MZ - ODW - Plugins Collection WIP

In this thread, I'll be sharing my explorations with the various RPG Maker MZ plugins we develop at Open Digital World. It also acts as a global developer's log, while sharing/informing about ongoing or upcoming updates to our plugins.

About the terms of use
All the plugins described in this thread are free of charge and are licensed under the MIT license. If you wish, you can download them and develop/improve them on your own. For simplicity's sake, we've also added a link to the source code on Gitlab, so you can do it easily without having to ask us, but also in case of need, so you can help other developers debug the plugins if we can't do it ourselves quickly (which is quite rare, but you never know).

Important: No support for released plugin features will be provided in this thread (please use the released plugin thread for this). This thread will be used exclusively to discuss with you about new features to come or under development.

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Released Plugins

• Core Plugin v1.1.0
• Multi-Language System Plugin v2.0.0
• Advanced Picture System Plugin v2.0.0
• Title Map System Plugin v1.0.0
• Gameover Map System Plugin v1.0.0

Check this thread for more information.

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Choice Message System Plugin (ongoing design)

This plugin lets you manage and display interactive choices in a more flexible and configurable way than RMMZ's native event editor features. It has been designed specifically for player choice scenes on maps, and uses the plugin's commands as an alternative to the Show Choices functionality.

Key features under development

• v1.0
  • Customizable window (size, position, background and skin, fonts)
  • Dynamic window height (number of choices)

See the release notes for details of the plugin's active features.

Links

• Source code: GitLab

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Narrator Message System Plugin (ongoing design)

This plugin lets you manage and display text messages in a more flexible and configurable way than RMMZ's native event editor features. It has been designed specifically for map narration scenes, and uses the plugin's commands as an alternative to the Show Text functionality.

Key features under development

• v1.0
  • Customizable window (size, position, background and skin, fonts)
  • Dynamic window height (number of line breaks)

See the release notes for details of the plugin's active features.

Links

• Source code: GitLab

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Dialog Message System Plugin (ongoing design)

This plugin lets you manage and display text messages in a more flexible and configurable way than RMMZ's native event editor features. It has been designed specifically for dialog scenes between characters on maps, and uses the plugin's commands as an alternative to the Show Text functionality.

Key features under development

• v1.0
  • Customizable dialog window with different skins
  • Dynamic anchoring of the window according to the character who's speaking

See the release notes for details of the plugin's active features.

Links

• Source code: GitLab

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Battle Map System Plugin (ongoing design)

This plugin enhances the basic features of maps by adding the ability to declare a map as a battle scene, and displaying / customizing the scene commands.

Key features under development

• v1.0
  • Integrate battle system and features into a map

See the release notes for details of the plugin's active features.

Links

• Source code: GitLab

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Character Sprites System Plugin (prerelease)

This plugin lets you replace the usual 4x3 grid of character sprites with sprites that can be customized by direction (according to numeric keypad numbers or compass directions), pose (idle, walk, run, jump, climb), and a variable number of frames. This can be easily configured with notetags for actors (players, followers), enemies and events. The plugin's commands also let you change sprite names and poses on the fly.

=> Replaces our previous Advanced Character System Plugin.

Key features under development

• v1.0
  • Use spritesets to configure different sets of sprites for the 5 pose types (idle, walk, run, jump, climb), adjusting the display speed per frame for each.
  • Link spriteset to actors and enemies, with the ability to change the sprite base and pose permanently (and not just on the fly).
  • Take into account numerical (numpad) or cardinal (compass) directions in sprite names.
  • Make the plugin as compatible as possible with all poses offered by the 8D Character Creator application, using the default exported sprite names.

See the release notes for details of the plugin's active features.

Links

• Source code: GitLab

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Character Detector System Plugin (ongoing development)

This plugin adds map characters detection scripts, configurable per object in different directions, for easy use in parallel event design, for example, for remote or proximity interaction.

Key features under development

• v1.0
  • Add a mechanism for detecting characters on the map, for the player, followers and events.
  • Add a set of scripts to call in events to use this mechanism.

See the release notes for details of the plugin's active features.

Links

• Source code: GitLab

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Progress report 04.02.2024

Multi-Language System Plugin

• Most of the active developments are currently in the testing phase, including patches for third-party plugins (Galv, VS).
• The addition of language-specific fonts is currently under development. This will be added to the next major release, along with the developments mentioned above.
• The preparation of a blank project with default texts translated into French and English is underway. Currently, 70% of all texts have been translated. But the most time-consuming part remains: skills, weapons and armors.

Advanced Character System Plugin

• In the end, this plugin will not be used to customize vehicles. The corresponding part of the code has been deleted.

Advanced Detector System Plugin

• This plugin has been developed and tested extensively to avoid performance problems and FPS drops. No prediction as to an upcoming release date, but as a teaser, here are a few images of the results.

Progress report 19.04.2024

Our roadmap has undergone some important changes since the last progress report. We've decided to devote ourselves entirely to designing a game rather than a prototype to demonstrate our plugins. As a result, development priorities have been revised to better meet the needs of the game. Nevertheless, here is some significant progress on our plugins.

Multi-Language System Plugin

• Language-based custom font management is fully functional.
• The new v1.1 version of the plugin is ready to be released once the game is finished.

Advanced Character System Plugin

• A minor version of the plugin with a few minor optimizations is ready for release once the game is finished.

Advanced Detector System Plugin

• The first version of the plugin is ready for release once the game is finished.

Advanced Picture System Plugin

• This new plugin is in active development. It offers lots of useful features for manipulating image and text as pictures (see the list of features above to get an idea).
• Background: The idea for this plugin came to me after trying out several picture manipulation plugins, such as those offered by default in the RMMZ DLCs. But after playing with them for a long time, and feeling a certain frustration at having to use several different plugins and execute several plugin commands to get the job done, I set about developing an all-in-one plugin.

I'll be editing this thread shortly with some screenshots of the results obtained with the main plugins above. Until then, take care and see you soon.

Edit: a quick & dirty demo of the Advanced Picture System Plugin features.

Progress report 24.05.2024

Multi-Language System Plugin

• Language-based custom font management is fully functional (see demo below).
• The code has been further optimized, with the removal of the plugin command code (too complex to manage).
• All that remains is to update the plugin documentation for online publication.

Advanced Character System Plugin

• The next major release adds actions via plugin commands for easy sequence generation (custom sprites while standing, walking, running or jumping).
• Complete refactoring of the code to allow actions to be added. Unfortunately, this will generate breaking changes with version 1.0.x.

Advanced Detector System Plugin

• Nothing new.

Advanced Picture System Plugin

• All possible manipulations have been developed (see demo below).
• All that remains is to document this plugin for online publication.

Advanced Map System Plugin (new)

• For the moment, development of this new plugin is focused on integrating and customizing the title scene on maps.
• It's possible to skip the standard title scene to start on any map, whether it's for a title map scene or a start-up cutscene.
• To transform a map scene into a title map scene, simply add the <title> notetag in the map note field in the RMMZ editor.
• Customization of the title command window has been implemented so that the plugin can apply changes to both the standard title scene window and the title map scene window. This includes:
  • The window skin
  • The window width
  • The window commands list, with custom script possible
  • And per command
    • The label
    • The symbol
    • The text alignment
    • The width
    • The position horizontal offest
    • The script to execute (if not a standard symbol like newGame, continue or options)
• In addition, for title map scene, it is possible to display the command window when the scene is opened, or to display it at will by means of a plugin command (e.g. when a map event is executed).

The next challenge is now to add the title text (according to the game's system settings)... and above all to integrate the battle system directly into the maps!

:MV3:

Edit: now with the custom title text (font, size, style, color, outline color and width), both for standard title scene and for title map.

New roadmap 30.08.2024

After a break of a few weeks, and following the valuable advice of some members of the RMWeb community, we've decided to completely overhaul our roadmap, dividing it into thematic collections of plugins (see the edited original post).

A core plugin will therefore be introduced to simplify development. What's more, as our first plugins (which are now well known) are complete systems on their own, they will continue to exist independently of the new collections proposed below:

• Improved map scenes: plugins will be implemented to bring new functionalities to map scenes, such as allowing maps to be used to display the title scene or gameover scene, replacing static display with the possibility of more dynamic scenes.
• Improved message windows: plugins will be implemented to bring new features to the display of message windows to make them more attractive and customizable.
• Customization of map characters: plugins will be implemented to bring new functionalities to the management and display of map characters (player, followers, events), such as movements, sprites, formations, ...

The aim of these collections of plugins is to provide game developers with additional functionalities that will enable them to exploit the many possibilities offered by the maps' features, to develop more accomplished cutscenes and more advanced interactions with players.

So stay tuned, and see you soon for new announcements. :cool:

Note: the code for most of these plugins is already ready and tested... but as it's integrated into a single complex plugin, we've yet to break it down into independent plugins.

Progress report 01.12.2024

Thanks to the 2024 Spooky Game Jam, I had the chance to test our new plugins in real game conditions. This has enabled us to improve them, and to bring you our new releases throughout this month of December. We're starting right now with a first group of plugins:

• Core Plugin v1.0.0
• Multi-Language System Plugin v2.0.0
• Advanced Picture System Plugin v2.0.0

New releases will now be available in a single thread: ODW - Plugins Collection Releases.

Hi everyone.

As I'm taking a long break, I won't be able to respond to this thread for the time being. Feel free to fork or copy the original code from my plugins and modify them as you see fit (no need to credit us).

Happy coding!

Closing at OP's request. Please report the thread if you would like it re-opened.