Today I worked on something I had been putting off for a while: 8-Bit Attack Animations! I had already made a few yesterday and came across a slight problem, the animations were transparent when used! So my first order of business for today was to rectify that problem. All I had to do was go into the Animation Tab in the database and select the animation I was working on. From there I selected the "Cell Blending..." option and chose "Blending -> Normal" for all frames of the animation. This may be elementary for some RM folks but as I had personally not messed with animations, this was a great discovery! Needless to say, my attack animations at this point remained opaque when used in-game.
Next on my list, was to make more animations! I plan on creating 8-bit animations for each skill used in Ruins of Rydos (in an attempt to avoid using any RTP at all). I managed to make a claw, bite, and striking animation with three unique frames for the former, and two unique frames for the last. This took more time than I would have liked, but I did get it done! I then proceeded to implement these animations along with some adequate sound effects (SNES level if not NES/Famicom level) to help add to the "impact" of these attacks.
Like I said before, I wasn't very familiar with animations, so dealing with these was definitely a learning experience for me. It was fun to figure out how many frames to use for each piece of animation to get the look I wanted, as well as which frame to trigger things like a flash on the enemy sprite. I also made sure that the sound effects I used lined up well with the animation. Once all of that was said and done, my enemies now had unique animations for their basic attacks. Enemies that appeared to be fond of biting now appeared to do so, enemies with claws got an animation, and everything else got a simple striking animation. Plus, the striking animation doubles for unarmed party members!
I may have said this before, but I find it amazing how something as simple as an animation that only lasts for a few seconds (even if the player sees it ad nauseam in battles) can take up so much time to create and implement. Despite the brief showing of each animation, the feeling of satisfaction is definitely great.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns, feel free to leave a comment below!
