Character Images Preset or Generator in program?

[Iguana Guy]

Hello. I do not as yet own VN Maker so my question may seem obvious to those who do. I am an RPG Maker MV user interested in this program as well. Does the program have a character generator OR an array of characters already premade like the promo movies show? I was not seeing any mention of a "character generator" so I assume the latter, that there are premade characters that outfts can be swapped on for variety. Can someone confirm this for me? Thanks.

[◢ k r i s ◤]

No generator, but a couple default premades. There are the DLCs too, of course. You know from RMMV that Degica loves their asset DLCs, and this one is no exception. I don't care enough to really look at them all though - they'll just be used in the same, tired way that gave RPG Maker a bad name. Evidence of that can already be found here. So, personally, I'd recommend steering clear of those assets for main-characters, similar to my usual suggestions on the RMMV board.

Somewhere I saw a recommendation to look at this resource thread from the ComiPo boards. Probably won't find too-much in regards to premade, 2D characters there, but you'll find tons of background assets intended for VNs mixed around that list. Most of the sites are in Japanese, so I haven't been able to clarify the licensing agreement for most of it still - might be wise to plan for placeholder or private-use only for most of those unless you can find explicit text stating otherwise.

edit: I acually looked at all the DLCs for VNM now and should note that most of them actually prohibit commercial use and even make some other, silly demands for private-use. I think the only useful DLC here might be the Live2D DLC which includes the official Live2D models and waives the need for a Live2D commercial-license for game distribution. However, you can still use the default assets in VNM in a commercial game with similar limitations to the default assets provided in RMMV; those don't abide by the same rules as these DLCs I'm seeing.

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Like you, I'm relatively new to VNM still. So far though, I can tell you a couple other things I think you might be interested in.

• It's a much more polished and robust interface for VN design than RMMV's GENE DLC offers, if you've had the chance to play with that yet.
  
• Very similar export builds to RMMV. Plays in a nw.js wrapper with adequate asset-encryption and similar platform support. Although the nw.js debugging features on F12 key seem to pause the game, so it's not as valuable here as in RMMV. Dunno if that is a bug or intended-conflict.
  
• Quite a few bugs in the base platform still - few really being deterrent for average use-case though. Plus, Developer presence and activity gives some confidence that they'll do something about each of the bugs eventually.
  
• The plugin community is vastly underwhelming here compared to RMMV. I can think of several reasons why that may be, but the most likely is simply a lack of age, maturity and community-size. I'm fairly confident that could change with time.
  
• They use UIDs for everything - even the blasted delete-confirmation message is practically worthless[i.imgur.com].
  
• Thanks to the capabilities outright, you can actually build a handful of distractions and minigames within VNM that could even take the spotlight focus of your game with enough polish. One of the default templates to experience when starting VNM includes a working minigame of Black Jack, for instance - though it is somewhat-underwhelming for demonstration sake.
  
• Active mods and devs on the Steam boards - no Thunderdome here yet.

[Iguana Guy]

Thanks Kris. Its one of the programs I'm keeping an eye on. Would love to look into that whole animated character movement stuff if I were to make a visual novel. I'm sure it is in the same venue as editing graphics like I like doing already, just more focused on well placed head, face eye movements.

[Rebecca Kalista]

Re: animated character movement, basically the two (more obvious) paths are sprites and Live2D models.

Sprites are transparent png files that can be displayed in quick succession to create animation (just like traditional hand-drawn animation). If you can draw (especially digitally), you should be able to figure that out and it's just a matter of time efficiency.

Live2D models demand a greater time investment upfront, and you need to have purchased the DLC in VNM - you can create Live2D models for free in Cubism 2.1 Free edition. They can be very rewarding depending on the kind of "feel" you're going for, though. Essentially, a Live2D model is a layered 2D illustration with moving parts - you can do rotation and deformation of every individual part (or group of parts), and depending on your level of talent you can achieve pseudo-3D visuals. This is all tied to parameters that can then be manipulated directly by VNM to achieve maximum (full) control.

The good thing about Live2D models is a well-built model can express many different expressions (and you don't have to draw them all, at all - so potentially you can save a lot of time/effort here). The bad/annoying/unfortunate thing is if you get "ambitious", you will probably need a paid Live2D license as the free versions of the editor limit the amount of moving parts and deformers (you have just enough slots to get by with generic/basic dolls, but you will run into problems if you start adding parts - such as wings or the likes for angel characters, for instance).

[Iguana Guy]

Thanks. Good to know that stuff in advance. I would probably do a lot of "practicing" before showing any work off anyway. Animated characters seems the way to go if one wants their project to stand out from the normal.