Pretty much solved: Few issues

[mercenaryx]

ok thanks to you guys and answering my threads in a timely fashion i've actually come to understand rpgm2 a lot more than i ever have before. Before posting about the treasure box event, i didnt even know what an event could do, now i understand fully that a game is composed of everything all piled into the world organization tabs.

its all very simple to me now! and before i ask i just have to say thank you so much for all of your support.

as for that whole collision where there is no object problem i had on my last post, it was solved but accidently. (my memory card data got corrupted so i had to start over and create the whole game from scratch again, which worked out just fine because by that time i understood fully what i was doing and was able to get back up to where i was in a few hours, and at the same time, use more memory efficient ways of doing it)

k here are my questions:


1.) Is there a way to cut out the land outside where you want the town boundries to be? my town was created using map editor and i put a few houses i made from building editor on it. There isn't that much space that i used, but the thing is i think it looks kinda ugly and unprofessional if i can see the flat unused brown dirt land outside the town's boundries. The only way they should be able to exit to the world map is through a specified exit that will have a zone event that will warp them to it. the inside of the town has a grass tile texture and the outline is traced with a bunch of trees to show the boundries of where the player is supposed to be able to walk (which is part of my next question). Is there a way where i can cut out the land so that the player cant see anything but the town's land itself? or .... what is it that they do in fuuma to make the towns look realisticly set in the world map?

2.) Is there a way to turn on collision on the trees at the outer boundries of the town so that the player cant walk through the trees? Currently my town has a buncha transparent blocks on the border lines and i placed on the map as a building object, so when the player ventures half way into the trees they hit an invisible block. but i'd like the trees to be my boundries, or if not anything else, a better, more efficient way to do this....

3.) i tried putting a few patches of object modeled grass to show a bit of over grown grass growing in places, but when i walk over to them my character lifts off the ground and starts walking on top of the grass like its a stair or something. I'd like to know if theres a way to turn collision off on specific objects like the grass, rather than turning the player's collision effect off. Because that would let them run through ANY solid objects. ive got the same problem with flowers growing out of the ground.

4a.) Whats more memory efficient? Using a single long scripted zone event that loads the players current x and/or y coordinates to determine where the zone will bring them? or 1 single event with a short, though different script each, per zone that serves as both the entrance and exit for the zone by the use of a flag? (example, using event on both the town map, and inside a house as the ways to exit each map. the only difference is if you walk into event a on the town map it will warp you inside the house, if you walk into event a while inside the house, it will put you back onto the town map.)

or, if you have a 3rd option thats even more efficient with memory than these two, please let me know and how to do it.

4b.) is there a way to use the "game info" or "party info" save option before a warp command then call another script that loads the information, and based on it, will decide what direction the player will be facing when his character becomes visible again after he's cleared the zone?

currently all i'm doing is using the info load command, then using its variables in party:dir then based on the number inside it i use a conditional statement to make the player face a certain direction before the fade in.

its like this

script: common entrance:

screen black: 0F
game info load
(i dont know if i use the variable directly or i set it equal to a temporary self named variable so that i can use it as public data, i'm to lazy to check which way i did it)
call script: [end zone]
start map music
fade in


script: end zone:

if party:dir = 0
face east
end condition
if party:dir = 1
face south east
end condition

and so on...

[Dungeon Warden]

Jun 25, 2008 12:32:44 GMT -5 mercenaryx said:

1.) Is there a way to cut out the land outside where you want the town boundries to be? my town was created using map editor and i put a few houses i made from building editor on it. There isn't that much space that i used, but the thing is i think it looks kinda ugly and unprofessional if i can see the flat unused brown dirt land outside the town's boundries. The only way they should be able to exit to the world map is through a specified exit that will have a zone event that will warp them to it. the inside of the town has a grass tile texture and the outline is traced with a bunch of trees to show the boundries of where the player is supposed to be able to walk (which is part of my next question). Is there a way where i can cut out the land so that the player cant see anything but the town's land itself? or .... what is it that they do in fuuma to make the towns look realisticly set in the world map?

Just build the area around the world map to look like the town and vice versa. There is no way to change the size of the map. You can reuse a map though. Use the same map from your world and your town and alter the town map so that the area with the buildings is flat.

2.) Is there a way to turn on collision on the trees at the outer boundries of the town so that the player cant walk through the trees? Currently my town has a buncha transparent blocks on the border lines and i placed on the map as a building object, so when the player ventures half way into the trees they hit an invisible block. but i'd like the trees to be my boundries, or if not anything else, a better, more efficient way to do this....

Yes, did a trench around the town. The party can't walk over an area that is more then 1 square high or deep, use this fact to make it impossable to leave the town other then the exit. Using trees is a good way to hide the trench as well.

3.) i tried putting a few patches of object modeled grass to show a bit of over grown grass growing in places, but when i walk over to them my character lifts off the ground and starts walking on top of the grass like its a stair or something. I'd like to know if theres a way to turn collision off on specific objects like the grass, rather than turning the player's collision effect off. Because that would let them run through ANY solid objects. ive got the same problem with flowers growing out of the ground.

The only way to do this is to make all the objects into events. There is a limit on the number of events you can use and each one uses up memory so this isn't a very practical solution. One idea that might work is to place the objects on a lower level (under the ground) and then push them up through the ground. This way the objects are not at the same level the party is walking and so they can walk right over then grass. Flowers might not look right with the bottoms cut off but this will work for grass.

4a.) Whats more memory efficient? Using a single long scripted zone event that loads the players current x and/or y coordinates to determine where the zone will bring them? or 1 single event with a short, though different script each, per zone that serves as both the entrance and exit for the zone by the use of a flag? (example, using event on both the town map, and inside a house as the ways to exit each map. the only difference is if you walk into event a on the town map it will warp you inside the house, if you walk into event a while inside the house, it will put you back onto the town map.)

Each command you place and each event you make uses the same amount of memory. Therefore using a different script for each zone would be shorter since you don't need to check where the party is. You can just warp them to the next area. It's also less confusing to have a simple script then a long complex one that could have errors. The only reason to use longer scripts is to reduce the number of scripts you use. Many games use a lot of scripts so running out of them may be a concern.

4b.) is there a way to use the "game info" or "party info" save option before a warp command then call another script that loads the information, and based on it, will decide what direction the player will be facing when his character becomes visible again after he's cleared the zone?

currently all i'm doing is using the info load command, then using its variables in party:dir then based on the number inside it i use a conditional statement to make the player face a certain direction before the fade in.

Er, this is basically what the normal enter map script does. I'm not sure what you're asking with this question. Can you do it? Well, you have done it so there you go.

[raithwall]

Corrupted save data? Wow I have never seen that happen for the ps2. Your not playing it on a ps3 are you? I hope that collision issue wasnt the only reason you started over. I mean the worst that could've happened there was deleting and remaking the map.


Town borders: yeah dig a trench, river, or make a wall. Dont go around putting 200 warp events like the presets do. lol

Objects: like DW said they need to be events, and if you need them facing certain directions you'll have to make 4-8 of them. I use a few of them though, and I disagree about them using a lot of memory. A single grass event with the bypass members motion, or a bed and a few other objects is a good use for events that will go a long way. Well they will use a lot of memory if you have to place 100s of them though, so do try and avoid that.

World to Town/Dungeon: If your using a world map a single warp event that sorts either the party x or the party y is the most efficient way to go. It does lack the aesthetic quality of bumping into or actually entering the town building though, but using this method you can even make hidden warps that aren't next to town objects!

To Map facing...: is the name of the script in the presets which sorts your direction and applies it in the next zone. I personally got kind of messed up because I didnt design every building facing north, so I just default it to facing north and use camera commands in enter map if I need to change that. If you start off designing everything perfectly though, the preset script will serve you well.

Town design: Unfortunately you can only place about 8 buildings on a map, so if you want a realistic size town with residential areas you should consider doing one of following:

1) Only use buildings from the building editor that you can enter. Shops, the inn, etc. Then make every other building one of the house or town icons at about 400% bigger. The problem here is that you can walk through most of the house, so you need to make mounds under where the house sits, which is a huge pain because you can't see objects in the map editor, so you need to make the mounds before you place the houses.

2) Reduce the size of the party and characters to 50%. This lets you use more buildings and you can use the original size towns and castles in the object editor without any issues of walking through them. The presets included a tiny scale building that works well for this and can be used about 20-30 times. 50% model size is absolutely wonderful for the world map too. Trees suddenly become actual trees instead of bushes! I have made use for both methods.

I have made large capitals that use the entire map area this way!