CROSS ENGINE: Combining Chrono Engine with Altimit Movement

Restart · 2020-06-09T14:38:33+0900

Latest Version: Cross Engine Alpha 0.20.06.26 Demo Project What is Cross Engine? Over the course of the last few months I've been working on my game, and I decided I wanted to combine Altimit Movement and Mog's Chrono Engine. Cross Engine is what I call the big pile of functions that makes both of them work together, giving both pixel movement and ABS mode. It also includes bugfixes, and QoL features that came up when I was doing things (most of my notes to self thread is included). Basically, this is all stuff I found useful, and hope that other people will find useful as well. Why's it called Cross Engine? Partially because it's a Cross-Compatible Engine for making games, but mostly because it's a followup to a beloved classic which killed off Chrono. Compatibility Patches Cross Engine now works with yanfly's itemcore, altimit movement, yanfly's item spawner, yanfly's doodads, and galv's camera plugin (the last of which is actually essential to avoiding event/doodad jitter). Also, Ultra Mode 7. Spoiler: Other New Features: 8-directional, 2 directional, and 1-directional Spritesheets: Sure, a lot of people have 8-directional spritesheets (and I support all the major formats), but how many people have ONE-directional spritesheets? With Cross Engine, you can take any old image, give it a filename, and put it in. Save it as $Angel(f1)(d1).png, and BAM, it's usable as an event. No mucking around in photoshop making a spritesheet with four versions of the same sprite. But that's not all! I also added intelligent sprite flipping, as well. If you named that angel $Angel(f1)(d-1).png instead, it will flip to face left if it moves left, and flip to face right if it moves right. Split poses and actions One of the things really dragging down the pace of a chrono engine game is that characters were locked in place while they animated. I have changed the engine so now you have a separate 'pose duration' and 'act duration'. Pose duration means your character is playing an animation, act duration means they can't move or cast anything. I've also added a 'cooldown duration', which lets you move, but doesn't let you cast any abilities. Intelligent Tag Parsing 1) Tags parse from right-to-left, instead of left-to-right. This seems super minor, but it means that if your base character sprite is $Harold(f4)(d8), and he has a casting pose "_casting(f8)(d1)", then the new spritesheet sizes will take precedence! 2) Filename Completion: Let's say your idle sprite for harold is "$Harold(f4)(d8)_idle(f1)(d1)". In base Chrono engine this would cause rpgmaker to screech to a halt, because it can't find "$Harold(f4)(d8)_idle". However, upon starting up the game, Cross Engine makes a list of every file in your characters folder. When it checks for poses, it will first check for an exact match. If it doesn't get it, it will check to see if there's any longer versions of that filename. If it checks for "$Harold(f4)(d8)_idle", and can't find it, it will return "$Harold(f4)(d8)_idle(f1)(d1)". What if there's no match at all? The event keeps its base sprite. In playtesting, it will whine about it in the console. No crashing. 3) Negative values are now allowed for x and y offsets. Walking actions You know how in megaman you can shoot your little gun and megaman keeps on walking? Using the tag (walking) will keep your character in the same part of the animation cycle when transitioning into the new pose. Practically speaking, that means you can do the megaman things. If the character isn't moving, it will fall back onto a _static pose, so you don't run in place whenever you shoot. Standing Pose One of the big constraints on having fluid animation in rmmv is that your walking frames have to include a static pose used for standing. If you define a 'standing' pose, your character will use that instead when they aren't moving. While you can technically do this with an idle pose, I wanted to have both in my project. Faint Poses Mog was going to implement faint/death poses distinct from damage poses, but didn't end up finishing it. I have an implementation of this, so you can have a robot get banged up a bit when it gets hit, then violently explode into a miserable pile of circuits when it dies. Basic Preloader Function One thing you'll notice using chrono engine is that whenever creatures change poses for the first time, you'll sometimes see a flicker as the file loads. I have added a function which preloads all poses for a creature. If you enter ImageManager.preloadPoses('Ralph'), it will find 'Ralph_attack', 'Ralph_defense', 'Ralph_is_unstoppable(F4)(d8)(s2)(x4)', et cetera, and preload them. This doesn't happen automatically - you have to invoke it each time you're worried about preloading. New plugin command: disable_idleposes Turns off idle poses. Good for cutscenes where characters mugging at the camera is unwanted. Turn them back on with enable_idleposes Intelligent Rotations Do you want a magic circle of spinning runes? I've got you covered…

● ARCHIVED · READ-ONLY

Started by Restart Jun 9, 2020, 05:38 AM 206 posts Page 2 of 11 View original ↗

Sissel Cabanela

#21 Jun 19, 2020, 02:10 AM Source

...man, your Cross Engine came out after I had butchered the two(Altimit and Chrono) into working with my custom project, but yours is far superior: THANK GOD, because I couldn't get diagonals working well and my knockback system kept glitching. Now I have a question, is the mod done mostly via your plugin, or are there edits to the base plugins of Altimit and Chrono as well? The reason I ask is because I believe I made some edits to my Chrono Engine to work with some Yanfly Plugins and also commissioned a number of Chrono Engine plugins so I'm unsure of compatibility.
Restart

#22 Jun 19, 2020, 02:26 AM Source

I have a few small edits in the version of altimit bundled with it (like fixing random movement and deleting bullets when they hit the edge of the map instead of sliding along it), but nothing particularly major. The chrono engine file is totally stock

If you're able to send me the yanfly compatibility changes I can see if I can incorporate them into the next version.
Sissel Cabanela

#23 Jun 19, 2020, 03:35 AM Source

Hm, I'm looking at the line of code where this error references, and I'm a bit lost.

I have tried to run the project with the 'Standing' option in parameters both on and off and get the same issue. Perhaps related to the issue mentioned above? But half of the plugins here are below Cross Engine.
Restart

#24 Jun 19, 2020, 03:48 AM Source

show me the console - cannot find property 'standing' is usually because it choked at some point on an incompatibility and threw out a plugin, and the console will usually show what happened.
Sissel Cabanela

#25 Jun 19, 2020, 04:07 AM Source

Er, actually, it's just more of the same BUT I do see that it starts in Core Engine, here. Odd.
Restart

#26 Jun 19, 2020, 04:19 AM Source

do you have mog's character poses plugin working and enabled?

if not, turn it on.

if you do, try disabling the random map generator - a lot of map generators make events that aren't 100% rpg maker standard, and sometimes that makes weird things happen
Sissel Cabanela

#27 Jun 19, 2020, 04:58 AM Source

Restart said:
do you have mog's character poses plugin working and enabled?

if not, turn it on.

if you do, try disabling the random map generator - a lot of map generators make events that aren't 100% rpg maker standard, and sometimes that makes weird things happen
So update, you were correct. I had that disabled because, uh, I don't really have many sprites so I just disabled it. Turned it on, no issues at the moment in that regard. That said, I do have an...interesting issue now, unrelated to outright errors.

I had been commissioning someone to make plugins for my project which uses the Chrono Engine before the shift to Pixel Movement, and when I tried to get everything working with Altimit Movement before, one of the plugins I commissioned didn't quite work well. The plugin in question has the ability to create proper reflective abilities, from equipment to actual tools/attacks that can reflect attacks back at the user at varying rates of damage. Since you are making a project with the engine yourself, is there a chance I can PM you the plugin and you might be able to doctor it so we can both use it with Cross Engine? It seems to just be an issue of the new pixel movement options.
Restart

#28 Jun 19, 2020, 05:33 AM Source

I can take a quick peek, but I'd prefer not to spend too much time working on compatibility with something that isn't available to the general public.
TheGameAfter

#29 Jun 23, 2020, 07:16 PM Source

Hi, for some reason I get this error only when using the cross engine, when using the Chrono engine the game not show any error. It seems to be something about the function/option -SX and -SY, do you have any idea how to solve this?

Edit: I try to remove it all, no error there, however, I still get an error 'this.collider is not a function', I added a console log picture for this one as well. I'm not sure if that connects to the first error or not.
#Blessed sun#

#30 Jun 24, 2020, 08:21 AM Source

Hello Sir, is this version compatible with yanfly item core? I tried using item core and it starts the game but the weapon doesnt work. It doesnt fire/Attack when I press z.
Restart

#31 Jun 26, 2020, 07:16 AM Source

Small update: there's now a plugin parameter to tell it not to do idle poses while a text box is on screen. Some idle poses can make it seem like your character isn't paying attention to npcs, and this is easier than using the enable_idleposes and disable_idleposes commands every time.

Also fixed hookshot poses.

#Blessed sun# said:
Hello Sir, is this version compatible with yanfly item core? I tried using item core and it starts the game but the weapon doesnt work. It doesnt fire/Attack when I press z.
You need to enable midgame notetag parsing in plugin parameters.

I probably should just override that plugin setting in the next version, since I don't think there's any reason to have it off when using cross engine.

TheGameAfter said:
Hi, for some reason I get this error only when using the cross engine, when using the Chrono engine the game not show any error. It seems to be something about the function/option -SX and -SY, do you have any idea how to solve this?

Edit: I try to remove it all, no error there, however, I still get an error 'this.collider is not a function', I added a console log picture for this one as well. I'm not sure if that connects to the first error or not.
What other plugins do you have in the project? setDirectionVector should be in altimit movement, as should the collider stuff - it seems like altimit isn't being detected.
TheGameAfter

#32 Jun 26, 2020, 01:49 PM Source

What other plugins do you have in the project? setDirectionVector should be in altimit movement, as should the collider stuff - it seems like altimit isn't being detected.
Thanks for the answer, you right, when Altimat enables these errors not show up anymore, however for some reason I get a bigger error, again only when 'Altimat' enable (that why I try not to use it in the first place): "Maximum call stack size exceeded". I tried to replace all the 'Cross' plugins from your last version just in case, but I get the same error.
Restart

#33 Jun 26, 2020, 05:11 PM Source

seems likely there's some conflict with altimit and some other plugin you have, but without knowing the full list of what plugins are in your project, and their order, I can't say what it is.

I noticed that you've got some JS files renamed, I know some plugins react badly to that
TheGameAfter

#34 Jun 26, 2020, 06:31 PM Source

Restart said:
seems likely there's some conflict with altimit and some other plugin you have, but without knowing the full list of what plugins are in your project, and their order, I can't say what it is.

I noticed that you've got some JS files renamed, I know some plugins react badly to that
Ok yes, I forgat I added the 'MOG_Poses_CrossEngnie.js', I remove it and this time I get a different error "Cannot read property 'scrollType' of null".

From the consol is looks like the error happened from the mog plugins and not from the other in my plugin list, and as I said earlier all of the Chrono engine plugins work fine if the 'cross engine/altimat is off, but when adding this two, the game show this error for some reason.

Since I use many plugins, I upload the pictures of my plugin list to this link and I name the pictures on the order they list in my game: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nuiO9RlFfGMlvcNW27aH0Gpw305yUfPA?usp=sharing
Restart

#35 Jun 26, 2020, 06:52 PM Source

Honestly it could be anything, - your plugin list is really messy, and I noticed you have at least one duplicated plugins ( MOG_PickupThrow ). I'd suggest you systematically test switching on/off to see what's interfering with altimit.
TheGameAfter

#36 Jun 26, 2020, 07:28 PM Source

Restart said:
Honestly it could be anything, - your plugin list is really messy, and I noticed you have at least one duplicated plugins ( MOG_PickupThrow ). I'd suggest you systematically test switching on/off to see what's interfering with altimit.
Thanks! I checked and the only plugin who case this error case by "JAH_NewGameEvent", when turning it off everything works fine, I will just find an alternative. It's embarrassing, sometimes my focus to finding a deep error let me forgot the simple solution, thanks again.
Restart

#37 Jun 26, 2020, 07:37 PM Source

Good to figure it out.

If you're looking for a replacement, I *believe* SRD's skip title screen plugin (so you can event it) and mog's various title screen prettiness plugins are compatible with cross/altimit, but that's from testing on my personal plugin stack, and your results might vary.
TheGameAfter

#38 Jun 28, 2020, 06:57 PM Source

I don't seem to find a way/script the will let me use 'Event Hitbox' (size) plugin with AltimIte Movement... at the moment when I'm adding the 'Event Hitbox' note script to my event using either 'Event Hitbox', Orange 'Event Hitbox', or EST - EVENT SIZE AND TRIGGER, none of them work, I try to use a parallel event as well but still nothing, the event (in the same page or another page) are not bigger than 1 tile.

For example: If I put an image the bigger then 1 tile size, I can still walk through it. I also tried to add the Plugin command AltMovement move_align set false to the event stop Altimit on this specific event, but it doesn't seem to work. any idea what can be done? maybe is there any collider script I can add to the specific event instead to change his size?
Restart

#39 Jun 28, 2020, 07:10 PM Source
Altimit has a different way of defining hitboxes - it's totally incompatible with other hitbox plugins because it rips out the default rpg maker one and puts in a totally different framework.

You'll need to use altimit's
Code:
<collider> <rect x='0' y='0' width='1' height='1' /> </collider>
type notetags in order to define your hitbox shapes. (You can attach multiple hit boxes to the same event by putting in multiple colliders in a row, and use circles and polygons as well - check the documentation)
TheGameAfter

#40 Jun 28, 2020, 07:14 PM Source
Restart said:
Altimit has a different way of defining hitboxes - it's totally incompatible with other plugins because it operates under a totally different framework.

You'll need to use altimit's

Code:
<collider> <rect x='0' y='0' width='1' height='1' /> </collider>

type notetags in order to define your hitbox shapes. (You can attach multiple hit boxes to the same event by putting in multiple colliders in a row, and use circles and polygons as well - check the documentation)
I will try this out. Thanks!

Edit: So I try to put this code in a 'comment' in the event, but for some reason, he didn't affect. I mast missed something. my event is a house object (character) the need to show up on another map, I need to stop the player from walking through it, what and where should I place it? I added my event pages for you to look. (i tried <rect x='2' y='2' width='1' height='1' /> first, then i tried bigger number to see if it change anything (5,5) but nothing (I'm using your 'cross' demo as the base for this project).