Animation Battlecharacters????

Alright, so I got feedback on my RPG (mainly the sprites and whatnot) on another forum (DoujinStyle) and found out from that reply that it's possible to do character sprites using battle animations. Now, is this really possible to do, as it would not only make the sprites better I think (probably 100x better since well....if you've seen any of my videos, the sprites for in-battle aren't exactly the greatest), but it would work better with the attacks they use. Though my question is (if this is possible to do this using animations), is how would it be done obviously, but how would one add status sprites to each of them in this manner???



I'm not sure if I asked this question correctly or not, but hopefully someone understands? ^^;;

It is possible to use battle animations as Battle Characters (I assume you're using RM2K3?) In the Database Menu, go to tab Animations 2. In that tab you'll see another set of tabs, click onto "Animation Type". In this menu you'll see two options associated to each "Pose/Animation":

1. Character Pose. (Used if you're utilizing BattleCharSets)
2. Battle Animation. (Used if you're utilizing Battle Animations)

Using a battle animation (as a character animation) does give much more flexibility and customization of the DBS.. So if you have a Battle Animation of your characters poses them you can put together your animations in "Animations 1" Tab.

Here's a few pointers for setting up your animations:

1. No empty frames: The animation defaults to 20 frames, but if you only use (as an example) 6 frames, then set the frame range to only include 6 frames.. This will prevent your character from disappearing from the screen temporarily.

2. Use the scope option "Local". If you use global, it will affect where you character appears on the screen (might appear somewhere odd)

3. When placing your animation cells, place them at coordinates 0,0 if possible. This will keep your character properly aligned with the character placement on your battle terrain.

This should give you a good head start, if you have any other questions; feel free to ask.

Alright, I have one question regarding coordinates 0,0. Now, I can see how this'll work with a character, but say you have 2 characters in your party (or 4 total). Will it still place them appropriately like it would normally (which I'm assuming it'll do as normal like if you were to use the Battle Animations sprites instead)? And would it be suggested to do Manual or Automatic placement in this case (since the sprites are obviously going to be bigger)?

If you use the coordinates 0,0 it will place them appropriately even if you have multiple heroes on your party (again, make sure you use local scope) but as an example, if you had someone whose coordinately were a few points to the left, then that hero would be out of alignment with the rest of the party.

As far as manual or automatic placement; auto is usually easier. But in this case; it's really dependent on preference. Either will work.

Alright. Will keep that in mind when I fix these sprites up. Only thing that'll be annoying to do is edit the status sprites for em x_x.


Thanks for your help! ^^