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In this tutorial you will learn...
• All about the Set Move Route command
• About each of the different commands (probably in unecessary detail)
• How to make a simple move route
• That move routes are useful for many effects
Hello, and welcome to the first of the Advanced Eventing tutorials! However, before we get into the really good stuff like Cutscenes
and the such, I thought I'd better write a tutorial on the Set Move Route command. Yes, a whole tutorial. The reason being that
this command can be used for SO many things, that I feel that it deserves a whole tutorial to itself to have all its features
exaplained, so hopefully, you can start to realise its potential.
Create a blank event on a random map, and insert a Set Move Route command. You'll get a box like this...
Lots of buttons, huh? I'm going to explain each one, and hopefully help you avoid problems. So, first of all, I'll start with
the drop-down menu. This contains a list of events on the current map. It's times like these that you suddenly realise how handy
it is to name all your events accordingly. I never leave events with their default ID names of EV001 - exactly for this reason!
This is where you select which event will follow the move route that you define in the pane below.
The first option, Repeat Action, makes the event set above follow the move route relentlessly, until something gets in the way
(but even that won't stop it if the THROUGH option is selected). The Ignore If Can't Move option quickly evaluates each command
in the set move route specification, and if it is told to go through an impassable tile, it stops without freezing the game.
So, first of the buttons, the simple ones. These do exactly what they say they do. They make the event selected in the menu above
move down, left, right, or up. When planning a move route on screen, I always have to follow it with my finger over each square -
that's why I make sure that the event window is out of the way so that I can see where my event will move! The turn commands
make the event turn down, left, right or up. This is something that cannot be done with the arrow keys in normal gameplay (try it.
Your character only moves.). I normally only use these for if someone is looking around, or turning towards another event
to speak. If you use them in a route where the character is moving, (Eg. Turn right, then move right, turn down, then move down...)
it makes it look jerky.
Also do exactly what they say they do. These are four more commands that cannot be achieved using the arrow keys in normal gameplay
(that is, without any custom eight-directional scripts). They make the event selected move diagonals.
The Move at Random commands are useful for autonomous movement - it means that you can just leave the event to its own devices.
However, with NPCs, it often means that they get stuck or in the way, and the random moves often look TOO random - the event
doesn't actually get anywhere. Try it with an autonomously moving event (see Eventing Tutorial
5 about NPCs for more info on autonomous movement) to see how it looks. The Turn / Move Towards / Away from player
are pretty self-explanitory. The move towards player command makes the event move towards your character. However, they don't
travel diagonals, so if you are diagonally away from the event, it will make its way using a kind of across-and-up (or down) path.
If you are more to the left of the event than above it, the event will travel to the left rather than up (until it is directly
diagonal from you, and then it will progress with its across-and-up (or down) movement). The turn / move away does the opposite.
The 1 Step Backwards button makes the event in question take a step back, and the 1 Step Forward
does the same, only forwards, regardless of the event's direction. The step backwards command keeps the event facing forwards,
but moves them one square back.
This command is useful for many things: expressing shock, leaping out on people in attack, when players are hit with weapons
(combined with the Show Animation command, it looks pretty good) and leaping over or onto things. Bear in mind, however, that
if you want to have a character jump backwards, you will need to switch on the Direction Fix option, otherwise your character will change
the direction in which they are facing (I'll explain the Direction Fix button a little further down). When you click this command,
you'll get presented with a box like this...
Positive values in the X box make the player jump from left to right, and negative values make the player jump from right to left.
Positive values in the Y box make the player jump from top to bottom (downwards; opposite to quadrant graphs we learn about in school - confusing,
huh?) and negative values make the player jump from bottom to top (upwards).
Yes, the powerful wait box. It exists here too. If you don't put waits in between commands, it can look rushed. Remember, at the
default rate of 40fps, 40 frames acquaints to one second - so I find that to break between commands, a value between 5 - 10 frames
looks the best.
Yet again, pretty simple. Useful for cutscenes, since they can work from any direction - if you want your player to do a quarter-turn
regardless of their direction, this comes in handy.
Turns a switch on or off. I suppose it stops you having to end the move route to use the proper command. They could have done
control variable too, but I guess they ran out of buttons...
You can control speed and frequency here too. Speed 4 is the same speed as the player, so see which one
works best. All events are set as a deafult speed 3, but if you want to change it in the middle of a cutscene, for example, here's
where you do it. By setting the move route for the player, you can also change the speed of the player (useful for things like
doors and Dashing Shoes - both of which I have tutorials on!) The frequency doesn't really make much difference, apart from for
autonomous movement.
Seem familiar? They're the same as the check boxes on an event's page. The Move Animation ON and OFF commands
turn the animation on or off when an event is moving, and the Stop Animation ON and OFF commands turn the event's animation on or
off when the event is stationary (like fires, etc.) The Direction Fix ON and OFF commands can change whether the event has its
direction fixed or not, regardless of its move route (very handy for jumping backwards, etc. - like I mentioned earlier).
The Through ON and OFF commands are very useful indeed - they can be applied
to the player's move route to make them able to pass through impassable tiles underneath doors, etc. (Just remember to turn it
back off when you're done!) And finally, the Always on Top ON and OFF commands change whether the event has priority over everything
else on the map or not.
These are to do with the graphic of the event in question. Change graphic is extremely useful - it can change the player's (or
anyone else's) event graphic to a pose, like a blink, or to a down pose if they're sleeping or knocked out. Change opacity can
make the event seem semi- or totally transparent, and change blending changes the blending of the event. I don't tend to use
the blending much...
Simple, really. Plays a Sound Effect. I went over this in the Weather Effects tutorial.
Well, I'm not a scripter (as of yet), so I don't use this button. It lets you put little snippets of script in your move route.
Well, I think that's it for the definitions! I apologise for the lengthly and probably unecessary explanations, but now you
don't have an excuse to
ask me about move routes! Just before I go onto some cool move routes that you can make, I just want to go over one last thing...
The next command down in the list is Wait For Move's Completion. Set Move Route at this command are like inseperable twins -
except in special circumstances, they should always go together. When a move route has been set, this command waits for the
move route to finish before executing the next event command. The only time when you might not use these together is if you have
two events moving at the same time. In this situation, the waiting command can be placed after the second move route and it will
wait for both to finish before continuing. Experiment and see what happens.
So, then, something cool that you can do with move routes. Let's see... How about making birds that fly when you touch them
in a map?
Grab yourself a blank map and make a new event, choosing the 166-Small08 graphic to have at first. Now, we don't want our
bird to just sit there doing nothing, we need to make it move. Head over to the Autonomous movement section of the event page
and select Custom from the drop down list. Click the button below, and you'll see the now-very-familiar Move Route pane. Make
up something that seems birdlike - see mine here...
Having animals moving around is one exception to what I said about not putting turns in a move route - if the frequency is set
low, it can sometimes look quite good. Note how the Repeat Action checkbox is checked (it is automatically, but I thought
that I would point it out). This will make the bird's move route loop.
Test it in-game. Looking okay? Now we need to make the bird fly off when you go near it. Double click the bird's event and make
the trigger Player Touch. In the event command pane, put a Set Move Route command in with the command: Turn Away from Player.
Underneath that command, put Wait for Move's Completion. Now, put in a final command: Control Self Switch A: ON (I'll explain
this later). Okay? It should look like this...
Now, create a new event page, and set the conditions to having self switch A ON, and the trigger to parallel. This is where we will put the commands for the
bird moving. However, if we are standing in front of the bird, we want it to move differently to if we were behind it - so we will
use a conditional branch. Find Conditional Branch, and set the conditions to Bird (the event) is facing right, like so...
Now, under the first conditional branch, set a move route for the bird, firstly turning Through and Always On Top ON. Then, use
the change graphic command to change the bird's graphic to 165-Small07, and after that, change the speed to 4. Then, put in
moving Upper Right commands
for about nine or ten squares. This will make the bird move off the screen when you touch it. Also, make sure that the
'Ignore if can't move' box IS checked. If the bird
reaches the edge of the screen before the move route is finished, this will stop the game from freezing.
Good! Now, copy that move route into the second branch, but change all the Upper Right moves to Upper Left moves. Don't forget to
put Wait for Move's Completion after both the move routes! When you've done that, underneath the end of the conditional branch,
turn self switch A off, and then put in an Erase Event command. This will bring you back to the first page of event commands, but
will temporarily erase the event until you re-enter the map.
Phew! Quick explanation there. If you've followed well, your second page of event commands for the bird should look like
this (yes, the box scolls!)...
Try out your event. It should be working nicely. If it isn't, check your event commands and make sure that you have the Wait for
Move's Completion commands in the right places. Also, if your bird suddenly disappears, make sure you've changed the graphic
in the move routes on the second page, and that the second page's trigger is parallel.
I hope that you've begun to understand part of the potential of the Set Move Route command. In the next tutorial, we get onto the
good stuff: cutscenes.
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