01 - Make player/event play action
Wanna make a character play a spritesheet? Firstly, prepare a spritesheet.
This spritesheet contains 6 frames, so I’ll set it to play all 6 by using this script call within a Movement Route command: playFrames(1, 6, 3). The 3 indicates a 3-frame delay between each frame. A lower number increases the playback speed. So what I'm gonna do: Change character image to the sprite above, then call playFrames, then change character sprite to idle so it doesn't get stuck to the last frame of the file above.
NOTE: In order to use playFrames, you need to change your filename to $filename_fx.png. fx = f6 if your spritesheet has 6 frames in total.
Every RPG Maker includes a "Show Animation" command that plays animations from the database onto a map event. However, this built-in animation system has significant limitations: it restricts each frame to a maximum of 192 pixels and caps the total number of frames at around 90. As a result, animations often appear in poor quality. To address this, we’ll use the "Show Animation" command from the Hendrix Animation Solution plugin instead. This offers far greater flexibility and support, including advanced features like post-processing effects such as Bloom.
Just pick a spritesheet file, set the Row and Column values, and then go to Position Settings to choose where the animation will appear—that’s all you need to do. The other settings are optional. But what if you’re working with a huge animation, say 300 frames? Packing that into a single spritesheet would make the file size massive. For that, you can switch to the "Use Separated Frames" option instead.
02 - Make player/event play action (manual mode)
Using the same spritesheet above, I'll play the same animation but with a method that gives you more control after each frame. The script I'm gonna call is toFrame(X).
03 - Play VFX on map
Just pick a spritesheet file, set the Row and Column values, and then go to Position Settings to choose where the animation will appear—that’s all you need to do. The other settings are optional. But what if you’re working with a huge animation, say 300 frames? Packing that into a single spritesheet would make the file size massive. For that, you can switch to the "Use Separated Frames" option instead.
In here I have 300 frames and my file names will be Tornado_1 -> Tornado_300
04 - Character Idle Walk Run (automatically)
To make player or another character to have walk idle run, prepare these files:
- $filename_Walk.png
- $filename_Idle.png
- $filename_Run.png
You can replace Walk Idle Run keywords from the parameter to something else like Moving Standing Dash, then name your file with the matching keyword: $filename_Moving.png
That's all you need to do. Easy to understand, right?
A character having its main graphic as Idle file will automatically change to Walk when moving and Run when dashing.
05 - Charcter 8 Directions
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| Default RPG Maker 4 direction spritesheet |
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| 8 Direction spritesheet example you need to prepare |
To enable automatic 8-direction sprite display, add four additional rows to your spritesheet in this order:
Next, name your file $filename_8dir.png. Include _8dir in the filename to activate 8-direction support. Simple, right? If your spritesheet also has 16 frames, name it $filename_8dir_f16.png.
Down, Down-Left, Down-Right, Left, Right, Up, Up-Left, Up-Right.
Next, name your file $filename_8dir.png. Include _8dir in the filename to activate 8-direction support. Simple, right? If your spritesheet also has 16 frames, name it $filename_8dir_f16.png.