Cutscene help (PSX not PC vers)

[Blix]

Almost every RPG I have ever played has contained "cutscenes" or little segments that show either the main party or a different character(s) conversing or doing something mysterious and elusive. In my copy of RPG Maker for Playstation (not PC emulator) I can't quite figure out how to do this (assuming that you can). I want to have little scenes introducing the antagonist and other characters, however aside from the intro/title screen event option I have no idea how to program this into my game. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Wavelength]

Re: Cutscene help (PSX not PC vers)

I think most people just use the show message and character movement commands to make "cutscenes". Where appropriate, you could also use screen effects or do something really fancy like display a big custom graphic you made in Anime Maker.

RPG Maker 3 contains a "Storyteller" mode which many people have made great use of for conversations, cutscenes, and the like. While it's more limited than what you could potentially do (if you drew and programmed it all) on other RPG Makers, it's easier and quicker by a factor of a hundred.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Cutscene help (PSX not PC vers)

The most important command you need to learn here is "Take Over". What this does is it tells the current script to change over to another event, in which the script will continue. For example, say you want to have a couple characters walk onscreen to tell your hero that their village is attacked as soon as you enter the map, you'd start off with the intro event taking over to the first person. In the first person's script, you'd have the person walk up to the player and say something like "help, help!" Then the first person would take over to the second person. In the second person's script, it would have that person come up to the player and say something like "we're under attack!"

Remember: Once the "Take Over" command is used, the script in that event ends, and you have to continue the cutscene in the event that's being taken over.

Another important thing you need to know about are pages. If you hit Triangle while in an event's main page, you can add pages to it. Pages are required if you ever want an event to have more than one script. Pages after the first make use of conditions. This is especially important for after cutscenes. Back to our example, once the second person tells you that they're under attack, you're going to want to turn on a switch. Switches are pretty simple: they're either turned on or turned off. Now for the cutscene, say you turn switch #1 on. Next you add a new page to the intro event and to both people. On their second pages, you'll want to add a condition that switch #1 is turned on. This will make it so that once switch #1 is turned on, their previous pages won't activate unless either taken over to or switch #1 is turned back off. For the people's scripts, you'll probably want to have them say something extra on their second pages, just so you're not trying to talk to people who do nothing once the cutscene's over.

Keep in mind that page priority goes from last to first. This mean when the player interacts with an event, the game checks the last page first, and then goes towards the front page, until it reaches the first page that is allowed to work.

Also, you don't need page conditions on pages that you only take over to.

Hopefully, this information is very helpful for you.

[Blix]

Re: Cutscene help (PSX not PC vers)

The most important command you need to learn here is "Take Over". What this does is it tells the current script to change over to another event, in which the script will continue. For example, say you want to have a couple characters walk onscreen to tell your hero that their village is attacked as soon as you enter the map, you'd start off with the intro event taking over to the first person. In the first person's script, you'd have the person walk up to the player and say something like "help, help!" Then the first person would take over to the second person. In the second person's script, it would have that person come up to the player and say something like "we're under attack!"

Remember: Once the "Take Over" command is used, the script in that event ends, and you have to continue the cutscene in the event that's being taken over.

Another important thing you need to know about are pages. If you hit Triangle while in an event's main page, you can add pages to it. Pages are required if you ever want an event to have more than one script. Pages after the first make use of conditions. This is especially important for after cutscenes. Back to our example, once the second person tells you that they're under attack, you're going to want to turn on a switch. Switches are pretty simple: they're either turned on or turned off. Now for the cutscene, say you turn switch #1 on. Next you add a new page to the intro event and to both people. On their second pages, you'll want to add a condition that switch #1 is turned on. This will make it so that once switch #1 is turned on, their previous pages won't activate unless either taken over to or switch #1 is turned back off. For the people's scripts, you'll probably want to have them say something extra on their second pages, just so you're not trying to talk to people who do nothing once the cutscene's over.

Keep in mind that page priority goes from last to first. This mean when the player interacts with an event, the game checks the last page first, and then goes towards the front page, until it reaches the first page that is allowed to work.

Also, you don't need page conditions on pages that you only take over to.

Hopefully, this information is very helpful for you.

Thank you Draygone! It sounds a bit complicated but I am sure with time and practice I will get comfortable with using it (like with the switch system that I started using).

[orius]

Re: Cutscene help (PSX not PC vers)

You could take a look at the code in my demo game I got here:

http://www.pavilionboards.com/forum/...ad.php?t=14419

That has an introductory cutscene which uses take overs and the like. There's no password on it, so you can see the events I have set up. Take overs are the most important element of an RPG Maker cutscene, once you get the hang of it, it shouldn't be too hard to get rolling on it. For party based cutscenes, you of course want to use events which control party movement, you might also want to switch off the graphics for the individual party members so they're not all lined up while using a seperate event to display the character.

For things like villains and the like, you can set up cutsences with them as well. It's not to hard. You just have to use the commands which control the party graphics and set the sprites to invisible or something like that, it's been a while since I've used the program and I don't remember it offhand. But you can make the party disappear on the screen temporarily for cutscenes with NPCs.

Also, take a look at the screen changing commands, you can use it to fade to black while you switch to a cutscene. You can use Message 1 or 2 to display text on the screen when faded too if you want to present exposition or a narraration to the player.