Custom Dialogue Balloon

[iVale]

Bear with me here as I try to describe this best i can. How difficult would it be... to create a plugin command to display an animated looping sprite above the player or event with an animate in animation and an animate out with an x and a y offset (Because my characters are various heights)? For example plugin command : super_dialoguebox start [eventid] [xpoffset] [yoffset]
the second command could be : super_dialoguebox clear [eventid]




To achieve this effect. Where the first 3 or 4 frames animate in, loops the center frames, then animates the last 3 or 4 frames when cleared with a second command.

I know what you're thinking. Hey, doesn't a plugin like this already exist? Not that I've been able to find. I've been running headlong into this for a few days now. Alternatively I attempted using Shaz's loop animation script with moderate success, being able to display the box, just without the looping '...' (I even tried modifying the code, the issue I hit was it finishes the loop before it clears overlaping the animate out). The other downside is everytime I need an offset, I need to create 3 more database entries of animation.

How i'm currently doing this effect is using qsprite and having the balloon hard animated into my sprite sheets.
dropping in 3 plugin commands for animatein, loop, and end.
The downside here is, I can't mix animations, so if I want to have a small emote like crossing his arms, or walking, I can't do it. Also, If I need to make modifications to the balloon, well.. that's every sprite sheet I need to change.

It'd really help streamline my workflow, I'd really appreciate an assist, or a point in the right direction.

Thanks!

(an example in action)

 

[ashikai]

Question: Why not just format the balloon as an animation (in the database) then use the plugin command to play animation within your event? Then you could use something like https://galvs-scripts.com/2015/11/21/mv-map-animation-effects/ to manipulate the animation's loop and positioning without needing a custom script.

(Though, I'm kinda confused about how you're actually implementing this. It sounds like you're just using large sprite sheets with the balloons already in them? Is that right?)

 

[iVale]

How it's currently implemented is in the sprite sheet, but its very limiting and difficult to use. Alternatively I do have a version in the database, and I attempted using a loop animation script by shaz. So it was 3 database animations. Start, Loop, End, But the issue was when transitioning between the loop animation and the end animation, it would overlap due to the looping animation needing to finish after the plugin command to clear (if anyone knows the js code to force clear an animation, if that's even possible, that would work). The other issue was if I needed to adjust it's position i'd need to create 3 new database entries.

I checked out that Galv script and it looks like its mainly for region animations or map loops.

 

[ashikai]

What about this idea:
Make the balloon it's own event and give it a sprite sheet all on it's own. That way you can use the stepping/move route commands to change its looping pattern more directly; alternatively you could just swap graphics through the move route too.

For positioning you could do something like in this thread https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/set-events-position-from-javascript.69181/ so that it's relative to another event's position. Not too sure about specific positioning as I'm not clear on your dimensions/setup for sprites and such, but you could play around with the sizing of the balloon's sprite grid to get something visually exact.

I think I'm assuming correctly when I say you'll likely only be having one balloon active at a time (or maybe less than 3?) so you could reuse the same event over and over within cut scenes and just reposition it as needed. Then if you need to edit the balloon graphics you can just update its sprite sheet.

It's not very elegant, but I think it could work pretty well barring a custom balloon plugin for this.

 

[iVale]

Thanks for the suggestion! This could work, though it won't be very streamlined. I could have the event on its own, and I use a pixel movement plugin so I could move it to specific pixel x and y locations. But the process would be slightly more inconvenient than just having it in the sprite sheets like I have it now. Using the Shaz plugin I mentioned i'm able to get the effect I want, minus the looping animation. So it's just a static '...' above their heads. The whole idea is to make this more streamlined for myself... it's.. a lot of dialogue haha.

 

[ashikai]

True enough. Always good to have a backup plan just in case someone can't fulfill the request tho. Was kinda hoping it could be more straightforward as this is something I've thought about doing (not quite to the degree you are). I hope someone picks up the request!