Animated battlers

Is there a script for VX ace out there where the enemy battlers cycle through only a few animation just so there not standing still? I know of holders script but all I really want is the enemy to move a little by cycling through images when being fought. I'm not looking for attacking animations. If this does not exist is anyone willing to create this?

You have to be more specific on what you want there. Do you want a battler that cycles through a charsheet for animation constantly? Or you simply want it to change its image when being hit?

Animating the battles with a charsheet is not hard at all. It's common in side battle where the battlers are much much smaller in size. But frontal battlers are much larger, making a charsheet for them is going end up with a very large image.

Battlers images are already considered one of the bigger images in the game, animations too. These can easily eat up your memory budget and start lagging up your game during battle. That's one reason why not many are using an animation sheet for the frontal battle system. Even with the default you should be able to see the memory shot up during battle. Let alone constantly animate them. The default VXA can not support GPU, so it has its limit in handling large images. Remember you are making games on a "Retro (old school)" engine, so don't expect your players to be equipped with powerful machines.

Just try placing a few.. say.. 4 to 8 500 x 500(1500 x 4000 px) sized events on the screen and have their steps animation on, and you should be able to "feel" the lag as soon as you enter the map. This goes the same to battle, your player will hit a lag peak every time he/she enters a battle. This cause stress, and bad feedbacks from the players.

If you don't plan your file size budget wisely, you will end up making a game over a few hundreds mb. RM veteran players are normally expecting the games to be 5-20mb download size(you will find these sizes in the most downloaded ranking), the long story rpgs are normally around 100mb+ (over 30hours play time "about the same as FF series"), and remember that they already have the 200mb RTP installed.

Why not use the existing animated battlers script to do the trick? That should be more than enough to "animate and move" your battlers default pictures making them "breath"/"moving around" on screen without having to make a charsheet.

Tomoaky has a good one with high compatibility (simply use a translator if you can't understand japanese)

http://hikimoki.sakura.ne.jp/rgss3/script_battle/tmbsprex.rb

And if you MUST animate them using a sheet, good news is, some existing battler's animation scripts made for side battle system is actually usable in the default frontal system. It's just a matter of how you set up the script. You should be able to find them in the master script list.

http://rmvxace.wikia.com/wiki/RPG_Maker_VX_Ace_Master_Script_List

The first script did not work, even after I put a number line before the lines that were just text.

If you mean Tomoaky's script, did a quick plug and play test and it's working fine on my side.

Well I'm not sure than. Do you think if the battlers were animated by switching between only 2 picture it would be fine?

Should be fine if it only change during a certain condition(eg. being hit), but you will still need to almost double the file size budget on the battlers since you will be using 2 animation frame for each battlers. If that's the case, why not simply flip the battler's picture to do the trick?

edit:

here's a quick script if you plan to use flipping

The game won't use much battlers. Two reasons, one I want to make them all, two I find people get bored with a ton of battles.

If i remember right, you are trying to make battles with muscle man right? or was it boxer? :p
So the flip script above should be more than enough to "animate" them during a battle as the picture will flip during an effect is running, so when the enemy is being hit or tries to use a skill, its graphic will flip.
 
Just try that script with the "Overlord" in battle and you should be able to see how it works on big frontal battler pictures.
 
edit:

and about what you said about people getting bored with battles. well, it depends on your players. some players are actually looking forward to battles. it's our job as a developer to make the game fun for them. eg, limited sight dungeon (dark areas that require lamps), random generated dungeons (never the same every time you enter it), limited healing items (3-5 max and force your player to plan carefully), traps and puzzles... and of course, the most common way to add fun(expectation/demand) to battle is items collection, enemy drops, craft/upgrade system etc etc

but honestly, i hate the default turn based battle myself, so i normally ended up using either tactical or action battle. made a game using arcade shooter as battle before too. so imagination's your limit here ;)

It really depends on what type of players you are marketing:

Ok I will try that tomorrow because I won't be home until then. I tried horror games with rpg maker, I never made a successful one though. Also tell me more about the arcade shooter battle, I'm intrigued. I tried the mirror battlers script, couldn't get it to work.  

RM based Horror games are more like the Adventure genre. Find an item to solve a riddle.

Then there's the scaring fun :D Place events that make large scary sound or show scary images when the player is least expecting.

The arcade shooting script i am using isn't made public because it's too complicated for anyone without a script knowledge to use.

Because i am making enemies, projectiles, upgrades, players and such directly inside the script.



But i remember galv made one for public that's around intermediate developer level.

http://galvs-scripts.com/galvs-invader-mini-game/

The Battler Flip is a quick plug and play. So there's no settings needed.

Just put that in your script editor and start a battle and you should be able to see how it works.

The only thing that happens when I put it in is the enemies slightly rotate to the right when they are attacked, by the way is the mirroring supposed to be constant?

nope, the battlers only flip when they are being damaged or when they are casting a skill

They still only rotate to the left a bit though. Sorry I accidentally said right earlier.

Rotate? didn't do something that complex in math, just a quick flip of the image. So either left/right depends on your battler's picture(which way they were facing). This should works well with battlers that are facing directly infront, those facing left/right will turn up weird.

You are trying to make battles with large muscle man(boxer) pictures right? The video you showed in another post? That kind of pictures should work with a mere flip to animate them as if they moved. Right/Left punch effect. Showed you the kitty that moves with only a flip right? It's the same concept.

Something like this should work well with the flip

I wasn't going to make the games battlers like that. The video was just for the overall play style. However, I still like it.

If you like how the flip works.

I can start work on making it constant with a time counter, but i am not sure if that will cause the the fps to drop.

Constant flipping that only stops when being attacked/when enemy try to use a skill.

Hmm.. it actually turns out cute. Look at those rats shaking their heads! lol!

No significant fps drops too. Did a test with some of the default battlers, all looks good with it. :p





edit:

After testing all the default battlers, this is the result.

The Hornets and the Bats look as if they are shaking their butts.

The Darklord looks as if he's afraid of something sitting restlessly in his throne. lol!

The Jellyfish/Chimera/Gargoyle/Vampire pictures are definitely not suitable with the flip.

The rest of the default battlers looks good and seems usable.

There are more in the RTP so you should be able to find more than enough to use there if you don't plan to draw yourself.



Replace the old script with this one below for constant flipping.

Script Link: 

http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/52536-battlers-flip-animation/

Thanks I really like this. Now all I need is a new battle system but I'll save that for another topic so I think this one has been solved.

You're welcome!