Script for showing a shadow when the player is under an overhead (star) tile.

Forgive me if what I'm asking for is unfeasible or has been already done, but I'd really like to have my character to be somewhat visible through tiles which normally display over you.

I have several trees in a forest area as well as overhead corridors in large houses which can be hard to navigate properly with no indication of where your character currently is. Is there a script that would allow for accomplishing this, or could any of you RGSS gurus please look into writing one if it's not too much trouble? I recall Zelda - A Link to the Past would display a round shadow whenever something would render over you, and this is back in 1991 for the SNES, so surely there must be options available for RPG Maker VX Ace?

Personally I'd prefer if it was possible to simply replace the character's charset with a black shadow version and have it displayed whenever the script detects movement under an overheard tile so as to keep the character's shape, but I'm not opposed to a simple round shadow below the character if the former is not available.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you kindly.

There IS a script for this - I had to edit it for someone once. Do you have any of the High Fantasy packs from PV Games? I THINK that script might do it.

Wow, thanks a lot for that, it does seem to work fairly well, who knew I had it all along.


Unfortunately, it seems to be incompatible with "Multiple Map Layers" by Vlue, an amazing script which I use instead of parallax mapping in order to overcome the limitations on the number of possible layers. With both scripts, only the character renders through only the tiles on the base map. Would you mind taking a quick look, to see if they could somehow be made compatible? That would be absolutely amazing indeed.


Here is the ZLevelScript in full (I'm hoping it's ok to reproduce it here, but I'm not certain on the licensing of that code, so if it's not I apologize and please feel free to edit it out).


Thank you again for your prompt response! =)

Actually, no, it's not okay to reproduce it here, as it's part of a paid resource pack. I went ahead and removed it from your post.


I don't have time to look at this myself, but hopefully someone else who had the HF pack will be able to take a look for you and see if they can make it compatible with Vlue's script.

Fair enough. It doesn't have to be that script either, if anyone knows or has one that works similarly that's fine too. My only requirement is that it's compatible with Vlue's Multiple Map Layers, as I have far too many maps which rely on it, and I'm already using parallaxes for standard scrolling backgrounds.

Also that ZLevel script seems to make every character translucent while under an overhead tile, including events. I really only want the player to be rendered thusly, as I have several semi-hidden chests which I'd like to not be immediately obvious.

Many thanks to anyone who can crack this nut. =)

Edit: I somewhat got this script to play ball with Multiple Map Layers but only by having the player render through everything in the other layers. I can tell it should be possible to have it check for tile transparency in the other layers as well but for the life of me, with my limited RGSS skills I can't quite get it working. At the very least, this will have to suffice until someone more knowledgeable can take a look and try to merge the two.

Edit 2: Actually it would be much better if it was possible to define the areas in which the player should show through through regions or terrain tags rather than automatically rendering him over any transparent tile. There are a fair few tiles that I can easily see my character under in normal circumstances (such as shadows) yet this ZLevelScript renders him transparently needlessly over them. Being able to manually define which tiles the player should always render over would be much better so regions and terrain tags seem far more suited to this task.

Well it's been a whole day of tinkering with this and I think I have most things sorted out. Events no longer receive the overlay rendering, which ensures they stay hidden. All layers should now properly check when to render the player through terrain tags, which proved vastly superior to automatic transparency with starred sets. Since no one else took an interest on the matter I guess you may consider this thread closed. Many thanks to Shaz for suggesting the ZLevel script.