Advanced battle intro with eventing pictures.

Post including demo DL link is in my sig.

Spoiler for:

This was originally a full event-custom-action-battle system tutorial. Then I found a similar tutorial, so I translated this into just a battle intro tut. The other event battle system tutorial is here: http://www.hbgames.org/forums/showthread.php?t=17121

However, it does not have ranged and Area of Effect functions. So I will briefly explain the algorithms to do them below:

Mm, well for the range and AoE it's almost like "addons". I'll just briefly explain it here on how to implement them, at least how I do them.

Ranged is the simpler of the two, you simply make a 'through' event (projectile) and put it off the screen somewhere. For the hotkey where you press "shoot", it should set the event of the projectile event at where the player is (remember that you have an event that keeps tracking the X and Y of player onto two variables) and face where the player is facing (conditional branches for each direction).

Then, change the graphic of the event to the projectile char-set (arrow char set, for example. Easy to make, just draw some sticks and set them onto an ready-made char set for positioning).

Next, set a move event command for the arrows to go however many steps forward. (If you want, you can have a custom distance-variable, that way you can increase or decrease the distance that arrow goes under certain conditions. To implement this, you use a 'Loop' command. Open a loop up, and put 'move forward' once inside. Still inside the loop bracket, make a variable 'count', and make count = count + 1. Next, still inside the loop bracket, make a conditional branch that has the condition count = DISTANCE (where DISTANCE is the distance variable you want the arrow to go for), and if it matches that condition, BREAK LOOP command activates. [This is basically a do-while loop replica for eventing for those that knows some programming])

Then, on the parallel processing event that you have running seperately that tracks player's and enemies' X and Y variables, make 2 new variables; ProjectileX and ProjectileY. Set them to equal to the projectile event's X and Y coords.

Now for the 'hit check' event; you simply compare whether the variable monsterX = projectileX, and if it does then compare whether monsterY = projectileY. If it does again, then do whatever you want as a monster gets hit in that conditional branch. Remember to do this check for every monster. (That's why I only limit my max enemy number and player number at 4 each, or it's too much hassel to check everything.)

P.S. Remember to do some graphic/sound notice when the monster is hit. Perhaps a knock back, a flash of the monster character, a squeal, something along those lines.




As for Area of Effect; you need 8 variables. The top left corner(x,y), top right corner(x,y), bottom left corner(x,y) and bottom right corner(x,y). Basically, you have an area with each of the 4 corners (square area) cornered out. When you check, you check whether the enemy's X is greater than the minimum X yet less than the maximum X, then whether the enemy's Y is greater than the minimum Y yet less than the minimum Y.

Oh, and to get those corner variables, you have a center point you release the area of effect at. I usually start with the player's location. So with that center, you calculate each x and y accordingly. For example, if the range is 4x4 square like I used, then that means from the center to the left-most point is a distance of 2, same with the upper-point. Hence, to get the left upper corner, your center x goes under the calculation of x=x-2, y=y-2.

^
|
|
  - - C

And repeat the calculation for the rest of the points accordingly.



That's basically it in a nutshell. 

ADVANCED BATTLE INTRO WITH EVENTING PICTURES

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Throw that mere transition command out of the window, it's a disgrace to your game! For a refreshing animated battle intro, you can employ full use of picture manipulational events.

I'll throw this screenshot of my intro pic manipulation event log here, but just skim over it first; and look at the NEXT TWO SCREENSHOTS FIRST; then come back to it. It'd make more sense then.




Now, here's what that does to the scene, I will try to demonstrate with 2 screenshots taken during the animation (To see the actual full resulting animation, test the sample CBS beta in the link posted above):


Numbered ID:
7 BACKGROUND
8 TOP SWORD COMING IN FROM THE LEFT
9 BOTTOM SWORD COMING IN FROM THE RIGHT
11 'VS' TEXT ZOOMING IN FROM THE CENTER

12 FRAME OF THE FACE PIC FOR FIRST HERO
22 FACE PIC OF THE FIRST HERO
13 FRAME OF THE FACE PIC FOR SECOND HERO
23 FACE PIC OF THE SECOND HERO

16 FRAME OF THE FACE PIC FOR THE FIRST ENEMY
26 FACE OF THE FIRST ENEMY
17 FRAME OF THE FACE PIC FOR THE SECOND ENEMY
26 FACE OF THE SECOND ENEMY

They are still in motion, heading to their destination locations as blue arrows indicate.


And here is their destination locations, fully arrived (at the 40 frames of WAIT command in the EVENT LOG screenshot above):


You can match the number IDs of each pic with the one on the previous screenshot when they were still moving to the places.

They pause there for 40 seconds, then they go ('move picture') the opposite direction as they came until they all go off the screen (I also used 'rotate picture' command as they leave to fancy it up a little, see the event log screen shot above). When they're done moving off the screen, (WAIT for the amount of frames you set them to take to get to their disappearing position), erase picture to all pics.

NOW, refer back to the event log screenshot before the above two screenshot and see what happened there.

But uncle Reives, how do I know what coordinate to move each face pictures to? 

You just have to do some minor calculations.

The RMXP game-play screen is 640x480 pixels in size. If a point's position is defined by (x,y), as you go down the screen, Y increases. As you go right of the screen, X increases; and vice versa. So, here:


(Hint: Always have a reference point when calculating where your wanted coordinates are at! If it's close to the center, count the coords from the center point! (E.g. if it goes left, x decreases, if it goes up, y decreases, vice versa.)


It might seem a little complicated at first, but when you think about it, it should be straight forward. Picture a canvas, labeled with coordinates. If you make a movement, how will the coordinate change? To the right? To the left? And reverse calculate it to frame out the coordinate you want.


P.S. Incorporate everything into common events, so you can call different face pictures for different battles.

yeah...we can stop you...lol jk reserve all you want. um...this looks BADASS. any chance of a demo? 

<3
But a demo to go with it would be nice.

Very nice work.  I would also like a demo to try it out, I have to test lag on my comp. =[


Edit:

Nevermind, I found the demo. XD

http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,10424.msg132412.html#msg132412  It's at the bottom of his first post. I also recommend his game demo. :]

*Note* Link also found in his signature.

O.o U posted ur battle system!! YAY! Rep+!

EDIT - ...DAMN! Its part 1...

There is a demo, the DL link is at the top of this post:
http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,10424.0.html

However it is encrypted, so its main purpose is to show an expectation of what can be made using it. Even if it isn't encrypted, I didn't comment on the eventing logs (and there are literally over hundred(s) of eventing lines, so even I have to stare at things for a while before knowing what's going on).

The point of the tutorial is not to let one copy the exact style of something, but to give them the algorithms to let themselves create it. This way, more innovation comes as a result.


By the way, I think I'll make this thread a seperate tut from the battle system as an advanced battle intro scene tutorial, since it can be used to enhance any battle system.

I noticed! Just a little late.  And I just wanted to test the lag, which is there, but minimal.  It's awesome, that last boss is a bit tough.  She always manages to kill me with her last attack. =[

Last attack as in her finishing move or the suicide-bombing thing when she dies? I usually just use Reivier's trap and arrow for main damage, and just switch to Lunair for a quick heal once a while. Spamming Venom Cloud AoE is fun but, highly inefficient.

P.S. Also, I think I can reduce the lag by organizing and reducing some events later on. A lot of the parallel processes going on in there can probably be combined with others of the similar frequency.

The suicide thing at the end is what does it.  I do the same, she's only good for a heal once in a while.  That trap is very handy.  The lag is actually really tolerable, my computer is total crap, and I don't have any trouble running the demo. 


I love how when the elemental does her, "ember fire" I believe, the battler comes up.  Looks really nice.  Again awesome work and a definite +rep to you.

Lunair's AoE will shine more in group of normal encounter fights and when other bosses summon minions.

Glad you like it!

I just finished the demo, and I must say I am very impressed. This must have taken ages to finish. I had hardly an lag when I played the game, and the fire elemental's special move (the one where her graphic appears on the screen) is amazing. However, face-to-face melee feels a little awkard, and I kept activating the dash ability during dialogue scenes, but other than that it was great. Good job, and keep it up. I'm very interested in seeing how your game develops.

Thanks! About the melee, I'm wondering whether I should make its range to the 8 squares around the player in all directions? Right now, it's the 3 squares infront of the player.
 
   +
P +
   +

When facing right, for example. It's kinda hard to aim like this though.

Nah, I wouldn't go that far. The player should be facing the enemy, or it sort of looks weird. I would consider altering that sword animation a little, and maybe increasing the knockback caused by a successful attack. It's up to you, though. It doesn't hinder the system a whole lot the way it is right now, but I think it could be just a little better.

Right. I'm thinking more of making it like:
   ++
P ++
   ++

When facing right for instance.


As in making an extra distance ahead; mainly because when the mob is in melee range, it keeps going back and forth. Mm, I'll have to test things out.

I gotta start working on the actual game progression a little more though.  Will leave this CBS at this beta for a bit.

I think it'll be good to do:
  +
P ++
  +
Because if the guy swings, then it makes a circle! Of course, that's only if you're allowed to do that.

Oo good idea. And yes it's possible; the algorithm could be to set the melee event infront of player, play animation, and when checking whether mob is hit or not, conditional branch on (x+1,y), (x,y), (x,y-1), x(y+1) of the melee event and try to match the mob's (x,y).

With a few careful modifications then you could make this a ABS instead of a CBS.

Ehh... Might be a bit too hard. Also, I already saw one on hbgames.org. I think this looks cooler because it has many extra stuff.

Well Im going to attempt to turn this into a ABS if he/she posts how to make a monsters and... Something else I forgot

ABS is possible, which uses the exact same mechanics, but it will probably lag (the anti-lag scripts mess up some eventing for some reason).

After looking around, I actually found a similar event-battle-system tutorial with basically similar mechanics as what I intended to post (http://www.hbgames.org/forums/showthread.php?t=17121), so I will leave this as just an improved battle-intro tutorial.



It is only strictly melee though, without projectile and AoE. I encourage to think on your own to try to see how you can do those first though; if you can it often trigger even more and better original ideas. If you can't seem to, or are too lazy too, then just ask here and I can explain the mechanics.

But you'res was sooooo understandable!! He made it hard!

That's probably because I haven't gotten to the actual set ups yet :p When I do it'll probably be the same as him.

ZOMG. I just noticed that this was just the intro, not the actually ABS in progress. XD If we wanted, we could just skip this, right?

Oh, nono, it was originally an ABS tutorial. But then I found a tut that's basically the same in concept, so I linked that instead and turned this into a battle intro.

You're going to post your ABS, though, right? Because you can make range and AoE.