Bored and alot of Time

[Teroniss]

Hey, im a bit bored and been itching to use my rpgmaker program. What do ya'll think, would making a DMFA rpg following the storyline, or with an original storyline be interesting enough to waste time on?

[Aridas]

This, actually, would probably go in the DMFA section. >.>

Other than that, I don't know. All I can say is that you'll be having a hard time getting started thanks to what everything and most characters are based on.

[Kasarn]

Do an original and just go nuts... and then lose interest after a week or two

I've started, like, four Neverwinter Nights mods and two RPGMaker games... but never really did anything.
I was mostly just sandboxing and generally mucking around

[Teroniss]

Yea, except im weird in the fact that im obsessive compulsive and once i start something......i gotta finish it or it bugs the ever living hell out of me later.

[Rowne]

I'd advise going with a short subplot, freeware RPG style, if you do.  Don't start off with anything epic.  If you do it that way, you can make it episodic, you can drop a few clues about future plotlines.  I'm not sure though whether RPGM allows importing of old saves into new games but you could always approximate that stuff in a new episode, much like Valve does with their Half-Life stuff.

Oh and you might want to look into the XP version of RPG Maker if you haven't already, from what I've seen of it, it seems easier to use and it's actually out legally now, so no ambiguity there, which is nice.  Just a thought.

[Teroniss]

Actually, thats the one ive been using, someone made an english translation of it, and it qorks quite well. But yeah, im probably gonna make into some kind of subplot type thing that has absolutely nothing to do with the current plot. Might place it somewhere between Unwilling and Abel arc and current.

[Rowne]

Indeed, that way you avoid expectations.  And the thing is, it won't be too life wrenchingly difficult to create if you keep it small.  Then, if you consider it was worth it and it was well received, you could work on another episode based off the clues or premise in the first, either the same length or longer.  That's why I love the episodic format, it doesn't burn people out (I've seen so many awesome RPGM and Verge (who remembers Verge, eh?) projects plummet because of that).

So yeah, start off small, I'll definitely give it a look see when you're done.  I always have been a fan of indie, freeware and Free efforts so you'll likely have at least one major fan who'll probably have too much input for you and too much to say.  Much like I already do.  <.<

[Jack McSlay]

RPG Maker XP is a total power muncher. I've played around with it a bit and it eats a lot of power just to display a simple scenery and a few characters.

Personally I prefer Sphere, it has about the same amount of features and runs a lot faster. But it you want simplicity sticj with RPGM 2003.

I think RPG Maker XP is the worst version of the series so far (after the horrid RPG Maker 95).  It tries to give professional and simplistic aproach at the same time, and fails at both.

Btw, exporting saves on RPG maker 200x games is possible as far as I know, as long as you don't change the use of crucial variables.

[Teroniss]

making 8bit sprites of the cast is a bloody pain in the butt. I just spent one hour making a Dan sprite.......

[Kipiru]

making 8bit sprites of the cast is a bloody pain in the butt. I just spent one hour making a Dan sprite.......

Hey, no one said it will be a walk in the park!  Just keep up the spirit!

[Teroniss]

Quick question for anyone who uses RPGMaker programs alot. Anyone know how to make the background on sprites transparent? I keep having the green background surrounding my sprites in the png files showup in the test runs as well as the sprite, and i just want the sprite to show up.

[Reese Tora]

making 8bit sprites of the cast is a bloody pain in the butt. I just spent one hour making a Dan sprite.......

Hey, no one said it will be a walk in the park!  Just keep up the spirit!

yes, it can't be a walk in the park until he makes some tree sprites (or maybe whole backgrounds) 

Depends on what program you use to generate the sprites, PNG is supposed to be able to define a color that is transparent.  MS paint can't do transparency.  You need a different program, if that's what you're using to create the PNGs.

[xHaZxMaTx]

.PNG's are good, but I would use .GIF, since it's a smaller file.

[Aridas]

I don't really think it uses gifs.... Oh, and as far as I know, gifs are limited to 256 different colors... PNGs can be 24 bit or gif-like. AS far as I know. And I don't know how far I know.

[ShiningShadow]

Man you know your computer stuff I'm just a PS2 player and thats it and maybe just maybe if I have the time then maybe Mechrider *YEEEEHAWWW*..........

[Jack McSlay]

RPG maker does not support Gifs, and in the case of 2k/2k3, they don't support 24-bit pngs either.

if you want to have the proper color transparent you'll have to use the import function on RPG maker, and on the screens that shows up the imported image you have to click on any area that contains the transparent color. job done.

[Tiger_T]

Quick overfiew:

#1
.gif:
limited color (max. 256)
can be animated
able to have transparency
good at solid colors
good at sharp edges/lines

#2
.jpg
photocolor
no animation
no transparency
good at colorchanges like in photos
gets blotchy if filesize is reduced too much

#3
.png
photocolor and limited colors
no animation
able to have transparency
gets blotchy if filesize is reduced too much

#4
.bmp
TEH EVIL - don't use for internet
no compression - huge filesize
photocolor and limited colors
no animation
no transparency

[Netami]

Some day we'll all be using .raw files 

[Tiger_T]

What do they do?

[Netami]

.raw files are simply very, very high resolution photos taken with the best digital cameras on the market. They're huge in file size, going hand-in-hand with the high resolution and many people theorize that we'll be using that format some day soon when everyone has terabytes of space on their hard-drives and internet access exceeds Cable / DSL on a casual level.

In other words, file formats will scale with our advancing speed and space.

[Teroniss]

The problem is that RPGMaker only uses png files in regards to sprites, portraits, etc when dealing with chipsets.
Which means i need to find a program that can set a transparency color for my sprites......

[Jack McSlay]

.raw files are simply very, very high resolution photos taken with the best digital cameras on the market. They're huge in file size, going hand-in-hand with the high resolution and many people theorize that we'll be using that format some day soon when everyone has terabytes of space on their hard-drives and internet access exceeds Cable / DSL on a casual level.

In other words, file formats will scale with our advancing speed and space.

only for flat photos, because raw files are improper for interface display of graphics programs due to lack of anything other than the flat images themselves, not to mention the difference is hardly visible compared to a .PNG file (which is lossless)

The problem is that RPGMaker only uses png files in regards to sprites, portraits, etc when dealing with chipsets.
Which means i need to find a program that can set a transparency color for my sprites......

nope. you just need to set the background color right after importing to RPGmaker. setting it beforehand works as well, but it is a lot more annoying to edit them on a photo program than to simply click on the background color on the importer.

[Tiger_T]

In that case; I don't think so.

Why should I want a format that makes any file bigger than it needs to be - even if I got the uber-terra-DSL 2015 supreme platin package.

[Netami]

Image clarity, just crisper looking images. Same reason people would rather download a pristine DVD rip of a music video than some trashy mpg version when it's essentially the same stuff. If you've got the room and you've got the speed, why not?

I look back at some of the stuff I got off the net when I was first using it and I laugh; we've come a long way with graphics and I feel we're going to go a lot farther.

Still, pngs are quite manageable, though I wish they could be animated!

[Aridas]

I've heard of a breed of animated PNG... But I forget where.

[xHaZxMaTx]

If .PNG's could be animated, nothing would stand in their way.

[Aridas]

Oh, there's MNG, does that count?

[xHaZxMaTx]

Explain...

[Aridas]

MNG, Multiple-image Network Graphics.

MNG Basics (And How It Came To Be)
MNG (pronounced "ming"), is short for Multiple-image Network Graphics, as one might gather from the title of this page. Designed with the same modular philosophy as PNG and by many of the same people, MNG is intended to provide a home for all of the multi-image capabilities that have no place in PNG.

Although the idea of MNG has been around almost as long as PNG has, serious design discussions didn't begin until May 1996, and even then there was considerable debate over whether to make MNG a dirt-simple "glue" format around PNG or a complex multimedia format capable of integrating animations, audio and even video. By mid-1998, MNG had settled down to something in between; while it has fairly extensive animation and image-manipulation capabilities, there is no serious expectation that it will ever integrate audio or video. (Those are best handled by MPEG, particularly MPEG-4.)

The MNG specification was promoted to "1.0 status" on 11 January 2001, in accordance with an official vote of the MNG developers, and the final, edited version was released on 31 January 2001.

MNG includes a number of interesting features:


object or sprite-based approach to animation, with commands to move, copy and paste images (rather than replicate them as in GIF)
nested loops for complex animations
way better compression than GIF animations
support for difference (or "delta") images for still better compression
integration of both PNG and JPEG-based ("JNG") images
support for transparent JPEG images
low-complexity and very low-complexity subsets for simpler implementation
Of course, MNG also shares a number of PNG's best features:


unambiguous pronunciation (gotta love it)
multiple CRCs so that file integrity can be checked without viewing
ultra-clever magic signature that can detect the most common types of file corruption
non-patented (you betcha!) compression, either completely lossless (PNG) or lossy (JPEG)
full alpha support (multi-level transparency) for all image objects
gamma and color correction for cross-platform consistency
ability to store copyright and other textual info, either compressed or uncompressed
full Year 2000 (Y2K) support (good for at least 63 millenia! dang!)

[Tiger_T]

I have yet to see one of those .mng's though. Not that I searched.