Porting VX Ace to MV to iOS

So with the new RPG Maker MV version comes the ability to port games to iOS and Android. Is there a way to port my RPG Maker VX Ace file over to MV, so that I can then make it available for iOS and Android?

Thanks.  :thumbsup-left:

RPG

If you purchased MV, in DLC/RPGmakerWeb_plugins/Shaz there is a converter and a change tile size plugin.

So just to be clear, there is a built in ability in MV to port VX Ace games over? I just want to be sure before I go ahead and invest the 70 dollars.

Yes.

I have successfully imported my Ace game and it works without any problems.

One thing though, if you use loads of scripts in your ace game, they won't convert. You will need to find MV alternatives.

So, I didn't use a ton of scripts for my game, but I did use one for my battle system. Would that not port over?

I also used custom sprites. Don't know if that's be an issue...

Scripts don't port over. VX Ace uses Ruby and MV uses Javascript. Although it's still "RGSS" style, you have to convert it yourself -- I'm not sure how much the internal API changed (meaning you probably need to rewrite it, you can't easily convert it).

Custom sprites don't convert over.  You can either resize them (scale up to 1.5x) or re-generate them (or their likenesses) using the MV character generator.

I'm going to attempt to convert the Samurai pack, because I love that pack. Basically I just need to do a graphic conversion?

There is an Ace-MV converter script, and that script has a topic in this forum where its function and its limitations are discussed.
Basically Maps, Database and Events without scripts are converted automatically


Picture resources need to be converted manually (unless they have their own RTP-equivalent in MV)


Script lines and scripts cannot function and need to be replaced by MV/javascript variants

This is not "built in" functionality.  It is a script I wrote that you run in Ace, and it converts all the files in your Data folder to MV format.

You then need to copy them over manually, copy the resources over manually, resize them so they meet MV resource specifications or use the Change Tile Size plugin to make MV use 32x32 tiles for the game.

Then you have to go through the list of script calls and convert them all to JavaScript, replace any custom scripts with JS plugins.

And finally you need to test your game thoroughly.

It is not as simple as sticking in a script, running it, and the work is all done.  It just removes the need for you to have to recreate all of your maps, events and database in MV.

I actually just finished doing this yesterday with my first VX Ace game. I converted it to MV using SHAZ's converter plugin then followed the guidance in the RPG Maker MV Help from scratch on how to convert to an android app. I've never made an android app before and it took about 2hrs to install all the software, set up the paths and execute the commands. It does work and I'm very pleased, though it does get very laggy on all android devices I have tested it on so far (mainly during animations in battle).

A few words of warning however when converting your game from VX Ace to MV:

1. The converter will not resize your characters or facesets. You will need to resize these yourself or make replacements. Make sure to keep the file names and layout the same as before else you'll get people changing appearance.
2. The converter will not transfer your tilesets. Your new MV game will have the default MV tilesets. This is fine if your VX Ace game had the standard VX Ace tilesets, though I have noticed some items in the standard tilesets between VX Ace and MV seem to be laid out differently (mainly the fire and water features in the character tilesets).
3. The file names of the standard animations and sound effects, plus the layout of the icons and number of animations are different between VX Ace and MV. As such once the file is converted many of the animations and icons will be messed up, and the game will most likely crash when played due to it trying to call on animation or sound effect file names which do not exist in MV (most annoyingly the sound effect for Chest is no longer called Chest but is now Chest1 or Chest2). Probably the best way to deal with this to change the file names so they match those in VX Ace, and not do what I did which was pain stakingly go through my entire MV game changing loads of items till it worked all the way through.