Why are my characters using attack animations when casting?

[TakumaGao]

I'm not sure if this is a plugin issue, a general engine issue or... something else?



Whenever I cast a spell (so far it only seems to happen to a healing spell I made) it causes the actor to perform an attacking animation with a weapon rather than the casting animation. It does not appear to happen when using the other spell I made, an offensive spell.

The only plugins I currently have installed are as follows:



That's it. Any idea what's causing this?

Little side questions, so I don't have to make another thread in such a short amount of time:

1. Any idea how I can make the skill name display on the top of the screen into a bordered, solid window rather than the transparent bar that it is?

2. Any idea how to make all of my actors line up straight instead of them being slightly offset from each other?

But yeah, I'm mainly focused on the main question right now lol.

 

[Andar]

the weapon animation should only happen if the skill type is NOT set to be a magic skill type.
then it uses the settings based on the equipped weapon.

all those settings are somewhere in the system tab of the database.

 

[ATT_Turan]

That's it. Any idea what's causing this?

Go back and carefully re-read the documentation for the VisuStella Battle Core. It makes some changes to the default casting animations of skills that you can either disable or change on a per-skill basis with notetags.

2. Any idea how to make all of my actors line up straight instead of them being slightly offset from each other?

That probably also has a plugin parameter in the Battle Core. If it doesn't (which would surprise me) there's a plugin that came in your MZ installation in the dlc folder called...SVActorPosition or something like that.

But I'll bet you an apple the Battle Core already lets you edit it.

I didn't get into the battle log window because I'm not sure whether there's a plugin around to let you edit it easily or you'd need to get into some JavaScript.

 

[TakumaGao]

the weapon animation should only happen if the skill type is NOT set to be a magic skill type.
then it uses the settings based on the equipped weapon.

all those settings are somewhere in the system tab of the database.

Ah ha! So basically because I have the healing spell set as Certain Hit, it uses the weapon animation, right? But... I thought healing spells and the like were *supposed* to be Certain Hit? Is there any way to override this behavior? I tried looking through the VS Battle Core readme and if it was there, I didn't see it.

Go back and carefully re-read the documentation for the VisuStella Battle Core. It makes some changes to the default casting animations of skills that you can either disable or change on a per-skill basis with notetags.

That probably also has a plugin parameter in the Battle Core. If it doesn't (which would surprise me) there's a plugin that came in your MZ installation in the dlc folder called...SVActorPosition or something like that.

But I'll bet you an apple the Battle Core already lets you edit it.

I didn't get into the battle log window because I'm not sure whether there's a plugin around to let you edit it easily or you'd need to get into some JavaScript.

Well, like I said above, I looked through the readme (enormous as it is) and if there was an explanation on how to override that behavior, I didn't see it. Any advice?

The only thing I can think of is just making the healing spell a Magical Attack rather than Certain Hit, but then it has the chance to fail, even if it's 100% (due to accuracy reduction), no? Is there any way that I can assure that the spell always works, while setting it as Magical Attack?

Also, I just tried adjusting the lineup order with the plugin you suggested, and it works.... but it's made me discover another problem. Apparently somehow, in my attempts to keep the enemy battlers from moving in the battle (I want them totally stationary), I also made it so that my characters don't step forward when selecting their actions. How do I fix this? Sorry for all the dumb questions.

 

[Andar]

because I have the healing spell set as Certain Hit, it uses the weapon animation, right?

wrong, the animation has nothing to do with certain hit or any hit type.

it has to do with the skill type and the setting for the skill type in the system tab.
what skill type is your healing spell?
have you set that skill type as "[SV] Magic"?

 

[TakumaGao]

wrong, the animation has nothing to do with certain hit or any hit type.

it has to do with the skill type and the setting for the skill type in the system tab.
what skill type is your healing spell?
have you set that skill type as "[SV] Magic"?

Yeah, it's set as the Magic skill type. I only have one skill type in my game. But... changing it between it being a Certain Hit or a Magical Attack *is* fixing the problem... but it also causes a different problem by not allowing me to set spells that I want to have a proper casting animation for as Certain Hit.

Also yes, the Magic skill type is set under the [SV] Magic option.

 

[Andar]

I only have one skill type in my game

that would mean that either everything is a weapon skill, or everything is a magic skill - you need two skill types to assign different behaviour in default.

or you need a plugin to override all those settings.

and I think you have plugins that override those settings without your knowledge, because by default changing the hit type should NOT change the animation type.

 

[ATT_Turan]

Okay, you have a few screwy things going on.

First: are you talking about animations, which are images that play on top of the battlers/screen? Or are you talking about motions, which has the actors performing a physical motion? Your screenshot is not conclusive to me, and your conversation with Andar seems to be talking about motions rather than animations.

If you're talking about the animation that plays on the actor when they start the skill:

Ah ha! So basically because I have the healing spell set as Certain Hit, it uses the weapon animation, right? But... I thought healing spells and the like were *supposed* to be Certain Hit? Is there any way to override this behavior? I tried looking through the VS Battle Core readme and if it was there, I didn't see it.

There's a link on the contents on the right that says "Animation-related notetags":

Battle Core VisuStella MZ - Yanfly.moe Wiki

www.yanfly.moe

If you're talking about the motion that the actor performs...well, you don't appear to be talking about that, because you said it changes when you go between Certain Hit and Magical Attack, and the motion should be determined solely by whether or not the skill type is listed as a Magic skill in your System tab. Unless, again, the Battle Core changes it, in which case it would be in the plugin parameters.

Apparently somehow, in my attempts to keep the enemy battlers from moving in the battle (I want them totally stationary), I also made it so that my characters don't step forward when selecting their actions. How do I fix this?

Erm...I don't know, how did you break it? That question's kind of impossible to answer without you showing what you changed

 

[TakumaGao]

that would mean that either everything is a weapon skill, or everything is a magic skill - you need two skill types to assign different behaviour in default.

or you need a plugin to override all those settings.

and I think you have plugins that override those settings without your knowledge, because by default changing the hit type should NOT change the animation type.

Well... it *shouldn't*, but it *is*

Basically if it's set to Certain Hit, for whatever reason, its using the weapon skill animation instead of the casting animation.

Okay, you have a few screwy things going on.

First: are you talking about animations, which are images that play on top of the battlers/screen? Or are you talking about motions, which has the actors performing a physical motion? Your screenshot is not conclusive to me, and your conversation with Andar seems to be talking about motions rather than animations.

If you're talking about the animation that plays on the actor when they start the skill:

There's a link on the contents on the right that says "Animation-related notetags":

Battle Core VisuStella MZ - Yanfly.moe Wiki

www.yanfly.moe

If you're talking about the motion that the actor performs...well, you don't appear to be talking about that, because you said it changes when you go between Certain Hit and Magical Attack, and the motion should be determined solely by whether or not the skill type is listed as a Magic skill in your System tab. Unless, again, the Battle Core changes it, in which case it would be in the plugin parameters.


Erm...I don't know, how did you break it? That question's kind of impossible to answer without you showing what you changed

You're right, my terminology is wrong - I apologize. What I'm talking about Motions. When the character casts a Certain Hit skill, it should play the Magic Casting Motion, but is instead playing the Attack Motion.

Logically it *should* be in the Battle Core parameters, but... I can't find it, if it is

I figured out what broke the Stepping, by the way. It's in Battle Core, under Action Sequence Settings, down near the bottom - Stepping, where I had changed Step Distance X to 0 in order to try and prevent the enemy battlers from stepping forward when attacking, but seems to cause it to happen on both enemies and actors. Any idea how to make it so that ONLY Actors step, but NOT enemies? Cause this option seems to only affect BOTH simultaneously.

 

[ATT_Turan]

What I'm talking about Motions. When the character casts a Certain Hit skill, it should play the Magic Casting Motion, but is instead playing the Attack Motion.

No offense, but I think you keep being told the same things and you don't check them to give more information.

The motion does not have to do with the hit type, it has to do with the skill type. In the default RPG Maker engine, whether your actor does the casting motion or attack motion is determined by whether the skill type of the skill is also listed under Magic Skills in the System 2 tab.

If your game is not functioning that way, you should disable all of the plugins and test, because that's how the default skills that you see in a new MZ project work. If it is being added by a plugin, then you have to go from there...looking at that plugin's documentation, contacting the author for support, etc.

Saying "for whatever reason" can't help anyone to help you.

Worst case, you already have the Battle Core, just program your skills with Action Sequences and your actors will do whatever you say.

I figured out what broke the Stepping, by the way. It's in Battle Core, under Action Sequence Settings, down near the bottom - Stepping, where I had changed Step Distance X to 0 in order to try and prevent the enemy battlers from stepping forward when attacking, but seems to cause it to happen on both enemies and actors. Any idea how to make it so that ONLY Actors step, but NOT enemies? Cause this option seems to only affect BOTH simultaneously.

So I'm not sure what you mean here. Actors step forward when it's their turn and you're inputting an action. Enemies don't do that because they have no input phase. So, once again, if your enemies are moving at all, that's from something you added...in my default MZ test project, the enemies are completely motionless and simply flash when they're using a skill.

Again, test by turning off plugins, when you find what's doing it read the full instructions and check all the plugin parameters.

 

[TakumaGao]

No offense, but I think you keep being told the same things and you don't check them to give more information.

The motion does not have to do with the hit type, it has to do with the skill type. In the default RPG Maker engine, whether your actor does the casting motion or attack motion is determined by whether the skill type of the skill is also listed under Magic Skills in the System 2 tab.

If your game is not functioning that way, you should disable all of the plugins and test, because that's how the default skills that you see in a new MZ project work. If it is being added by a plugin, then you have to go from there...looking at that plugin's documentation, contacting the author for support, etc.

Saying "for whatever reason" can't help anyone to help you.

Worst case, you already have the Battle Core, just program your skills with Action Sequences and your actors will do whatever you say.

So I'm not sure what you mean here. Actors step forward when it's their turn and you're inputting an action. Enemies don't do that because they have no input phase. So, once again, if your enemies are moving at all, that's from something you added...in my default MZ test project, the enemies are completely motionless and simply flash when they're using a skill.

Again, test by turning off plugins, when you find what's doing it read the full instructions and check all the plugin parameters.

I'm sorry I'm just not all that experienced with this stuff.

I know at this point that the problem is coming from the Battle Core plugin. If I disable Battle Core, then the casting animation on Certain Hit skills reverts back to how it should be, which is as you described. Though uh... I have no clue how to fix it. I DID read through the readme, and if the explanation for why this is happening is there... I didn't see it.

How do I program them to have the correct casting animation using Action Sequences?

And I know that enemies shouldn't step forward when performing their action, since they're just static images. However by default, Battle Core causes this to happen, and I can't figure out how to stop them from doing that without also stopping Actors from doing that.

Thing is, I kind of need Battle Core, since it enables several other options that I need for my game, so I can't just get rid of it. I need to figure out why these things are happening, and how to fix them.

 

[ATT_Turan]

I know at this point that the problem is coming from the Battle Core plugin. If I disable Battle Core, then the casting animation on Certain Hit skills reverts back to how it should be, which is as you described.

Again...are you talking about casting animations, or the motions when performing a skill?

And I know that enemies shouldn't step forward when performing their action, since they're just static images. However by default, Battle Core causes this to happen, and I can't figure out how to stop them from doing that without also stopping Actors from doing that.

The option is to create your own action sequences. Or at least one default one. There are no settings there to distinguish between actors and enemies, they are simple defaults.

How do I program them...using Action Sequences?

By reading and following the instructions. There's a huge section devoted to them with pictures and everything in the help file.

 

[TakumaGao]

Again...are you talking about casting animations, or the motions when performing a skill?

The option is to create your own action sequences. Or at least one default one. There are no settings there to distinguish between actors and enemies, they are simple defaults.

By reading and following the instructions. There's a huge section devoted to them with pictures and everything in the help file.

I mean that the motion when performing a Certain Hit skill should use the motion for casting a spell... but it's not, it's using an attack motion. Sorry about the terminology issues D:

There's pictures? It looks like a bunch of plain text to me?

 

[Andar]

you're mixing up too many things, we need to know facts before we can give any better help.

please provide a screenshot of one of the skills with this problem, a screenshot of the System 2 tab of the database and screenshots of your plugin manager showing your plugins and their order.

 

[ATT_Turan]

There's pictures? It looks like a bunch of plain text to me?

I provided a link to the Web documentation in post 8.

Sorry I can't be of any more help, I can't reproduce your problem.

 

[TakumaGao]

you're mixing up too many things, we need to know facts before we can give any better help.

please provide a screenshot of one of the skills with this problem, a screenshot of the System 2 tab of the database and screenshots of your plugin manager showing your plugins and their order.

And here's a video of the oddities in action.

I provided a link to the Web documentation in post 8.

Sorry I can't be of any more help, I can't reproduce your problem.

Oops, didn't notice. I'll check it out in a bit.

 

[Andar]

with those skill and system settings, the heal spell should not use the sword motion - which means something is really messed up in your engine.

1) please make the following test:
make a new project, replicate the skill and the system settings there but do NOT enter any plugins.
then test again - does it work correctly or does the actor use a sword then?

2) where did you get the last plugin from?
because no matter what, the file is named wrong and that can cause a lot of problems.
NEVER have any spaces in any javascript filename, and additionally half the plugins will no longer work if renamed because the filename becomes part of the data structure.

 

[TakumaGao]

with those skill and system settings, the heal spell should not use the sword motion - which means something is really messed up in your engine.

1) please make the following test:
make a new project, replicate the skill and the system settings there but do NOT enter any plugins.
then test again - does it work correctly or does the actor use a sword then?

2) where did you get the last plugin from?
because no matter what, the file is named wrong and that can cause a lot of problems.
NEVER have any spaces in any javascript filename, and additionally half the plugins will no longer work if renamed because the filename becomes part of the data structure.

1. Made a new project and copied all of the settings exactly. When testing with NO plugins, the sword attacking motion does NOT play when using the Heal spell, but rather the casting motion that is supposed to play.

HOWEVER!

I then took that same brand new project and copied the VS Core Engine and VS Battle Core from the VS sample game plugins folder (as I did with my actual project) and added them to the game. Went and tested the same fight under the exact same conditions using the default settings in both plugins...

...And the weapon attacking motion played when casting the Heal spell!

This means that it's NOT something I did! It's something that comes default with the VS Battle Core! It's not the VS Core Engine that's causing it either, because by keeping VS Core Engine enabled and disabling VS Battle Core, the strange motion behavior stops. So it's DEFINITELY the Battle Core that's at fault!

So the question remains... why is it happening when something is set to Certain Hit... and how do we fix it?

2. I got it from my other thread in this forum, and it was made by @ATT_Turan . However he just posted it as text code, and I copied it to Notepad and saved it as a .js file. What am I supposed to change the name to other than removing the spaces? It seems to work just fine at the moment, but I'll do what you say.

 

[Andar]

What am I supposed to change the name to other than removing the spaces

in that case removing the spaces should be enough.

it's only the more complex plugins where the name has to remain fixed due to data structures.
smaller snippets that have no such data structure can have any name.
but browsers have problems loading files with spaces in their names, so those should be removed and the plugin reimported with the new name.

 

[TakumaGao]

in that case removing the spaces should be enough.

it's only the more complex plugins where the name has to remain fixed due to data structures.
smaller snippets that have no such data structure can have any name.
but browsers have problems loading files with spaces in their names, so those should be removed and the plugin reimported with the new name.

Already, I did what you said

So about the other problem...

Is there any way I could contact Yanfly and ask him directly? Cause it seems like this is an issue with the plugin rather than something I did.