Realistic Character Animations

The basic RPG Maker MV has only 3-frames-4-directional movement. This guide will help you to make your game more interactive. In the end you'll be able to have unlimited-frames-8-directional (diagonal) movement with extra poses, such as idling, walking, running and jumping. Good luck!

Introduction

In order to start, you need to download these 3 plugins:

• Galv's Character Frames[galvs-scripts.com]
  
• Galv's Character Animations[galvs-scripts.com]
  
• Galv's Diagonal Movement[galvs-scripts.com]

First one lets you to increase the amount of frames per animation, so instead of default 3 you can make 4,5,6 or any other number. Also, this plugin changes the way animation plays: instead of a 1-2-3-2-1 order, it'll be 1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6 (in this case, the number of frames is 6).

Second one lets you to add extra poses for your character, such as running and jumping, when RPG Maker has only idle and walk poses, which makes your game look unrealistic.

Third one lets you to add 8-directional (diagonal) movement and diagonal sprites. This helps very much if you're making an isometric game, or just don't want a player to be restricted to any kind of grid.

Installation

Once you downloaded the plugins, you have to copy and paste them in your project root folder js/plugins directory. To activate them, click plugins button:



Double click a blank line and select the plugins:

• GALV_CharacterFrames
  
• GALV_CharacterAnimation
  
• GALV_DiagonalMovement

Make sure it's put in this order:



Now we're done with installation, let's make our sheet!

Calculating tilesheet size

First, you should decide a size of a single sprite for your character. Say it's 100x100 pixels.
Then, what is the number of frames per animation you want? Again, say it's 8.

Now we do the math

Multiply your frames by 4, so that you have the space for walking, running and jumping animations - 8x4 = 32.
Multiply 32 by your sprite size - 32x100 = 3200.
And since we also use diagonal sprites, multiply 8 by your sprite size - 8x100 = 800.

And the final tilesheet size would be the last two results - 3200x800. I hope I explained well.

Making the tilesheet

Once you've chosen a tileset size, you should 'snap to grid' it in your editor of choice, I used Aseprite.
The grid size is the same as your sprite size.

Tilesheet has 4 columns that are (in this case) 8 sprites long:

• Idle
  
• Walk
  
• Run
  
• Jump

And every column has 8 rows (8-directional sprites).

Here's a simple example of what side your character moves to, what position is he in (idle, walking, running, jumping), and what is the number of playing sprite:

Importing a tilesheet

Once you've drawn and properly pasted your sprites in a tileset, you should import it.
Save completed tileset into project root folder img/tilesets/character directory. And here's a little trick.
You should add this to your tilesheet name: %(x). Where x is the number of frames. Since I use 8 in this tutorial, my file would be called: tilesheet%(8).png

Go to RPG Maker

Click database icon:

Then click 'Characters' from the left menu and double click 'Character' in 'Graphics'.

Choose the file you pasted and click 'OK'.

The End

Thank you for reading.

In case you want my 'arrows' example.[imgur.com]

If you have any feedback, or something wasn't clear, feel free to comment.

[神的教會]

Have you ever wonder that the Japanese can steal your content as their own in game making?

[<R a i n>]

Hi, I know this is an old post but I really need to ask, have you been able to make the jump animation work with the more frames plugin? I use 8 frames and while all the other animations are played in 8 frames decently, the jump animation only uses 3 of the 8 frames I drew....

[Brozef]

is it compatible with followers?

[TenkiDesu]

so ive had the plugins today so i can test the sprites ii've made, but i cant seem to find a way to resize my sprites beyond 1 tile (i want them to be at least 1.5 tiles tall), as placing the $ on the file name ignores the %(x) that sets how many frames it should have

does anyone know fixes?

[Fooney]

Would this be compatible with most Yanfly plugins?

[nav]

How can I know which direction I am facing?

[RavenClaw550]

Been looking for this solution for a while. had 2 of the 3 plugins already. many thanks for help. sending points ;D

[Cage]

Doomshorn, thank you so much for your feedback, and I'm so happy to help! Didn't know about your comment at all XD

[Doomshorn]

I was just exiting rpgmaker thinking of switching engines because I couldn't draw more natural walking animations... and this thread popped up in front of me. Thank you so much more posting this! Take care.

[Cage]

TheGameCapsule,
[code]This helps very much if you're making an isometric game, or just don't want a player to be restricted to any kind of grid.[/code]

Or are you talking about a footage, project itself? Then unfortunately I can't.