New to Ace, and I have noob questions.

[Blair Pendragon]

Heya everyone, as the title suggests, I'm new to RPG Maker VX Ace.

I started recreating my RPG Maker XP game onto VX Ace, and of course, I ran into a load of problems.

(also I'd like to avoid scripts if possible, except for the last question)

Let's start with the most annoying one...

(1)Tilesets... Primarily answered.

(2) Classes... Answered

(3) Set Movement Route... With Frequency at max, and speed at max, I'm seeing small delays between steps, when I would like to keep the movement fluid.

(This is because of an event that checks to see if it is ok to keep moving, rather than a preset number of spaces, set to "set movement route". A better explanation is at the bottom.)

(4) TP... Answered

(5) Side View Battle. Answered

Thanks in advance if you have any means to help.

 

[Levi]

(1)Tilesets... WTF is going on here? ;

The invisible rules to tilesets is just astounding!

I have NO idea where to start, when it comes to drawing up my own tilesets.

XP and older it's pretty straight forward, you draw it, and pick a layer to place it on.

Now it forces some to be autotiles (which I never could figure out, so I just manually connected everything)

and others to be walls or ground or.. something... no idea what's going on honestly.

I don't understand the question. You want someone to explain the Ace's mapping system?

(2) Classes... I notice your character no longer has independent stats from their class.

I had a FF5/FFT sort of class system in my XP version, but now I can't do this.

So my question is, what's the easiest way to fix this?

Currently I have invisible classes, that represent each characters unique stats... then slap on additional stats when they change "fake" classes. (The real class can't change, since this effects stat growth) but now they can't change what gear they wear, unless they change their REAL class... and if I want to do this, I would have to make 20 different combinations to the 16 some characters I have... this seems WAY too much for something that should have an easy work around. (Or so I think.)

All the features/traits available in the "Class" table can be utilized at the "Actor" table as well. So you can have Class attributes, and Actor attributes... independent of each other. So... a guy could be a warrior. He's "allowed" to use axes. But on the "Actor" table you can add "Equip Sword" so that He can use swords as well as axes... even though the Warrior Class only allows Axes.

(3) Set Movement Route... My game is side scrolling, and has platforming elements. (With a style that looks similar to mario)

I'm currently having an issue where gravity doesn't continue to drag a player down... with out small pauses in between "movements" downward.

In my original game, I have gravity check what the terrain tag is. If the player is not firmly on the ground, it would push them down a space.

But now a few things changed, when I use the very same event. (other than the fact Ace doesn't have a "Variable = Terrain tag" option)

When I start "falling" it pauses for 1 second between, looking VERY awkward.

I changed it to loop the "downward" movement, but it still stops for 5~ish frames, which is ok.. I guess.. but still breaks the immersion when falling.

Set the "Frequency" to High or Highest for the Player before and during the fall, and set it back to normal afterwards. Also, you can do Var = Terrain Tag. Under the 3rd tab, in the Control Variables Menu there is "Get Location Info". From there you can set a variable to receive Terrain Tag info.

The next part is the player can change directions mid fall (they couldn't before) and events I turned off, continue to run parallel despite the switches being turned off) The player can also move left or right during a fall, where the character makes a "Walking" animation, which is both turned off, and their graphic has changed, when I never specified to change their graphic.

I don't quite understand this question. Can you elaborate? Maybe get us some screenshots?

(4) TP... is it possible to show TP only for certain characters?

I don't want every class using TP. (Granted in XP I used TP, but it was just a common event, tied to certain classes, with custom graphics. Not all classes were meant to have TP.)

Not that I'm aware of.

(5) Side View Battle. I know everyone wants these, and of course I had a disappoint when it still didn't make it's way into Ace. (Good ol 2003 days) Anyways, What is the best side view battle system script, that is TURN BASED, with nearly identical UI to the default. Where almost NOTHING needs to be added/altered/tweaked in scripts. (if any such one exists)

Plug n'play: http://www.rpgmakerv...mple-side-view/

 

[Ronove]

Did you check RMW's official blog? They have a tutorial for the mapping and how it all works.

http://blog.rpgmakerweb.com/tutorials/make-your-own-game-part-2/

 

[Blair Pendragon]

I don't understand the question. You want someone to explain the Ace's mapping system?

Ok here is what I did, I opened up the resource manager, and used the literal tilesets from XP.

And now They all became autotiles, when they were not meant to be.

Well some didn't...

How do you know which zone is for autotiles and which is not?

How do you set up which are layer1 and which are layer 2?

any guides on how to create auto tiles, since I could never really figure them out.

Set the "Frequency" to High or Highest for the Player before and during the fall, and set it back to normal afterwards. Also, you can do Var = Terrain Tag. Under the 3rd tab, in the Control Variables Menu there is "Get Location Info". From there you can set a variable to receive Terrain Tag info.

I used the frequency feature, and it did nothing to effect this. Either at lowest or highest. Seems to only effect NPCs.

As for the terrain tag, I know you can set it up through 3 variables. Get X, Get Y, check X and Y. Just wish I could set it to 1 variable to make it less cluttered

I don't quite understand this question. Can you elaborate? Maybe get us some screenshots?

a screenshot wouldn't really show what I mean. The best way to explain this, would be to make an event where a player is moving to the right.

They are on a long road, and continue to walk to the right, never ending.

while this is happening, lets pretend credits and stuff are happening.

the player should NOT be able to move during this scene... yet between steps, they can move in any direction they want to.

it would look like this.

Left > Left > Left > press up, and move UP> Left > Left >Left >presses down and moves down...

thanks for your response ^^

 

[Blair Pendragon]

Did you check RMW's official blog? They have a tutorial for the mapping and how it all works.

Nah, I don't mean mapping.

I mean going into Photoshop or MS Paintbrush, and literally drawing up tiles.

If I draw 1 block that is grass, and 1 block that is a rock, when I go to open it up in Ace, it links the two together, as if they are autotiles.

these "rules" are invisible, and was wondering if anyone had a visual to show me where "Autotiles" are (if there are spaces for non autotiles) and where layer 1 and 2 are on a blank canvas.

 

[Ronove]

For your event troubles, do you have the event set as Parallel Process or Autorun?

You shouldn't double post! !

The rules aren't invisible, they are set up different than XP. Check out the link, it explains the different tilesets (A1-A5 are all ground tilesets (A1 is animated autotiles like water, A2 is ground autotiles, A3 is houses (in autotile), A4 is walls (in autotile), A5 is normal ground tiles). B-E tilesets are all second layer. They all have defined sizes too so you should look at the default tilesets in VXAce and you can figure it out from there. It's not invisible.

 

[Chaos17]

Check this guide, it will teach you all the basics you need to know: http://www.scribd.com/doc/88474618/Beginner-s-Guide-to-RPG-Maker-VX-Ace

 

[Blair Pendragon]

For your event troubles, do you have the event set as Parallel Process or Autorun?

You shouldn't double post! !

Didn't mean to double post, meant to edit the one above to include it.

as for the event. what little I did so far is this;

Common event #1 Checks the direction a player is facing, to alter graphics for jumping and falling, so they continue to face the direction they were facing.

Basically check direction, turn on event Left or Right.

Common event #2 Gravity. Literally checks what terrain they are on, and moves them downward until they hit a terrain number of 4 or less.

I put terrain checks in the 1st common event, and multiple times in the 2nd. This didnt effect anything.

In the falling, it checks direction 1st, then checks terrain tag, then sets a loop (didn't need to do this before) where it moves the player down a space. If the player is on a terrain tag of 4 or less it breaks the loop, and returns the player to a normal walking animation.

 

[Scinaya]

Blair Pendragon, please avoid double posting, as it is against the forum rules. You can review our forum rules here. Thank you.

Ronove, please use report button next time.

As for your question number three. I am not probably able to help very well in depth with it, but I'd suggest you look into regions. As far as I know you can handle region ID very flexible ways. So instead of using in the event the TileID you could try set up regions for the ground.

 

[Blair Pendragon]

OK, here is the update to my eventing issue.

I created 2 common events.

The 1st is a parallel common event, that checks the Terrain Tag, and makes it a variable. (lets say the ground is 1, and being in the "air" is a 2)

In that event, I also have a conditional branch.

It checks to see if the player is 2 or higher. (aka in the air, because of a fall or jump)

If the variable is 2 or higher, it turns on a switch.

That switch activates the 2nd common event.

I set it up as an Autorun.

This prevents "walking" in mid air.

The autorun common event moves the player down 1 space, checks the terrain tag, and if the player still isn't on the ground (1) it goes into a loop of "move down".

I set the player to Through on, Direction Fix on, Speed 5(max), Frequency 5(max).

The loop breaks if they reach a variable/terrain tag of 1.

To which the switch is turned off.

The current problem I'm having is the character still makes a small pause between "steps" aka moving down a space because of gravity.

The loop I added helped decrease it from a 1 second delay, to a 2-4 frame delay. (hard to guess how much this delay really is.)

The pause is gone if I make a single event, that moves the character once, for a set number of spaces.

(aka move 5 spaces down, finish)

But with an event that has to check if it's ok to move, after every step, the pause is very noticeable on Ace. (where as it was never there on any previous RPG Maker I played with.)

Is it a 100% impossible to get rid of this pause?