Battler Animation thoughts.

[TheGreatEater]

Since I never worked out the problem with Glav's Animated Battlers. Where my battler jumps poses [immediately goes from idle, jumps up the X axis on the screen, to ready pose]. I decided to go with Yanfly's ... nothing against it, but without being able to animate my own battlers it looks pretty bland. Still it's better than the standard, so I'm happy with that much. After all something is better than nothing, and Yanfly makes tons of amazing stuff. 

Since I'm using summons [similar to Mana Khemia's Mana [skip to 1:46 - 2:27] and Persona Series Persona [ :45, and there's tons of different persona summoned and skills shown]. And recently I saw a video on youtube that dealt with summons similarly called Guardian Spirits Summon Test.

So here comes the question.

Should I simply use the regular attack animations [since I'll be having the options to bringing in Automatons, and pets as followers], and have the Presence / Soul Familiar, be constantly present [as both a follower, and on the battle field], or should the attack animations like Guardian Spirit Summons show a small mock up of the Presence / character, doing a basic attack motion? 

I ask since,  A) It'd be visually appealing to spice up the regular attack animations with a visual representative , and adding a axe image to an axe weapon. Doing the attack [if I simply use the walk forward, attack animation, walk back bit] would be quick, and easy. But I don't know if that'd be to boring for players to see after the 50th time they axe someone. 

B  ) I could use normal attack animations for a majority of my stuff. But just walking forward and back doesn't look as visually appealing as moving forward to the enemy location, and it looks like your attacking. And I don't know if that'd kill it for people playing the game.

but 

C) I could use summons / proxies via animation to handle all those animations. Lessening battlers on the field. But as with A, I don't know if that'd be too boring. Even with pets, having a mock up of themselves doing a swipe, would be to boring. 

So what as players. Are your thoughts onto what'd be good for a sideview battler, if you aren't able to use Holders Battler Animations? Or are using basic character movements when doing attacks?

Personally, I'm a very visual person, and I like variety. But it's more important that I put something up [with the limitations I have atm] that'd be enjoyable to play. Also last question. 

Presence / Soul Familiars, Pets, and Automatons. Should they, if on the field. Use mock ups of them doing attacks [picture of them pops up, normal animation for X attack happens on enemy], or simply have them do Thing B [walk forward, attack animation happens, walks back to beginning point]?

 

[Matseb2611]

Galv's animated battlers shouldn't cause battlers to jump on the X-axis. It might be a problem with the battler graphic. Perhaps the frames aren't aligned properly. It's worth checking.

 

[TheGreatEater]

Galv's animated battlers shouldn't cause battlers to jump on the X-axis. It might be a problem with the battler graphic. Perhaps the frames aren't aligned properly. It's worth checking.

I did, I used a grid, lined up preset battler and my battler on a layer above it.  So that it was perfectly aligned with the row and column it was on. Then I made sure that every battler in that line was perfectly on the grid. And every battler was aligned with the grid. Spent a whole two weeks on it alone. But I kept getting jumps. 

http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/40299-animated-battler-graphics-problem/  That's the post I showed the problem at. And I got 0 replies on how to fix it. So I'm just guessing it's unfixable, although I guess I can bump it up. But I'm perplexed onto why it's always jumping. 

 

[Andar]

Most sprites and battlersheets with RM use a relative grid, not an absolute. That means when the size differes, the grid will also differ.


Have you checked for that?

 

[TheGreatEater]

I used Battle Holders Animations [greatly enlarged] to act as guides. Every other tested pose works. Attack, retreat [sure I need to remake them to be more fluid and have less stuff happening in only 8 frames, or add more frames], but it's only the entrance pose that's the problem. Although the normal Sprite made works perfectly. But on a grid, aligned with the warrior dudes front foot. With front forehooves, I always get a jump. 

Edit:

Reinstalled Galv's Battlers, and get a Line 743: NoMethodError,  no definition for width. So that's a problem. 

And Victor's Animated Battlers are incompatible with Vlue's Scripts. That and I don't know any other visual battlers as good as those two that use Battle Holders animated set up, that are allowable for commercial use to retest. 

But here are the last files I had up, that showed the problem [note that the battle animation set up is a rough draft so the attack animations aren't as good as I want them. I was simply using them as a testing ground to demo it, and get a feel for the movement in game before polishing them up.

 



[shows alignment]

 



[shows normal battler animation, with two personal animation rows, to test if it was wrong with the battlers, or my own stuff.]

 



 

[battler Alignment copied from the 3rd Layer, after alignment was done. ]

 

[Matseb2611]

Just curious, are the intro pose and the idle pose located on the same X-axis in respect to their row? By default, every actor and enemy does the intro pose with Galv's script before proceeding to go onto the looping idle pose, so if the intro and idle poses not aligned properly in respect to each other, you end up getting a small jump when the intro pose finishes playing.

 

[TheGreatEater]

Yep. They are on the proper rows [points to above alignment png], and aligned to where the actors' feet are. Using their front foot as a starting place. The battlers from Holder's Battlers work fine, but mine are all derped. And in the entrance, from what I can remember, of the Battle Holder worked well. My battler just never seemed to get aligned properly. 

Of course now that I redownloaded the script, I get a width not defined error on line 743,  so I can't re-use it atm. 

Which brings back what type of Visual / Sideview Battler would work as a replacement [that isn't Victor's [incompatible with Vlue's scripts].

 

[Andar]

aligned to where the actors' feet are.

That could be the cause of the problem, because no one does that and the feet of a (moving) sprite are at different, non-aligned positions.
That's why I asked you about the (relative) grid a few posts above. What did you use as a spritegrid (NOT the grid as shown in your pictures, but the grid that sets the width and height of a single sprite)?


That is what needs to be aligned, NOT the feet of the battlers.


EDIT:


OK, I just checked your graphic - and realised that you completely failed to understand what a grid is for sprites.


Regular holder's battlers have a 64x64 pixel size. Because the regular Battler has 14x4 sprites, that results in a total sheet size of 896x256.


To use a script designed with holder's battlers, the height HAS TO BE divisable by 14. That is an absolute requirement.


Your battlersheet has a size of 1600x827. 1600 cannot be divided by 14, so that sheet has the wrong size and will ALWAYS jump the sprites.


You can try either 1596 or 1610 as a sheet height and it will work, but NEVER 1600.


To use eight animation frames, you need to rewrite the scripts that plan to use holder's sprites - by default they will assume four animation frames.


But even if you do that, the eight frames need to be of the same size - the sheet's width needs to be divisable by the number of frames.


Your sheet is 827 pixels wide - again, that will never work no matter what you do.


It needs to be either 824 (8x103) or 832 (8x104) to work.

 

[TheGreatEater]

Ah, didn't see that in his information sheet, or the website. I was only told to make sure the Rows and Columns matched what was in the script. 

So Sheet size has to be divisible by the Row amount in script, and the Column amount in script? Do you have any idea what's causing the current fracas with a NoMethodError for width on line 743? I have the script up to take 8 frames by 14 [and now I know that the problem with the graphics was that things weren't divisible, and I know the requirements for a proper sheet size. I'll get started on fixing that as well. See if that helps, after I am able to get the Battler Script running [since it's made to be compatible with Yanfly, and Vlue doesn't run into  problems when he runs it].