Animating your own graphics

[Genii Benedict]

I am completely and utterly 100% confused when it comes to animating my tiles. I will give you exactly what I have done, and hopefully, someone could point me in the direction of how to have this configured appropriately.

I have drawn my "force field" image (32x64) and have copied it across six separate frames (192x64). From there, I made slight modifications to each of the images, so that they look like they are pulsating. To skip over all of what I perceive to be my failures, I had to modify the file to be 384x512, with the doors taking up the aforementioned 192x64 section at the top. (I say this, because when I tried to create an event using the force field as a graphic, this was the only way it would highlight the 32x64 section that would be the first image.

I have saved the file at 192x64 as "!GBForceFields.png", and have imported it in to either the "Animations" group or the "Characters" group. When I tried to create an event, I assumed (mistakenly, obviously) that I would be able to input a "Wait" command, followed by a "Change Graphic" command, and have the image repeat this, however, I got no joy.

I have read through the Help info, but cannot determine where my issue is. Is there a simple way (or a tutorial I might have missed) that would show me how to animate specific graphics?

Thanks, in advance!

GB

 

[Celianna]

There's two ways you can animate a character spritesheet. One by turning on stepping animation, and it will animate the 3 frames in the row you've chosen (it will start from the middle, jump to the left, go back to the middle, then to the right, and back to the middle to start all over again). The second way you can animate it, is by using the 4-way direction of the sheet. This means you have 4 frames to animate (down, left, right and up), you will have to use a custom move route to input this in.

To get the right image size for the spriteset, multiply 32 by 3, and 64 by 4 (so your end file will be 96x256, and not 192x64). Add a $ in front of the filename to let Ace know it's 1 characterset, and not 8. The exclamation mark is to indicate that sprite shouldn't be off-set by 4 pixels (all sprites are 4 pixels higher in-game.), it's usually reserved for doors.

Real animation sheets are much more different, you'd need to animate this in the animations tab of the database, and import an image with the correct dimensions for the animation. See the help file for specifications.

 

[Levi]

The second way you can animate it, is by using the 4-way direction of the sheet. This means you have 4 frames to animate (down, left, right and up), you will have to use a custom move route to input this in.

Brilliant! I never thought of that...

I'm wondering (I'm at work so I can't test this)... but if you increase the movement speed, does it increase the speed in which a character 'turns'? If so, this'd allow more control over the frame-rate of animations done with this technique. You could slow it down with 'wait' commands. Also, couldn't you chain together multiple sheets with the "change graphic/char" command to have lengthier/smoother animations?

 

[Celianna]

You need wait commands between the turning, otherwise it'll pass by in the blink of an eye. About 7 frames is good for a smooth animation. And yes, you're correct, you can chain event graphics like this to create a lengthy animation. I've did it myself once, about 22 event pages, and using the 4-way directional animation.

 

[Levi]

You need wait commands between the turning, otherwise it'll pass by in the blink of an eye. About 7 frames is good for a smooth animation. And yes, you're correct, you can chain event graphics like this to create a lengthy animation. I've did it myself once, about 22 event pages, and using the 4-way directional animation.

Excellent! Such a nifty trick I'll have to take advantage of this!

 

[Espon]

Changing the speed will speed up events that use a stepping animation. Unfortunately VX Ace did away with the "select frame" feature when you change the graphic, only allowing you to choose the entire sprite. On note about spinning a graphic, you can increase the number of frames by swapping to another sprite after the 4th turn, effectively giving you 8 (or any multiple of 12)

If you want to use sprites with more than 3 frames without going into complex movement events then you'd probably best look at a script (such as VE - Multiframes).

 

[Genii Benedict]

Awesome. Thanks so much, everyone! I've got my first animations working as intended! (Now, I'm trying to determine how to reset my doors, so that they don't show as 'open' once they've completed.) Still hashing it out, but awesome work in the above.

Edit: Ok, I'm at my wits' end here. I normally use the 'quick event' for doors, and they don't ever reset so that the door is visible as closed, once you move through it. I've tried assigning a 'new graphic', but it didn't replace the picture. I've searched for this info, but can't find it. Is it a simple event trigger? Do I need to do something special?

GB

 

[Droe]

The doors animate by using a custom move route. Getting it to show as closed again, before the player transfers to another map, would require a few extra steps to be added in to the move route.

 

[Genii Benedict]

The doors animate by using a custom move route. Getting it to show as closed again, before the player transfers to another map, would require a few extra steps to be added in to the move route.

Sir, you could not be more correct! Using the existing Door templates as a guide, I have designed my own doors, which seem to function well now. I have tried the following configurations, and with some minor tweaking, have managed to have my player walk through the door, have it pause, and then close behind them, before transferring them to the new location. One caveat I found is that the door itself must sit on a tile that permits movement. So, if you're planting your door on a wall, as is commonplace, make sure you put a blank tile in the place that the event occurs.

Hopefully, the event script above helps out other people as well!

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GB

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[Celianna]

Great, glad we got this figured out.

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