How to make characters in RPG Maker MV + Update Video
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ก.ค. 2024
- This took frickin' yonks to make! Glad it's done though. The Google Drive link below will have all my template files. Feel free to post any questions regarding the files or the vid.
Side note but it's my birthday tomorrow! Gonna take a little breather after releasing this and enjoy my time.
Walk Cycle Resources:
drive.google.com/drive/folder...
Timestamps
Intro - 0:00
How to make the character - 0:37
Notes on character design - 6:23
Shivering Hearts Progress Update - 9:23
Support Low Gravity Beats Music:
lowgravitybeats.bandcamp.com/
CREDITS:
Written + Voiced + Edited by Mischa
Stars photo by Tengyart on Unsplash
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter - James Gurney
Music credits:
♫ Movement in Green - Final Fantasy X - Nobuo Uematsu ♫
♫ Highland City Dun Loireag (Θ) - .hack//Infection OST ♫
♫ Trademeet - Baldur’s Gate 2 OST - Michael Hoenig ♫
♫ Blessing of Vivec - Morrowind OST - Jeremy Soule ♫
♫ lazy afternoon - setobo - Low Gravity Beats - Beat Tape #7 ♫ - เกม
fact check before making videos, sprite sheet resolutions aren't fixed the amount of characters per sheet is, $ doesn't change the size it changes the the amount of characters from 8 to 1.
Thanks, will see if I can amend this or reupload an edited version. I'll pin this comment until then.
This video helped me so much!! I’m not great at pixel art, and I searched for such a long time for the dimensions of the character Sprite sheets, for my first game I drew over the basic sheet in pixel art, making it two blocks high, because that’s the only thing I knew how to do, but I still had a lot of problems with the feet showing up at the top of the sprites when walking, you lay out all the dimensions and showcase it in a clear way that was the exact things I wanted to know! Now my sprites look better then ever! (And my backgrounds from your other video!) you’ve been every helpful, thanks for all of your videos!!
Literally downloaded RPG Maker and was already discouraged by how many ppl are apparently turned off by the "genericness" of it. This is awesome and inspiring to see what can be done with it!
Just draw everything by hand and it's already better than these generic rpgm assets
FOR REAL @@EpicMugenBattles
@@adiyn_ My game is made with rpg make MV, search for Project H.D Game development
@@adiyn_ or just th-cam.com/video/pcjTowqhaCs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=lTnE5JIezR2uMQjQ
I'm so glad I stumbled on this. Your design and artwork is so inspiring!
this man has completely bought me to follow this game process. amazing work!
So beautiful I must say, will give it a try again! Thank you so much for sharing us the true beauty of this engine.
duuuuuude, thank you so much for reminding me of Etherena! Played it a lot when I was a kid with my cousin.
Your project looks neat too! Love the hand drawn vibes.
Holy Hell, man! Your game looks amazing! I wouldn't even tell it's made on rpg maker if I didn't know
This is great! I discovered your channel a few weeks ago (I'm also making an RPG Maker game, and your mapping guide was super helpful) and I'm so stoked to see the progress! It's looking great! Good luck on the project, and I look forward to seeing you next update.
Thanks so much! Super glad it helped, and so awesome to hear that youre making something as well, good luck for your project as well! And thanks so much, motivated to keep working on it and provide updates. Have a good one :)
This was so great. Thanks for making this and explaining it all so clearly. Can't wait to see the progression of this project 🤙
Hey sorry for the late reply, was a mission uploading my new vid. Thanks so much! Really appreciate it
The animations you use to highlight the sections you're talking about at 2:18 are dope and really helped to explain the point. Awesome stuff!
Thank you! Glad the diagrams helped out, really tried my best to explain everything visually.
I really just wanted to tell you your artwork is drop dead gorgeous. Subbed.
Thank you so much @kmfnj! ♥️
Such an underrated channel. You really put your heart and soul into these videos and your game
Wow, thats probably the nicest thing anyomes ever said, thank you. Really appreciate it.
Man, this was really helpfull. Thank you a lot!!
Also, I love the background of your game, it looks amazin!!!
No worries :)
Thanks man for these videos, its incredibly interesting and inspiring to watch these :)
Oh wow I'm very flattered, thank you so much! :) glad you find them interesting. I really enjoy making these vids, probs more than gamedeving tbh.
Also your YT banner of the dank Asriel or some other Undertale character is hilarious hahahaha
Oh my god dude this is the video that’s making me finally buy RPG maker your art work as opened my eyes to what I can do visually this is gorgeous as soon as your game comes out you can count on me to be one of the first buyers!!
Wow thanks heaps! I'm glad that it helped showed you how RPG Maker can be pushed visually. Still working on a much bigger vid with a sample project that you can use as a reference template for your own project, although I'm still fact checking everything.
Really appreciate it man, fingers crossed it won't be too much longer for it to come out haha. Game dev even in RPG Maker is like untangling spaghetti no matter how much you try to simplify the process.
Wow this video was very helpful and that was beautiful art!
the walk cycle at 9:00 is beautiful man
Just wanted to thank you for this video ♥It's really inspiring.
Aw no worries, thanks so much, I'm really flattered ❤
It is really admirable, I can see the effort. Keep it up.
Thank you so much! Its been quite the difficult journey but will still keep it up
late comment, but i've started working on my own lil project and i'm currently just researching youtube for tips and such, and i just adore how your game looks! it's such a refreshing style and it looks so earthly !
Naw thank you! Really appreciate the supportive words :)
This is Exactly what I was looking for! thank you so much for the resources. LET THE EXPERIMENTING BEGIIIIINNN!!!
Haha yuss, let the experimenting begin!
that is a beautiful game youve made.
This is exactly what I needed, thank you!!
Awesome, glad it helped!
So Inspiring! thanks man!
OMG, this is amazing stuff!!
Thanks heaps man! Appreciate it
Thank you so much! I was having a troubles with the sprite sheets.
This is amazing! Subscribed!
Thanks mate, appreciate it :)
Dude thank you
Thank you very much really glad I found your channel !😭
Naw thank you. Hoping to make more vids in the future to help others.
FINALLY, SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T TAKE FOR GRANTED INFORMATIONS ABOUT THIS PROGRAM. LOV U
Love u too man
Great video and amazing work! I can tell you put tremendous work into your game. 😌
I’m very new to rpg maker, are the extensions/plug-ins you used in the rpg maker program?
Thank you for sharing, this is what i'm looking for
Happy to help!
very beautiful game you're making man. wow
Thank you!
Awesome video. You inspired me to take a break from Unity and pull MV from the dust lol I'm inspired by you because I wanna make a game using pre-rendered graphics (sprites, backgrounds, etc). I'm curious what plug-ins you used? I would love to get as many options as possible. What you've done is FIRE!!! 🔥
Thank you very much! Your words are inspiring me in return :)
Oh interesting! I haven't used Unity but I was using GameMaker Studio many years ago in 2017 because I felt it would be a better choice for pre-rendered graphics. But it turns out MV (with plugins) is one of the best engines for pre-rendered graphics, it just takes a bit of setup.
I have too many plugins haha I should make a video running through everything. The main ones are Yanfly Core Engine (a lot of other Yanfly plugins), GALV's Layer Graphics, Image Cache, Menu Fade, Title Commands, Bust Menu, Character Frames and Character Animations. Last big series of plugins are by Quxios, so QPlus, QMovement, and QM+CollisionMap. And a bunch of other plugins from the community.
@@mischa3343 Bro, thank you a million times over for taking the time to respond with so much info. Truly appreciated. Just wanted to also add that your artwork is next level. I totally love your style
Watching these to get actual confidence to start. Maybe someday I'll get the project off my books 😂
Haha you can do it! Its real fun, dont have to do it for anyone but yourself.
The walk cycle looks so good! I honestly think 4 directions is sufficient unless you're making an action heavy game.
Thank you! And true, that's a very good point actually.
@@mischa3343 games like zelda link to the past are the best example enemies come at an angle, but your character can't turn to face any angles, but game like final fantasy for snes doesn't need to walk in diagonal
@@aegis062 Just saw this, TH-cam doesn't give notifications to replies. But that's very true, diagonal sprites are more important for top down action games like Link to the Past. I think even Hyper Light Drifter doesn't use diagonal sprites but still has combat where enemies come from different directions, I guess it's up to the developers. Thanks for the insight.
Loved this video! If you are looking for a video editor ever let me know, I love helping creative people. Your work is truly amazing, thank you for all the hard work teaching us and keep working on your amazing project!
Hi, thank you for the support and the offer! Apologies I don't have an easy way for others to contact me like through Twitter or Discord, but I'll try set up a Discord.
You can email me through the email on my channel (think it's visible). I'm not too sure how to delegate video editing task to someone else cos my method of video-making is quite sporadic and clip heavy, but I'm always down to talk 🙂
Good to see Hikaru has other hobbies.
I hear fear of the dark, iron maiden melody, in background, pretty
WOW this opened my mind to ideas for a game Im wanting to create! What program are you using to create your sprites? I plan on using Inkscape since I don't want a pixel looking character
Photoshop haha, but nice, any drawing software like Inkscape would work. Have fun with your project 🙂
Cool idea, and a year late to the party on my part, but if you haven't already started doing this, then you need to draw your characters at a more isometric angle because the characters look like they're looking into the players soul, not out onto the scenery that the moment would like you to believe. Or add in some shadows and details that make the character feel more three dimensional to stand out from the background. They look(at least at the time this video went up) like they're laying on the ground not walking on it. Just my year late two cents, take it or leave it.
❤❤❤❤
Thank you Thank you Thank you so muchhhhhhhhh 😭😭😭
Aw no worries, glad it helped :)
Good evening friend, I like your videos, I've always worked with scripts in RPG Maker VX Ace, but in 2020 I decided to use MV, and I saw that with it I can do something really big and beautiful, but I'm wasting time, sometimes I start creating characters, then I stop and go to scenarios, then I stop and start with huds and game design, I want a tip from you where do I start??
Very well, GMHikaru
LOL I didnt see the resemblence til now. Any asian with facial hair
can I use this tricks on RPG Maker MZ?
Sorry for my bad English.
Woow you improved a lot here! how you did the water flowing ? i am very curious to do all the effects stuff like water,fire,smoke etc. these thing are primary to me on every engine. i wish Rpg maker could work with fluid types.
Anyways, keep p with yor brilhant gme,it is very beautiful on an way i like so much
About the sav, there is this game called daily life of my countryside, the guy maded smartphone o save,press button and it open smartphone,them you save.easy like open inventory
Thank you so much! I really appreciate the encouragement :)
I've been asked about water animation + smoke etc. It's quite hard to explain so my next video is definitely going to be tackling that and giving a sample project where you can see what plugins + scripts I used to get it all going.
Oh interesting! I'll look into that game and see how they achieved the save system. Eventually I'll also tackle how to do a smartphone port, although I've read that the amount of assets I'm using might be too much for most smartphones to handle. I still would like to try though.
when uploading the character sheet the characters are huge how do i fix this?
do you know how to do this for sideview battlers?
You can create a character using as many walking frames as you want with certain plugins!
Thanks! I believe Galv's Character Frames plugin is one that allows for more frames, I kinda have my head around it but it's certainly a lot more work than I thought when creating more frames for the walk cycle. Definitely want to try add more frames one day.
Does anyone know if you need the dollar sign in MZ version
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH I HAVE PROBLEMS WITHD SIZE OF MY CHARACTER AND YOU SOLVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED
Naw no worries, glad it helped!
@@mischa3343 😘😘😘😘😘😘🥰😃
have you by any chance figured out how to do 'walking animations' at angles instead of up/left/down/right? Is there a separate code to do that?
Hey there, so for different angles like diagonal up, diagonal down etc, you would need to look into GALVs Character Frames plugin which extends the character walk cycle to allow for 8 directional movement, so up, down, left, right, down left, down right, up left, up right.
You can check out my other video on walk cycles I did to have a brief idea on how to do those angles, but that video isn't a full indepth tutorial so it would be lacking in some info. But GALVs Character Frame plugin would be what you're looking for.
@@mischa3343 thanks so much!
@@dragames No worries! Here it is to be more specific:
galvs-scripts.com/2015/12/12/mv-character-frames/
Look for the "MIX DEMO". It includes the plugins: ‘Diagonal Movement’, ‘Character Frames’, ‘CF Step SE’, ‘Character Animations’.
The combination of 'Character Frames' and 'Diagonal Movement' plugins are what you're needing.
Anyone know the background music?? I think it was final fantasy??
Dude awesome video & thanks for the walk cycle template! You think there is anyway to grab the line art in Photoshop & stretch/size it up a bit? I wanted to use it as a guide to paint a character but it’s a bit too small
Hey there yep! Ill put up an upscaled version asap, will heart this comment when done and will also put it in the same Google Drive
@@mischa3343 Oh wow, I feel like I don’t deserve such a kindness 😅 Now I’m really excited & will be checking back, thank you very much! 🙏
@@SadTown99 Hey I forgot I uploaded an upscaled 4800 x 3600 tilesheet for reference, in the Drive folder I linked in the description there's another folder called "Template Walk Cycle" with a higher res sheet in both PNG and photoshop format.
I also took some time to number and separate the individual template lineart tiles into their own pngs and upscaled them again to 2400 x 2400 and put them in their own folder named "Template Walk Cycle - Upscaled Individual Tiles". Hopefully it'll be easier to draw on top of them. Here's the link, hopefully you can open it:
drive.google.com/drive/folders/12QICSoUyenIvqKD9p4A9FbjWLBayB7DC?usp=drive_link
Haha no worries at all, I think most people are deserving of kindness. I do want to try help those that take the time to comment on my videos at least.
Once you're done with the sprites, you can rearrange them back onto the main sprite sheet then downscale them to your desired resolution. How much you would downscale depends on your project's resolution, but my project both at 1280 x 720 and 1920 x 1080 worked well when I downscaled the sprite sheet to 480 x 360px.
Hope this helps!
@@mischa3343 So I wanted to try and figure things out for myself first before saying anything, however I’ve become lost - When I open the .PSD I get a message saying: “ This document contains unknown data that will be removed to allow layers to be editable, You may preserve this data by choosing to flatten images… “ - I’m not exactly sure what that means…
Also - I can’t seem to wrap my head around the sizing & resolution concept, but I’ll explain my current thinking best I can so maybe you can provide some insight….
I have my MZ game resolution setup for 1104 x 624 - So my PS canvas + grid for a single sprite sheet is set to 144px x 192px ( 48 x 48 ) - To my knowledge, my sprites should fit each box from top to bottom to be the perfect size & when comparing to yours the top of your character head barely reaches the middle of a single box… So the new upscaled version looks identical to the original in my eyes, when I was expecting it to fit top to bottom.
Trust me I know how ridiculous that probably sounds to someone that knows how it all works lol, Think you can explain what I’m not understanding here? I’m getting burnt out trying to do it myself listening to the same tutorials on repeat 😵💫😅
@@SadTown99 Ohh I think I get what you mean now, and dont worry it is a complex topic. Yea definitely don't rewatch things if it's burning you out.
For the PSD error, I created it using Photoshop 2023 and I think if you open it using an older version of PS that doesn't have the same functionality like Smart Filters/Objects (which I think I have in the file) then it won't recognize and give that error. Which version of PS are you using? I can try downgrade the file to your version. I also uploaded separated png layers in the Drive folder if you wanted to see them separately.
As for resolution vs sizing, I used a lot of gaps around my sprites sheet to give myself flexibility if I wanted to create larger sprites. But I totally get you regarding the sprites fitting each box in the sprite sheet perfectly so that the top and bottom of the box aligns perfectly.
Theres also the added complexity of internal game resolution like your 1104 x 624, but I'll try make another sheet that removes the space at the top and bottom of the sprite boxes. I'll quickly create an MZ project at your 1104 x 624 resolution and try get the sprites to work in that.
Will let you know if I get this working and will upload.
Sorry for my English. I'm desperate, I need help. I used a template to draw over my character. The game works when I use the base template. But when he used my edit character the game crashes (Is it because of the resolution? or the colors palette? I would like you to help me. Please.
Hi there, oh wow I've never heard of that. It's quite hard to help over TH-cam comments. If you have Discord you can add me at sleep_is_king#9710 and I can try help over messages.
@@mischa3343 Done!! Thank you so much!! TOT
What plug in did you use for being bake to move any where?
Hey there, bit complicated but the short answer is QPlus, QMovement and QCollisionMap by Quixios.
Recommended plugins that synergize are Yanflys Core Engine for 1080p and Galvs Image Layer plugins.
Will def make a video on this topic in the future! Just need to fact check everything and get everything right the first time haha.
i like cars they're cute
What plugin did you use for the collision map?
Hey, it was Quxios' plugin called QM+CollisionMap specifically for the collisions. You'd need his other plugins like QPlus and QMovement to get them to work. quxios.github.io/plugins
@@mischa3343 thank you
What plugin did you use for movement?
Hi! It's a little hard to explain. It's specifically Quixios' QMovement plugin but it's in combination with Yanfly's Core Engine plugin, Galv's Layer Graphics and Quixios' other plugins like QPlus and QM+CollisionMap. I need to make another video explaining this, but the closest video explaining this is the latest vid I uploaded called "RPG Maker MV - Parallax Mapping 2.0".
Thank you for this, this video is great. I know that this is sort of out of topic, but can we make our own characters in Gdevelop 5? It's another game making engine like rpg maker. If you do know how then, please tell me, I would love to know how 😊😉
No worries man! Aw sorry I dunno anything about GDevelop 5, from looking at forums I think you can? The sprite sheets look differently laid out to how RPG Maker is.
@@mischa3343 I see, alright 😊 Thanks for this, pal. I've seen the tutorial videos on G develop and they showed how to make games and all but they never included tutorials on making our own drawn characters though but thanks again 🤭
@@Ash_artsy That's all good! Hope you find what you're looking for.
@@mischa3343 alright, thanks mate 🥰
@@mischa3343 hey!! I just wanna say that, yes. We can draw out own characters in gdevelop hehhehe, we can use piskel, it's a pixel tool 😁 anyway, thanks again, dude 🤭✨
What plugin was that non grid based colision? 12:43
Hey there, bit complicated but the short answer is QPlus, QMovement and QCollisionMap by Quixios.
Recommended plugins that synergize are Yanflys Core Engine for 1080p and Galvs Image Layer plugins.
The character generator doesn't have the assets I need. I came here to know how to make them myself from scratch. Mainly so I can learn how to make my character's hair not look like dogshit.
Aha, I see, glad to hear. It's still quite complicated and time consuming free-handing sprites, but it is real rewarding. Aesthetics is still kinda just skin deep, but at least you can get it to whatever standard you like and not let your imagination be limited by the generator.
@@mischa3343 Shading is a skill issue many of us possess.
@@VanNessy97 haha that phrase cracks me up. Guess life itself is a skill issue.
I'll be waiting for each video and watch them
Aw thank you so much! Thats very nice of you. Ahaha epic, I just hope it comes out well and at least entertains some people.
Oh wow interesting question with too many answers I can give. It started off with seeing how I could make BG2 style maps, characters and conversations in RPG Maker cos I thought it would be an interesting experiment, but Undertale, LISA, To the Moon, Oneshot and Yume Nikki was powerfully inspiring seeing what a dev or small team can do with limited resources and exploring unique game design. Stanley Parable for really having unique reactive story paths, Chrono Trigger for certain scenes, Silent Hill for the blurring between realities. The list can go on but I'd say the main reason I started this was Baldurs Gate. Thanks for the question 😀
what is your game window size? or revolution?
Hey sorry for late reply. Currently it's 1920 x 1080. Before it was 1280 x 720 and it was so much easier working at that resolution.
Omg I could kiss you Lmao!
This is litterally gonna help so much! I've been trying to learn how to use bigger sprites and it felt like
old resources have been lost to time, but this helps so much! Thank you!
Loooool thank you! That's so funny, I'm glad it helped though, yea I agree that info can get buried, especially on TH-cam. Best of luck with your stuff!
What a beautiful game your makin! Do you have a discord at all we can join??
Oh true! That's an idea, I barely go on Discord and I don't know what's involved in running one, but I could try and make one. Thanks again!