Enterbrain has announced the newest piece of information about RPG Maker VX. As spoken by Arts Kawashima:

Continuing along with yesterday, today I will give an explanation on “Jobs”

What are Jobs?

In the RPG World, there are “jobs” like swordsman and magician. I believe that, for the protagonist and the party members, a job also carries the connotation of individuality. If it’s a protagonist then a swordsman type, and the girl who accompanies him as a healer is a magician– please think of jobs existing as such to be one of the main factors for being able to convey individuality.

Were I to give an example of one of the advantages to establishing jobs, it’d probably be that for each individual class you can “divide up weapons and guards that can be equipped.”

For example, you may not want a white mage, who uses healing magic, to equip a sword or armor. In such a case, if you decide beforehand on “equipable weapons” and “equipable guards”, those items not checked will become impossible to equip, thus meaning you can place restrictions on equipment.

As there are those who obsess over this part and those who don’t, it’s not necessarily something that has to be established. In your own game, you are free to use the established settings.

Beginners especially need not be concerned with this, as you can simply choose from the pre-established jobs. When you become more accustomed to them, challenge yourself to create your own jobs.

In VX, there is a command name normally listed as “skill” during battle. As a new element, you may freely draw up this part. It dosen’t have to be a standard name like “magic” or “special move”– you are free to decide upon command names linked to the class, like “musical performance” or “ESP”. Though small, I feel that making it so that each individual characters’ traits can be expressed in battle is a pleasant feature.

alt="Skill Select">

We’ve recoded the site to a more compliant div layout. This should minimize layout issues and help the site load faster.

Enterbrain has announced the newest piece of information about RPG Maker VX. As spoken by Arts Kawashima:

The subject this time is the Database.

What’s the Database?

The Database is where you create the characters that enter the RPG, their equipment, items, monsters, etc.

Today I will give an explanation on the actors.

What’s an Actor?

An actor is a performer, one created to play an important role within the story.

Those key people are the protagonist and the party members who accompany him/her through the adventure.

Villagers and kings from some castle don’t need to be made here. It is here that you make “characters who are predetermined to become members of the party”.

You will decide upon their so-called growth from battles (level ups), along with the equipment they have with them at the start.

By deciding on the walking graphic they’ll have when moving and the face portrait they’ll display when talking, the character’s image will burst through. You can also freely name them.

As the standard data is prepared to some extent, beginners can simply decide on a name and graphic to use without trouble.

In the “options” menu, we’ve reinstated the highly-demanded “Dual Sword Style”. Though still in the usual “Weapon and Shield” equipment format, by opting for a dual sword style, you will be allowed to equip two different types of weapons simultaneously.

We’ve included a check for “Auto Battle”, designed for characters that will act of their own accord during battle. For example, you can use it for mercenaries or temporary party members. It will also allow the character’s individuality to show when you don’t want the player to control them, or rather when they can’t be controlled.

In addition, there are also “fixed equipment”, “power defense”, “knowledge of medicine”, and “critical frequency” options. As they are able to be duplicated, please use them skillfully and have fun creating character brimming with individuality.

alt="Actor Tab 3"
width="426"
height="320">

The community forums are finally online and are located at our sister site, RPG Maker VX.net.

Both websites are owned by RPG Maker VX.com. I hope everyone will visit and make it a great place for RPG Maker VX discussion. Everyone is welcome–so join up!

Enterbrain has finally put up their own English translation of the RPG Maker VX Homepage. All links on the site that pointed to the translation job we at RPGMakerVX.com did have been changed to Enterbrain’s official page.

Enterbrain has announced the newest piece of information about RPG Maker VX. As spoken by Toshie:

Today we’re going to give you a little information on the tiny character the player controls when walking around the map.

alt="Single Character">

These tiny characters have been prepared in the “character set” image file.

alt="Charset Example">

Character Set

We touched on this in an earlier blog entry, but you can think of this as roughly the same as RPG Maker 2000.

However, it differs from 2000 in that the size for each character is optional. It can be decided on freely. Where do you look to decide the size of one character? One character’s size is automatically calculate it as 1/12 width and 1/8th height of the image file.

alt="Charset Example (grid)">

Dividing the entire image file into equal parts and automatically deciding on a set size for one character is the same in RPG Maker XP.

However, be mindful of the fact that if you line up characters with unequal sizes in the same set, it’ll be a dreadful thing. Even the all-purpose Maker has limits.

alt="Charset Demo 1">


The moment of a mysterious being’s conception.

Of course, people with good intuition should have already noticed that. Oh yeah! You can bring in RPG Maker 2000 character sets into RPG Maker VX as they are!

… but it’s not confined to being perfectly scaled with the map!

alt="Charset Demo 2">

I’m Alex! It seems I’ve come to a world much larger than normal!

Oh! I’m forgetting something important.

The up-down-left-right lining pattern in RPG Maker 2000′s character set differs from RPG Maker VX’s. When you import them, make sure to shift the pattern just a tiny bit!

alt="(RM2k) URDL -> DLRU (RMVX)”>

Well then, that should be about it for today.

Enterbrain has announced the newest piece of information about RPG Maker VX. As spoken by Arts Kawashima:

Today I will give explain a bit about tile sets.

What’s a Tile Set?

If you were to select a canvas to draw a map with, the tile would be like the colors. We call an assembly of these tiles a “tile set”.

In the most recent games of the series (2000/2003/XP), you were not able to overlap and use multiple tile sets in a single map. If you’re one who remembers “RPG Maker 95″, please think of it like 95′s material arrangements.

Though recently in the series you had to choose from sets such as those “prepared for field use” or “prepared for small, indoor articles” depending on what would be useful, VX will allow you to use them simultaneously use them without concern. Using them straight is fine, as is making use of your imagination to select something to draw with. Even though they are default materials, we can say that this is one of the places the creator can make use of their artistic talents.

About A~E Tile Sets

A… Land and sea, walls and floors, and all tiles that will be the map’s ground.

B… Windows and signs, trees and grass, field-use castles, towers and the like.

C… Stairs, cabinets, beds, and all small, indoor items.

D… Pillars and entrances for caves, statues, and small items for dungeons.

E… Space left empty for the user.

alt="Chipset Layers">

A~D are all default compiled materials, while E is for you to add and use your own materials.

Furthermore, you can write over the data for the A~D images and place in your own materials.

However, in order to set auto-tile and shadow placement, you’ll have to understand the rules. As you can follow the instructions in the help section for those details, it seems those enthusiastic about erasing everything are in the clear.

When we put together a lava zone map, Director M saw it and said “I want to go to a hot spring too~”

Today’s Oneshot


alt="Sword in the dirt">

Enterbrain has announced the newest piece of information about RPG Maker VX. As spoken by Toshie:

Today I’m going to introduce the animation of those bangs and explosions on the battle screen.

alt="Skeleton Knights on FIYAH!">

Up until now, whenever you wanted to create a graphic for an animation, you’d have to dedicate one entire portrait file to preparing it. Because of this, if you were to replicate a part in another animation, you’d have to use the same graphics from the respective portrait file.

However, now you will be able to use two portrait files simultaneously!

alt="Battle Animation Selection">

For this example, we set Graphic 1 to “attack” and Graphic 2 to “fire”, allowing us to express “fire attached to an attack”.

alt="Attack">

Graphic 1: Attack

alt="Fire">

Graphic 2: Fire

alt="Attack + Fire">

By combining the two together, it looks like this!

In other words, this means that you can seperate the graphics you want to replicate and prepare them beforehand. By preparing your materials effectively, you can also decrease the game’s total data load.

Incidentally, since the size of the animation graphics will be the same as RPG Maker XP’s graphics, you can use the ones you already have!

Enterbrain has announced the newest piece of information about RPG Maker VX. As spoken by Arts Kawashima:

This week we’re going to touch on the Map Editor’s “Auto-Tile” and “Tile Set” features.

The Function of Auto-Tiles

In RPG Maker, the Auto-Tile is one of the aspects to make construction easier. For example, if you place a “ground tile” over a “sea tile”, a shore line will automatically appear on the boundaries.

Also, if you decide to use the “single tree” tile

alt="Autotile Tree">

You can create a forest by connecting the tiles together as you draw.

alt="Autotile Trees">

Automatic Shadowing

When making a town or dungeon, if you have a tile that acts as a wall, the program has the ability to automatically create a shadow for it.

For this example, we start off by drawing out a ground surface. From there, if we draw in building-specific tiles, a shadow automatically appears on the right side of the building.

alt="Autotile Tutorial 01">

alt="Autotile Tutorial 02">

With this, even from the beginning you have the advantage of being able to create a map with a feeling of three-dimensionality.

Automatic Layer Recognition

To put it simply, a layer is a hierarchical progression of fellow tiles. When you want to place a new tile pattern while leaving the items beneath it, the Layer function is a useful tool.

In the previous release, XP, your drawings could be divided into the upper, middle, and lower stratums. However, creating a map whilst being mindful of what tile should be put in what layer to make the picture seem clean required some experience. Therefore, we have made VX automically recognize layers.

For this example we will try to place a long-narrow tree on the unmatched ground where the bricks and grasslands meet.

alt="Tileset Tutorial 01">

alt="Tileset Tutorial 02">

In this way, we are able to place a tree while still making use of the pattern on the ground surface. Even though the tiles now acting as a foundation are different, it doesn’t matter.

alt="Tileset Tutorial 03">

By the way, if you change your drawing to a different tile, it will erase them all at once (in this case, when we used ground-specific tiles).

I can only convey so much by explaining in words, but I feel we have made it so that when you actually try it out you will be able to intuitively create what you want to.

Enterbrain has announced the newest piece of information about RPG Maker VX. As spoken by Toshie:

Today we’re going to pick up on the other “face” of the Maker, Face Portraits.

You’ve probably already noticed, but we’ve reinstated the ability to utilize face portraits in RPG Maker VX. These character pictures were drawn by our illustrator, Fumio Minagawa.

alt="Face 01" />

Fantastic use of such vivid colors.

alt="Face 01" />

This time we’re going to go ahead and put up a special work in progress picture. Let’s keep this a secret from Director M, shall we?

Even though it’s just a face portrait, the surrounding parts of the character are clearly drawn in as well.

…ah! It’s just about time for Director M’s regular patrol!

Adios, everybody!