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person · 4mo

How do you create the RPG format dialogue you do in the video? The video really inspired me to create something similar, and if you could tell me any tools you used, I would be very grateful :)

Main tool is RPGMaker MZ,
I use CSP for the art (any art program is fine),
Audacity to manipulate and convert audio into oggs (rpgmaker doesn’t accept any other audio format)
OBS to record the entire format

You also have the option for RPGMaker MV, HOWEVER, a couple notable differences in MZ for this type of rpg format dialogue, is that you get the ability to ‘preview’ your picture placement on the screen and even move freely, and plugin commands are more easier to call. But MV it is far more taxing in both of those regards. I recommend researching which option works best for you if you prefer the cheaper option (MV on sale is like $10, MZ is around $30 on sale on steam), some people prefer MV because of the YANFLY plugins.

There is a lot of stuff to talk about RPGMaker, but purely just focusing on the stuff I make with it, just ignore 70% of the RPGMaker’s functionality for now, and just use ‘Events’, don’t touch tilesets, don’t touch any of the RPG elements, and just play around with the ‘Events’.

Events are basically a section of ‘commands’ that happen on conditions. Within those ‘Events’, there are a few important commands:

Show Text (the dialogue),
Show Picture (shows any of the art assets you have in the picture folder),
Move Picture (moving the picture, size, or changing the opacity of the picture),
Tint Picture (tints picture of a RGB color of your choice),
Play SE (play sound effect),
Plag BGM (plays looping music),
Plugin Command (important for plugins)
And much more, but these are the ones I use the most.

With these you can easily make your stuff in my format, HOWEVER, I highly recommend getting plugins to suit your needs. The characters have ‘voices’ due to a free plugin, GALV’S Message Sound Effects MV plugin that I modified / repurposed for MZ to play certain sound files when a certain character’s name appears in the Show Text dialogue. Unfortunately I can’t share it due to TOS and in general the principle of sharing code that is not of my own, but if you know how to code, that should be fairly easy to achieve.

I hope this helps, I will also leave some pictures in a tweet when I share this question to sort of show what inside of an ‘Event’ looks like. Best of luck to you!

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