an autotile. Each frame is made up of a 64x96 block, and 3 frames combine to make the animation (the middle one is repeated after each of the other two). There are tutorials here on how to create autotiles - search for some of them, look at the existing autotiles, and try to understand how they work. Then post back with questions after you have a bit of a basic understanding and have tried it

 

[Andar]

You have to differ between the methods used to animate, and the method you used is usually for limited, non-looping animations.

First, you can make animated autotiles for the A1 slot of tilesets. That is the only maptile that could be animated.

You can either check in the help file or use the resource manager to export one of the A1-Tileset pictures, and you'll see that those pictures have a special format with eight groups of three almost identical autotile-segments (each segment has 6 times regular tilesize).

In the game, the animation for those tiles (mostly water, one lava in the case of world_a1) will cycle automatically through those three pictures, creating the basic animation of the water tiles.

Second, you can use the automatic sprite animation.

If you check the sprites available for events and actors, you'll see that each sprite consists of 3x4 pictures - three picture (horizontal) for each direction (the four vertical lines).

Again, the three horizontal pictures are an automated animation - you can see that for example in the !flame sprites.

The third version is what you've been using, with a manual animation done by changing the direction on sprites that don't need the directional sprites for movement. That is for example used by door sprites that should open - but it was never intended as an automatic, cycling animation.

It is possible but a lot more difficult (and risking lag due to the number of commands needed) to make a cycling animation this way, but I really suggest you start using the automated animations for such part, even if they have only three instead of four elements.

Edit:

ninja'd by Shaz

 

[noughtshayde]

You have to differ between the methods used to animate, and the method you used is usually for limited, non-looping animations.

First, you can make animated autotiles for the A1 slot of tilesets. That is the only maptile that could be animated.

You can either check in the help file or use the resource manager to export one of the A1-Tileset pictures, and you'll see that those pictures have a special format with eight groups of three almost identical autotile-segments (each segment has 6 times regular tilesize).

In the game, the animation for those tiles (mostly water, one lava in the case of world_a1) will cycle automatically through those three pictures, creating the basic animation of the water tiles.

Second, you can use the automatic sprite animation.

If you check the sprites available for events and actors, you'll see that each sprite consists of 3x4 pictures - three picture (horizontal) for each direction (the four vertical lines).

Again, the three horizontal pictures are an automated animation - you can see that for example in the !flame sprites.

The third version is what you've been using, with a manual animation done by changing the direction on sprites that don't need the directional sprites for movement. That is for example used by door sprites that should open - but it was never intended as an automatic, cycling animation.

It is possible but a lot more difficult (and risking lag due to the number of commands needed) to make a cycling animation this way, but I really suggest you start using the automated animations for such part, even if they have only three instead of four elements.

Edit:

ninja'd by Shaz

I think I am beginning to understand how this works, but I have another question...you mentioned something about automated sprite animation. How does that work, exactly? I have made a spritesheet for the water correctly (I think) which is 3 by 4 tiles. So how would the automatic sprite animation work? Is there an event I need to make for this, or a setting I missed?

 

[Shaz]

I REALLY encourage you NOT to use events for the water. The more events you have, the more your game is going to lag.


The automatic animation he's talking about is checking the Stop Anim. button below the graphic. That's all you have to do - don't add any event commands or move routes, don't set it to parallel process. Just check that box. It's used for things like smoke coming out of chimneys.


For water, you REALLY should use animated autotiles. They update automatically as part of the regular tilemap update, so don't have the overhead of events.

 

[noughtshayde]

Alright. I think I have a very basic grasp on the subject, so I will try to make my own autotile based on the article I found and this post, as well as the tileset I exported. If I run into any problems, I will come back and ask more questions. Thanks for the help!

 

[Celianna]

This should help:

 

[KanaX]

!