Picture that Follows Player

[Sketchward]

Is there a non scripted way to have a picture follow a player's movement?

I'm trying to create dark dungeons similar to the way caves worked in Dragon Quest (NES, 1985) by having a black box granting the player 1 or 2 squares of vision but covering the rest of the screen.

 

[TheoAllen]

Is there a particular reason you don't want to use script?

I was going to recommend Galv's Limited Visibility Range but you replace the default limited vision picture with your own.

 

[Sketchward]

Aah just because I couldn't find one and didn't want to ask for one to be made if there as a non-scripted way to do it. Thanks very much, I'll give this a try!

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

Pictures by default are glued to the screen position, not on tiles. Even if the screen moves, pictures will remain on that same spot in your game window.

So if you make the map have a number of extra spaces in all directions where the player cant actually go into so that he always stays on the center of the screen even as he moves near the end of the walkable areas, then a simple show picture for your black mask will do exactly what you want.

 

[Shaz]

You should be able to set up a parallel process event that gets the player's SCREEN coordinates, then moves the picture to those coordinates. Make sure you add a Wait as the first command, so it doesn't cause the game to lag (maybe a Wait 4 frames might be okay). You can get the player's screen coordinates using Control Variables > Game Data > Character (Player's) > Screen X and Screen Y into two different variables, then you can use those variables in a Move Picture or Show Picture command.

You need to set the center as origin in the Move/Show Picture command, and obviously make sure the picture is twice the size of your game window.

 

[Halno]

Hey, i've done something pretty similar when doing a torch event!

The way i went above that road block is by making the image always appear locked to the screen, and have it be a looping map. that way the light is always centered on the player, since the player is always on the center of the screen in a looping map.

Spoiler

This is a pretty rudimentary example of what i've done, and all you have to do is add some 6-10 tiles to the bottom and right side of your map so the looping doesn't show the other side!

This method also saves a LOT of effort, since if you try to do the same on a non-looping map, you'd have to find a way to store the player's coordinates, make a image with 200% the size of the game screen so you could accurately scroll it around, and find a way to make your image be always accurately displayed on the location you want to, while in my method its simply a case of calling a image and tinting the screen.

If this was unsatisfactory, I could also try to make a demo event to your specifications, but only after i'm done with my current project, and trust me, it uses way too much math for my liking.

Hope I could be of help!