IG Maker: Dust It Off...

My Introduction:

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Sup guys! So skipping all introductions, I'm just going to get into this. First off, if you haven't heard of it.. It's IG Maker (Indie Game Maker). Though it may seem quite limiting for those adept to using RMXP / RMVX.. maybe even RM2k3(I doubt RM95 tho.. ), it really isn't. In fact, it has many more options than you might think. Of course it's all a learning process, and that is why I am here.. and hopefully you too, in the future. Remember, you can export as XNA, that means you can put your game on Xbox Live! So download it! Once you download the trial you'll get an email for like 30% off so that you can buy it (and you should). It's a pretty good deal.

I first downloaded the trial sometime in 2009 and was very confused. "Variables are Memories? Switches are what, how does this work.. what?" That's how I felt about 2 years ago. Anyway, I purchased IG Maker yesterday because I knew that I wanted to take my project to a much more accessible market (Xbox live) and I am surprised at how I wasn't able to figure a lot of this stuff out about 2 years ago.. rather, I wasn't willing to figure it out. It is surprisingly easier than I thought and there are many cool options that RMXP/VX don't offer.

To download the IG Maker trial visit the official download site(http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/download) and select IG MAKER 30 days Trial. If you like it, consider purchasing it. Many more resources are included in the full version as well as many more sample games, which you can reverse engineer to figure out how things are done.

The purpose of this walkthrough is to help get you comfortable with IG Maker. All of this stuff is very easy to learn on your own but if you prefer a tutorial this is for you.

Starting a Game / Choosing a Genre
Steps 1-8

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Step 1:
Click "New Game"
Note the tabs at the top. You will be using these a lot.

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Step 2:
Click "Next >>"

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Step 3:
Choose a Genre (For the purpose of this walkthrough Choose "Action RPG (New Game)").
Step 4:
Click "Next >>"

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Step 5:
Choose a Screen Resolution (doesn't matter which).
Step 6:
Click "Next >>"

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Step 7:
Type a name for your project.
Step 8:
Click "Finish"

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Creating a Tileset
Steps 9-19
You will need a tileset graphic for this part. I suggest exporting a tileset from RMXP/VX or using this one:
http://i42.tinypic.com/2mq7q5g.png

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Step 9:
Click "Materials" in the Tabs section at the top.
Step 10:
Click the "Create" button in the left sidebar to import a new graphic.
Step 11:
Click the "Tiles" checkbox for the "Uses" of this graphic. This is mainly for organizational purposes, but will also dictate where this graphic can be used in IG Maker.
Step 12:
If you plan on using 32x32 tiles (like RMXP) you will need to split this graphic into 32x32 squares. For this particular image you can type in 8 into the Split Graphic(Horizontal) and 16 into the Split Graphic(Vertical) fields. An easy way to obtain these numbers is figure out the pixel width and height of the image and divide each by 32.

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Step 13:
Click "Action RPG" in the Tabs section at the top. This will be different depending on the game genre you chose.
Step 14:
Click "Per Plug-in Settings".
Step 15:
Click "32x32" in the "Basic Tile Size" section. This will divide your tiles into 32 x 32 squares.

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Step 16:
Click the "Tiles" tab and then click "Create" in the left sidebar to start a new Tileset.
After naming the tileset click on the drop down menu (located underneath "Collision Detection & Type Settings) and choose the Tileset that you imported with Step 10. If you skipped Step 10 you can click "Create" next to the drop down menu to import a graphic.
Step 17:
Click "Wall Settings" button below "The Selected Tile" preview screen. This will allow you to visualize which directions are passable by each tile. I believe this is referred to as Passability in RPG Maker XP.
Step 18:
Click on the tree stump, highlighted in the picture below.
Step 19:
Click on "All walls" to create a barrier around all 4 sides of the tree stump. This stump is effectively unpassable. You can remove a wall(s) if you want to make an object passable from a certain direction. Repeat Step 19 until you have determined the passability of all objects on your Tileset. If you need to zoom in or out you can do so by clicking the magnifying glasses beside the "Wall Settings" button.

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Creating an Animated Characterset
Steps 20-33
You will need a Character graphic for this part. I suggest exporting a character from RMXP/VX or using this one:
http://i42.tinypic.com/28r07r8.png

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Step 20:
Make sure you are on the "Materials" tab and then click "Graphics".
Step 21:
Click the "Create" button in the left sidebar to import your characterset graphic.
Step 22:
Click the "Animations" checkbox for the "Uses" of this graphic. This is mainly for organizational purposes, but will also dictate where this graphic can be used in IG Maker.
Step 23:
Divide your sprite based on the number of frames is in each direction (up/down/left/right) and the number of directions it is facing. for a typical RMXP sprite you can simply divide it into 4x4. If you imported a typical RMVX character sprite you should be able to divide it into 16x8.

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Step 24:
Click the "Action RPG" tab at the top and then click on the "Animations" tab, below that.
Step 25:
Click "Create" in the left side bar to start a new animation. This should populate the "Action", "The Actions Display Directions", and In-direction Frame List" fields.

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Step 26:
Maker sure you are on the "Per Action Settings" (circled in red in the screenshot below), and then click on the list arrow to assign a sprite sheet to this animation. Select the sprite sheet that you imported in step 21.
Step 27:
Click "Set the Origin at the Characters Feet".
Step 28:
Click "Infinite Looping". This will insure that this sprite loops its' animation. If using an RMVX, or even an RMXP character, you can optionally click "Reverse Playback from Final Frame. This will make it so that you only have to use 3 frames instead of 4. Only click this if the 2nd frame in the animation is the exact same as the 4th frame.

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Step 29:
Click "Per Frame Settings"
Step 30:
Click the + Button under the "In-direction Frame List" to add additional frames to this animation.
Step 31:
Choose the sprite that you would like to be displayed for each frame. See image below for help.

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Step 32:Select all 4 frames in the "In-direction Frame List" section, and apply a display time of 0.20 seconds. This is what I found to be most like RMXP. To select individual frames at a time so that you can apply the same settings, hold the CTRL Key and click on the frames you want to select.
Step 33:Repeat steps 30-32 for all the directions that the sprite is facing.'

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Creating a Map
Steps 34-??

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Understanding Layers


The remainder of this section will be here soon.

If you have any questions or suggest that I add parts that I may have missed, let me know. I will be updating this as frequently as possible.

*whistles* I don't think I've seen that much of an in-depth tutorial in a while.

Makes me wanna give it a try... o.o

Agreed, this has given IGM a second thought from me. I never really understood what you could do with it.

I'm glad you guys are liking it. I'm trying to go in-dept as possible so that there is no question on what needs to be done to achieve the intended result. I chose to start off this walkthrough with an empty game(with no resources) because I feel that it is important that the user know how to import graphics and how to create tilesets, animated charactersets, etc. Of course, if you already know all of this, then you can simply choose the "Simple Action RPG" or similar game, which will have resources pre-made.

Also, another cool thing with this program is that, if you have the time, you can combine all of the various tilesets from RMXP or RMVX and import one bulk image to use as your tileset.

Something else pretty neat is the ability to control exactly how many frames each character animation has. Your sprite can have, say, 5 frames when walking right, but only 2 walking left, if you want. Even better is that you can control the hitbox and collision detection of the sprites Frame by Frame. You can also choose a display time of each individual frame and you can also assign sound effects to each frame.

So I spent a couple of hours working on a quick side project in IG Maker yesterday, and here's what I came up with. Don't mind the mapping, this is more for testing the jumping, running, wall jumping, and other features that I put into it.
www.megaupload.com/?d=B2LS9MGA

You should be able to play that with a wired Xbox 360 controller on the PC. If you don't have one the keyboard will work too. (BTW, my best score is 353 )

Hopefully this can give you guys some idea of just a few things things you can do with this program. This was all done in just a couple of hours, so it's obviously not the greatest. I'm still learning, but so far, so good. I think a lot of my past experiences with event systems & RMXP are really coming in handy here. The score/timer thing was pretty fun to make, and hopefully we can get more people to join in and create some other event systems & tutorials, like we see with RMXP and RMVX.

Also, as I learn more about the program I'll be updating my original post as often as possible. Probably a few times a week, or just whenever I feel like it.