Battle Layout Changing?

[Elephantomsk]

Howdy, I'm very new to both the forums and using RMXP/Pokemon Essentials, and the tutorial for scripting in the other thread has quite a few broken images, so I don't quite understand it. But, that may just be my fault.

I would like to reposition my sprites, rid of back sprites, and just overall change the layout for battles. It'll remove a lot of annoying work for me, since I'm kind of working alone.

I want it to somewhat look like this:

Ignore the actual quality of the image, it was made quickly in photoshop.

Again, I don't exactly know how to script, and I've looked around a bit, but can't really find anyone with similar problems. I would really appreciate any help at all.

Also, this is another question I have. Is there a way to making Shadow pokemon just an alternative color like shinies rather than like the ones in Pokemon Coliseum and Gale?

Thank you very much.

 

[Maruno]

I've provided some advice on how to do this in the past, although said advice is over a year old, didn't cover everything you'd need to do, and apparently didn't completely work anyway.

Basically, it's a whole lot of work, and you'll end up with mirror-imaged sprites on one side which will make asymmetrical Pokémon like Togekiss and Torterra look wrong. Changing the positions of sprites is really very fiddly because there are lots of different values all over the place for them. You'll also need to change other things too, like where trainer sprites appear and the trajectory of a thrown Poké Ball (both to call out your Pokémon and to capture a Pokémon), and the party balls animation that appears when the trainers do.

Also, this is another question I have. Is there a way to making Shadow pokemon just an alternative color like shinies rather than like the ones in Pokemon Coliseum and Gale?

Shadow Pokémon can have their own sprites, so that part is easy (see Weepinbell and Electabuzz which come with Essentials as examples).

Your question is a little vague, but I assume you just want to know how to change the colours of Shadow Pokémon, rather than trying to stop them working like Shadow Pokémon or something.

 

[Elephantomsk]

I'm fully willing to go through the work even if it takes me a longer time, I just really don't know where to start or how I'd start.

Regarding Shadow Pokemon.

I want to make them alternative colors, like Shinies. I don't want them to function as Shadow pokemon from their original games. Available in the wild with a low chance to capture them? Not to necessarily to replace shiny, just to make them another color along with them maybe?

Would that be too difficult to implement?

If it feels like I'm a lost cause, I'm sorry. I just really want to figure things out before I start my project fully.

 

[Maruno]

All I can say is to have a good long poke around the PokeBattle_ActualScene script section and find out where everything is defined (trainer sprites, Pokémon sprites, boxes, etc.). The boxes are the easiest thing to start with, because their only movement is a bit of bobbing up and down which doesn't affect anything.

It sounds like you just want to create alternate forms for species, which have a low probability of being chosen for any given Pokémon (like an Unown has a 1/28 chance of being an A). That's easy.

 

[Elephantomsk]

How would I got about doing that? Just adding them to the the Pokedex as forms?

Shinies don't show up as alternately named forms in the pokedex, do they?

 

[Maruno]

Have a look at how Unown works in the script section PokemonMultipleForms. Yes, it's that simple.

The only forms that appear in the Pokédex are those with names defined in pokemon.txt in the FormNames= line. Genesect doesn't have this line, therefore none of its Drive forms are shown in the Pokédex even though extra forms of it do exist.

Shiny versions of a species never show in the Pokédex. The Pokédex only shows gender differences and (some) alternate forms (and gender differences of alternate forms, although no existing species has any).

 

[Elephantomsk]

Would I have to rid of the Shadow Pokemon script so that they can just be Shadow Pokemon?

 

[Maruno]

Forget Shadow Pokémon, you don't want them. You just want alternate forms.

 

[Elephantomsk]

So, how exactly would I put them in alternate colors/forms?

I'm looking at how it's structured for the Unown, but it makes no sense to me. I have no clue how to code.

 

[Maruno]

A Pokémon's form is a number. That's it. This number can be part of a sprite name (e.g. 201_3.png), and the most suitable sprite will be used for a Pokémon. Have a look at the battler sprites for examples (e.g. see how many Unown sprites there are).

An Unown has its form chosen randomly when it is created by the game (e.g. just before a wild battle against it). The entirely of the multiple forms code for Unown takes care of this:

MultipleForms.register(:UNOWN,{
"getFormOnCreation"=>proc{|pokemon|
   next [COLOR=Red]rand(28)[/COLOR]
}
})

The red part chooses a random number between 0 and 27 inclusive (A=0, B=1, C=2, ... Z=25, ?=26, !=27). You don't need to worry about how it works, just that it does.

For each species you want there to be alternate forms for, you would need to copy-paste this code, replace UNOWN with the species' internal name, and change the red part to something suitable. For example, next 1 if rand(100)<5 will make the Pokémon form 1 just 5% of the time.

As long as you can figure out what's happening and what the naming conventions of Pokémon sprites/icons/whatever are (see the wiki), you should be able to manage this, even if you don't know how to code.

 

[Elephantomsk]

So, if I want a Shadow Version of each Pokemon would I have to put in a code for each pokemon themselves?

MultipleForms.register(:BULBASAUR,{
"getFormOnCreation"=>proc{|pokemon|
next 2 rand(100)<5
}
})

Say Bulbasaur's Shadow sprite is it's second form.

This would make Shadow Bulbasaur show up 5 percent of the time, wherever Bulbasaur is available in the wild.

Do I have to put in a code for every single pokemon just to make Shadow's available?

Why don't Shinie's have a code for every single pokemon in the PokemonMultpleForms Script?

 

[Maruno]

Because shinies are different.

If you want another alternate colouration for every species (don't call them Shadow if they're not the Shadow Pokémon from Colosseum and XD, because it's just confusing), then it's probably better to create another kind of shininess and use that instead.

It's at this point that I'll tell you to find someone else to do it for you (not me, I'm busy). It's too much for you.

 

[FL]

I suggest you for using a number for defining if the pokémon is shiny, rather than a boolean flag, so you can define 0 for normal, 1 for this color and 2 for shinies, but this also requires advance scripting. Try to search about shinies methods/attributes in the scripts.