Can you make your own art?

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Hi, I got it for a dollar in a bundle, I'm asking this on behalf of me and my friend though. We both like to make stories about animals instead of people and we both like to draw. :V

Long version is that it was in the HIB and I wanted one of the games in the bundle and figured I'll buy it for a couple bucks and install this to mess around with, and my friend who is currently playing and is really impressed with To The Moon wants to know if she can use this to make an RPG with her own assets, specifically if she's locked into using humans or if she can draw her own characters since her story involves anthro animals. I'm wondering the same thing, because humans are boring and stupid and I like to draw my own sprites anyway so...

yeah that's my question.

[Amelia]

You can use your own assets (graphics/music/programming). You'll just have to learn the formatting the sprites.

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Originally posted by Darkanine:

You can use your own assets (graphics/music/programming). You'll just have to learn the formatting the sprites.

I opened it up and decided to mess with it and I see what you mean - the tiles interact in realtime which is neat but I can expect that I'll have to understand how that loads into the engine which I'll be ok with.

I linked my friend to this: http://pyxeledit.com/ I'm curious if anyone has any opinions on programs for making tile graphics for this specific program though. I have experience with using various indie tools and I'd like to give good advice to my friend. Plus, it might be fun to try myself.

[DigitalMonkeyMaster]

I would recommend playing Legionwood 2, it's probably one of the best RPGM games out there imo.- http://store.steampowered.com/app/290460/

When it comes to programes to make tilesets, i would recommend paint :)
also long as you know that the programme recognizes and devides the tiles at 32x32 intervals you'll be fine :)
actors and other event stuff can be much bigger but if your character is bigger, doors and walls will not be so big anymore.
when you import your tilesets make sure that each square of colour is within 32x32 otherwise you will have half a tile here and only some of the other tile there.
there are quite alot of templates laying around the internet :)

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Originally posted by DJ Schmonkey:

I would recommend playing Legionwood 2, it's probably one of the best RPGM games out there imo.- http://store.steampowered.com/app/290460/

When it comes to programes to make tilesets, i would recommend paint :)
also long as you know that the programme recognizes and devides the tiles at 32x32 intervals you'll be fine :)
actors and other event stuff can be much bigger but if your character is bigger, doors and walls will not be so big anymore.
when you import your tilesets make sure that each square of colour is within 32x32 otherwise you will have half a tile here and only some of the other tile there.
there are quite alot of templates laying around the internet :)

Not sure if you're joking or not but I'd like something with more functionality than paint ;v If there aren't specified tools for tilesets that are free I might as well use SAI's binary brush and work on a small canvas.

Also, to be perfectly honest I dunno if I'll try that game, I don't like RPGs that much, they're too combat-focused and repetitive most of the time and anything I made wouldn't even have combat in it or work like an RPG in the traditional sense, I just like not having to program. Dunno about my friend's opinion on them except she really likes KH but she doesn't commit much of her time to playing video games. To my knowledge she just wanted to make a personal project.

[ncstaunton]

Kaze,

Yes, you can make a game in rpgVXA using nothing but your own artwork if you want to. There are commands you can enact through Autorun evnts at the very moment the game begins to disable menu access, and you can instead create your own interactive inventory screens (even animated ones, using Move Image commands... I've done it). You can find custom scripts which are easy to import and allow you to bring in a sprite of any size and with as many walking frames and animations as you like, as long as you are okay drawing all the sprites and programming events to manage any specialist controls. You can absolutely make your own Pause / Quit menu, and I'll be b*ggered if you won't also be able to create yor own designated Save points with personal artwork. You're under no obligation to create an RPG using this engine. Using the switches, variables and random number capabilities, you could just as easily create a Whodunit murder mystery with a different killer every time and one massive QTE fight at the end with Frank Miller style splash art.

All of this is totally possible.

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Originally posted by ncstaunton:

Kaze,

Yes, you can make a game in rpgVXA using nothing but your own artwork if you want to. There are commands you can enact through Autorun evnts at the very moment the game begins to disable menu access, and you can instead create your own interactive inventory screens (even animated ones, using Move Image commands... I've done it). You can find custom scripts which are easy to import and allow you to bring in a sprite of any size and with as many walking frames and animations as you like, as long as you are okay drawing all the sprites and programming events to manage any specialist controls. You can absolutely make your own Pause / Quit menu, and I'll be b*ggered if you won't also be able to create yor own designated Save points with personal artwork. You're under no obligation to create an RPG using this engine. Using the switches, variables and random number capabilities, you could just as easily create a Whodunit murder mystery with a different killer every time and one massive QTE fight at the end with Frank Miller style splash art.

All of this is totally possible.

I figured you could make something besides an RPG with it - the game that sparked my interest in it wasn't an RPG - just that I'm not that interested in playing other RPGs simply because I don't care for the genre. I'm sure the game linked in an earlier post is a good game, just not one I'd play.

Also I dunno how much of that I'd need, but I guess it's good for my friend to know, she's less evasive about scripting than I am so I'll pass it on to her later.

[ncstaunton]

As long as you learn how to create events and use switches and variables, you basically don't need any actual scripting knowledge - just testing your custom events and systems using conditional branches and learning how to import graphics and getting used to the way in which RPGVXA will handle them will avail you of a lot of inspiration. You'll definitely start to see more possibilities for building your game from the ground-up, the more you do.

I'm with you on not caring for the FF4 style graphics or battle system. But even with no knowledge of coding, you can completely ignore or hide all of these things and replace them with your own alternatives.

I intend my battle system to be more like Super Punch Up than FF4.

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Originally posted by ncstaunton:

As long as you learn how to create events and use switches and variables, you basically don't need any actual scripting knowledge - just testing your custom events and systems using conditional branches and learning how to import graphics and getting used to the way in which RPGVXA will handle them will avail you of a lot of inspiration. You'll definitely start to see more possibilities for building your game from the ground-up, the more you do.

I'm with you on not caring for the FF4 style graphics or battle system. But even with no knowledge of coding, you can completely ignore or hide all of these things and replace them with your own alternatives.

I intend my battle system to be more like Super Punch Up than FF4.

Awesome, thanks. I opened it up yesterday and fiddled with it out of boredom and messed with the map editor. It seems pretty straightforward compared to how other game engines deal with maps which is nice. I noticed there's some guides on steam already and I guess when either me or my friend want to do something we can always use a search engine to find more.

Incidentally I'd probably omit combat completely or just make it like zelda where you stab something and it stops moving. Less of a hassle that way.