I'm a little embarassed to admit it, but despite working with RMXP for several months, I still have no idea how to get transitions to work in events.
I'm currently making the intro to a new game of mine, and the idea is simple (and sadly cliche): The screen is black, and then words fade in (picture1), stay for 100 frames, then fade again to blackness. Wait 20-40 frames, new words fade in (picture2) stay for 100 frames, then fade to blackness. Etc. etc.
A basic, everyday game intro thats been done thousands of times, but no matter what I do, I can't get the "prepare transition" or "execute transition" commands to do ANYTHING.
The transitions are for when you transfer between maps.
You could try experimenting with transferring between maps while changing the pics or you could manually make them fade out. (Lots of wait/show pic commands)
Thanks, Zeriab. I seem to have gotten a working solution with picture tinting, so I guess this is resolved.