Cutscenes?

[desden]

Can someone explain how I can make a cutscene in RPG Maker 2000?

[Lucis Caelum]

Sure, whay exactly do you want to do?

First off, you'd want to make an event with that controls the whole cutscene.

1. You need to decide on how you want to trigger the cutscene. If you want it to play as soon
as you spawn on the map, then the "autorun" option will be fine, though you'll have to manually
kill the event with the "Erase Event" command. If you use the "Autorun" option, then you won't be able to move your player with the keyboard/controller anymore, you can still move him through events though. This is probably what you'd want in a custscene anyway, so this is a good thing.

This is also why you need to kill the autorun event with the "Erease Event" command once it's done.

There are of course other ways to trigger an event, by touching it, by parallel process (which will allow the player to control their character during the cutscene), through swtiches and variables and even through items.

2. Once you've decided on a trigger for your cutscene, there are many different commands you can use to create your cutscene.

An obvious one is the "Play Movie" command, it will play a movie file of your choosing and needs to be part of your project ( meaning it needs to be imported first).

"Play Sound" works pretty much the same way and allows you to play sound effects.

"Show Text " allows you to create conversations between your characters. You can use "Change Faceset" before the message to show different faces depending on who's talking. This can also be done with pictures through the:

"Show Picture..." command. This will allow you to display pictures, this is often used to display black bars to give the cutscene a more cinematic feel. You can use it for a lot of different things though.

"Set Move Route..." is very important for cutscenes, it allows you to move events, this can be the player or any other kind of event.

"Show Animation..." allows you to display special effects (those that are mostly used for combat) on the map. You can target different events or the player.

"Tint Screen..." let's you tint the screen a specific color. You could do a black and white scene like that for example.

"Flash Screen..." flashes the screen a specific color. You could use it for lightning strikes or something like that.

"Shake Screen..." will shake the screen, good for earthquake effects.

"Scroll Map" is also very useful, you can use this command to move the map around, for example the player enters a town for the first time, you could then use the command to give the player an overview of the whole town.

These are probably the most useful ones, though there are many more that could be used for cutscenes. If you need any specific help then let me know, I could whip up a fast example project showcasing how it's done.

[desden]

Ah, thanks a lot. This is an incredibly detailed explanation. Most of my cutscenes would involve touching an invisible event trigger, which would trigger the cutscene. The best example for what I want my cutscenes to look like are the old final fantasy games, where the screen would pan up to a character, then the scene would play

[Lucis Caelum]

Originally posted by desden:

Ah, thanks a lot. This is an incredibly detailed explanation. Most of my cutscenes would involve touching an invisible event trigger, which would trigger the cutscene. The best example for what I want my cutscenes to look like are the old final fantasy games, where the screen would pan up to a character, then the scene would play

I'm a huge fan of the old Final Fantasy games, so good choice. :)

If you need any specific help then I could create a small sample project to show you how it's done. You just need to tell me what exactly you want.

[desden]

I've got my cutscene working great (this is in RPG 2000). It starts on a black screen with text, then moves to another map with the scroll effect. When that finishes, there's another screen with text, and then you're transported into the first area of the game. Everything works fine, but my only problem is with the character. He has to be completely invisible until the game begins. On 'transparent' he is see-through, though still visible. How could I make it so that he is completely invisible until the game starts?

[Lucis Caelum]

Originally posted by desden:

I've got my cutscene working great (this is in RPG 2000). It starts on a black screen with text, then moves to another map with the scroll effect. When that finishes, there's another screen with text, and then you're transported into the first area of the game. Everything works fine, but my only problem is with the character. He has to be completely invisible until the game begins. On 'transparent' he is see-through, though still visible. How could I make it so that he is completely invisible until the game starts?

That's easy, you just need a charset that has an empty slot, then use the "Change Actor Graphic..." command and select your hero and switch to the empty charset.

When you want to see your character again, simply do the reverse.

[desden]

Ah, thank you so much. I've not got round to making the characters yet, but I will soon. Btw, how do you make custom charsets and chipsets? I copy a sheet from the RTP and change the tiles in Paint.net. It is really easy that way, and much less hassle.

[Lucis Caelum]

You can also use templates like these to make your life easier: Link[www.google.com]

[desden]

I started with those, but a small miscalculation could be catastrophic. Using an existing char/chipset is a lot easier (at least for me lol).

Oh, and I have a few questions, and i was wondering if you know how I'd achieve them.

1) I'm taking a few design ideas from Sweet Home (the OG Resident Evil). There are some areas where you need a wooden plank to cross (which you can pick up around the environment). Another thing is, I want a few areas of the environment to be pitch black, requiring a match to light up a small area around the character/player.

2) My game mainly involves backtracking through the house to find keys to unlock previously locked doors. Would I need switches for something like that? I still don't fully get how switches and variables work yet.

3) Some keys are hidden in vases or boxes, and some passages are blocked by bookcases that need to be moved.

4) How can I make it so that you can pick up keys to use later?

5) Once a key is used on a door, I want to make it so the door tile disappears from the map and the key disappears from the inventory.

6) At the end, I'm thinking of having the house explode. How could I achieve this effect?

I think that's about all I need to know for now.

[Lucis Caelum]

I'm currently working on a little tutorial game that should hopefully answer all your questions. It will have all the things you've asked for.

About switches and variable:

Switches can be either ON or OFF and decide whether something happens. They're like IF-Statements in coding, for example: IF switch "Lights" = OFF, show text "Damn, the lights aren't working".

Variables are similar, though they're not limited to just ON/OFF, they can be any NUMBER you choose. You could use them like this: IF variable "Lights" = 2, show text "2 lights aren't working."

You can basically store information in form of numbers inside variables.

[desden]

Thank you so much! This should really help!

[desden]

I've decided to go for a full on remake of 1989's Sweet Home in RPG Maker 2k, and at the beginning of the game, it starts off with the five characters going up the the mansion, then when inside the roof caves in, sealing the exit. How could I replicate the intro?

Another thing is, you can split into teams of twos or threes to explore the mansion, and characters travel behind one another (unlike a lot of other RPG games where all of the characters disappear into the main character.

Characters have limited inventories, and each character has a special item (for the five characters, there's a vacuum (to clear obstacles out of the way), a camera (to reveal puzzles), a key/lockpick (self explanatory), a lighter (to clear flammable objects and can damage smaller enemies), and a first aid kit (to restore poisoned/frozen characters). Later on in the game, if one of the characters dies, you can pick up items which work the same way as the dead character's special item (matches, instant camera, broom, pills, lockpick), though the downside is that it takes up an extra space in the inventory. A character's special item also can't be discarded.

And sometimes, a floor board you placed over a crevice can be destroyed if too many people walk over it, but I'm thinking of leaving that out as it serves as more of an annoyance than anything.