RPGMaker 2003 Help

I'm fairly new to the creation of a game, so I have a few questions. I didn't see any tutorials labeled as what I need, so I'm just gonna make a new topic to ask them.

1) I want to know how to make an intro to the game, so it's not just WHAM! There's my hero in the middle of the map with no story as to how he got there.

2) How do I set music to different battles? I have my battle music, but I don't know how to change it to a boss theme when a boss battle happens.

There might be more questions in the future; in fact, I know there will be. But that's all I have at the moment. If anyone could answer these for me, it'd be a huge help. Thankss.

1) Set a start position to your hero and make an event. On the event find the "Event start Condition" thing. Click on it and click on autorun. Make the series of events for your intro. Teleport hero to your start location after.

2) This is simple. Simply go to your "monster groups" tab in your "database" (press F8) and go to the bottom of the page. You'll note it says "battle event" and "trigger." Double click trigger, click checkbox for turn, set turn to 1, and make the event change BGM to your choice.

The way I made my intro was to place the start position inside a "wall". That way, he is invisible during your cutscene. Even if you want your hero to be visible, just make another actor that will look like your hero. The reason you want to do this is because if the "true hero" is walking around during this cutscene, the camera will pan with him to keep him centered. Maybe you want this, but usually during a cutscene, the camera stays more or less still.

Make an auto run event that makes actors walk around and talk and stuff. At the end of the event, have a switch  "Cutscene Over" turn on. Have a second page with the condition "Switch 0001: Cutscene is Over - ON". That way, the autorun event  won't try to "auto run again" after the event is over. Also at the end of the first page, place a teleport event to move your hero to a spot where you can walk around. This may be as simple as just swapping his position with the actor that played him, or maybe you want him to teleport somewhere else. (Ex. Often in RPGs, you know that you can start playing when the hero "wakes up" in bed.)

Hope this helps you out. Experiment with actors walking around and doing stuff in your cutscene, because if it's just dialogue it might be kinda boring to watch. Also, have a LOT of "Wait" commands in your cutscene. This will help you make your timing all perfect, and make the cutscene better.

You can always make a "dud" character (no sprite). This way, if you DO wanna pan the camera, just force player movement. if you just copy a map and make it the "intro map" like I would, you wouldn't need the switch but then I don't like uneccessaries.

I agree with the action/waits in your intro.

Also, remember, faces have emotions. try emotional facesets so it isn't all plain and normal

Alrighty, thank you everyone. It's much appreciated.

If you're still reading this thread, there is a better way to set appropriate music for battles. I find changing it in the battle screen isn't as effective because you hear a small second of the normal music. Just change it in the event before the battle, then change it back after.

Intro
1. Go into your DATABASE and select the SYSTEM tab and make the FIRST MEMBER of your STARTING PARTY - NONE.

2. Choose a CHIPSET with a PURE BLACK TILE.

3. Make a new EVENT and a new EVENT COMMAND in the first page you should see a MESSAGE DISPLAY OPTIONS tab. Click it and under Window Type make it Transparent, under Window Position make it Middle/Top. You might also want to add in a BGM such as Gale

4. When you want your character to appear somewhere, teleport him to a map and make and make an EVENT and an EVENT COMMAND and go click on the CHANGE PARTY tab and choose your character.