Problem turning event walking animation on/off

[Matt]

I want to turn a character's walking animation on/off while the player is talking to them to create a 'talking animation' with their mouth moving, but I'm seeing some weird behaviour and can't get the desired effect.

Here's the event contents:

@> Set Move Route: This Event, Animation ON
@> Text: "BLAH BLAH BLAH"
@> Set Move Route: This Event, Animation OFF

Now, the problem depends on the Animation Type I give the event to begin with.

If it's set to "Walking Animation" then the character is animating when the map loads (as expected), then stops after I talk to them (as expected). If I talk to them again they start animating again, then stop again (also as expected).

But this of course means that the character is animating when the map starts, which is not necessarily what I want.

SO, I set the Animation Type to "Standing Animation" to make the character non-animated when the map starts.

But with this setup, they do not animate at all when I talk to them, like the Set Move Route commands are being ignored.

Am I missing something? Or is this just a quirk of RPG Maker 2003?

[Caethyril]

A quirk, I think. I had a similar experience.

As a workaround, set the event's animation to "Walking", and add a "Parallel Process"-trigger event to its map with commands:

Set Move Route: <Your Event>, Animation OFF
Erase Event

Parallel process events start before the fade-in and the Erase Event makes sure it's only done once per visit to the map. =)

[Matt]

Good to know it's not just me. Thanks!

I had thought of a few different workarounds, but they'd all involve a lot of setup per map which I'd like to avoid if possible.

I guess one neat benefit of this quirk is that players can easily tell which characters they have not yet talked to... so I might keep it in for that reason XD

[Caethyril]

Originally posted by Matt:

I guess one neat benefit of this quirk is that players can easily tell which characters they have not yet talked to... so I might keep it in for that reason XD

Like they're walking on the spot to get the player's attention: "Hey, hey you, you really should talk to me!" xD

Good luck with your game! ^_^

[Matt]

Almost, but I've got a 'talking' animation! :) Check it out: http://imgur.com/qC0iyee

[Caethyril]

Oh, nice! :D

[kittylitterproduction]

Y'know, if you were to use page switching in the event it would work just as you'd want.

[Matt]

Originally posted by kittylitterproduction:

Y'know, if you were to use page switching in the event it would work just as you'd want.

True! But as a mentioned above, it would double the setup for every NPC in the game. I'd like to avoid that if possible.

[kittylitterproduction]

Dunno if it would double it. That would depend on what you want to put into the NPCs. Though, it would use up switches quite a lot.

[Matt]

Originally posted by kittylitterproduction:

Dunno if it would double it. That would depend on what you want to put into the NPCs. Though, it would use up switches quite a lot.

Yeah maybe double is an exaggeration, but it would mean creating an extra page and maintaining double the number of pages. For example, if I want to change an NPC's sprite I'd need to do it twice. It would quickly scale up over a large number of changes.

So I'm trying to minimise this kind of workload risk.

[Aërendoodle]

Have you tried setting the character event move routes to Custom with just one Animation ON event command in it with repeat turned off and walking animation as the event animation setting?

Then you just use an Animation OFF move event command when the character starts talking to you and Animation ON after you stop. (I haven't tested if this works.)

(You obviously have to turn custom move route repeat on if you want the characters to move around constantly. Just put in a command for walking in a random direction if that's what you want, for example.)

[Matt]

Originally posted by Aërendoodle:

Have you tried setting the character event move routes to Custom with just one Animation ON event command in it with repeat turned off and walking animation as the event animation setting?

Then you just use an Animation OFF move event command when the character starts talking to you and Animation ON after you stop. (I haven't tested if this works.)

(You obviously have to turn custom move route repeat on if you want the characters to move around constantly. Just put in a command for walking in a random direction if that's what you want, for example.)

Oh that's a great idea!

I'm not sure if you made a typo there but you seem to have off and on inverted? If I do the opposite of what you wrote (turn off in the custom move route, then turn on when I start talking, turn off when I finish) then it works exactly as I wanted it to!

Still a little bit of setup per NPC but it's not too bad. At least I don't have to mess around with switches. Awesome workaround. Thanks!

[Aërendoodle]

Originally posted by Matt:

Originally posted by Aërendoodle:

Have you tried setting the character event move routes to Custom with just one Animation ON event command in it with repeat turned off and walking animation as the event animation setting?

Then you just use an Animation OFF move event command when the character starts talking to you and Animation ON after you stop. (I haven't tested if this works.)

(You obviously have to turn custom move route repeat on if you want the characters to move around constantly. Just put in a command for walking in a random direction if that's what you want, for example.)

Oh that's a great idea!

I'm not sure if you made a typo there but you seem to have off and on inverted? If I do the opposite of what you wrote (turn off in the custom move route, then turn on when I start talking, turn off when I finish) then it works exactly as I wanted it to!

Still a little bit of setup per NPC but it's not too bad. At least I don't have to mess around with switches. Awesome workaround. Thanks!

I wasn't quite sure which of both effects you wanted, but I'm glad I could help!