Non-block Maps And Music Start Points

O K so yo. I don't like the block maps of VX Ace and want to make my own drawing them in Photoshop layers.

1 Do I have to have a certain size of map layers to do that?

2 How many layers can I have at once because some times I want to make my foreground move faster in some scenes and things in the background slower as the character walks.

3 How would I get that effect I just mentioned?

4 I played with pass blocks in VX Ace. If I make one layer with objects the player can run in to do I still have to snap that to the blocks or can I just define the object layer it self as a no pass and it detect it for me?

5 If I want my character to go "in to" a map like get farther a way to simulate depth how do I do this? Do I set up multiple images of that character and everytime they step to a block farther away it switches their graphic each time? Or is there a way to scale easier?

Music. I want it to not play the intro every time and I don't want it to fade out and start up again or what ever. There's some music I want to start over at a point in the song that I designate for it. How do I do that? And if I switch a map then will it start over at the beginning or play continuous sound?

Thanks in advance for any help. I'm a n00b. Heh....

You probably want to look at the Parallax tutorials.  There's an entire technique of making VX Ace maps that uses images for maps, then uses invisible blocks to stop party passage.

I do know whatever size of image you use for the Parallax map, the only thing RPG Maker will see is the output image, so you can make as many Photoshop layers as you want.

If you set a Background Music for a map, as soon as the party enters the map, the music will start over from the beginning.    And, once it completes the Background Music, it starts playing it over again from the beginning.

Good luck with the rest of these.

To make your maps like you want, you'll need both parallax mapping and overlay mapping - unfortunately a lot of the tutorials assume that those two options are the same, but they are not - you'll have to search for tutorials that know the difference.


Then you'll need two scripts - one for parallax lock and one for overlay mapping.


I suggest using Yami's parallax script (sorry, I don't have the link) as that allows several parallax layers (ground, top, light and shadow) for better screen effects.


And then you have to find a compatible overlay script. Tsukihime has one that even has a zoom add-on, but I don't know about compatibility:


http://www.himeworks.com/2013/03/overlay-map-zoom/

Had a look at Parallel mapping tutorial introductions. Seems to be the to answer most of my questions from the first section. Exactly what I was looking for.

Main thing those didn't cover was depth simulation. Hoping a way to make the music a continuous sound and start from a defined point but thanks for pointing me to the direction of those map types. Bye bye blocks. Heh heh

Thanks. I'll take a look and experiment with those.