How do you make sprites work correctly?

[Uatu]

Gah! For some reason, I cannot make sprites work correctly (i.e., I want to have an encounter where I see the sprite walk up (from far to close), as in FRUA (or other gold box game).

I have tried nearly every setup for the Encounter event - what am I doing wrong? There aren't that many windows to set here, so it shouldn't be that hard (theoretically)...

I have to set something specifically in the Pic Data window I am guessing? But it never works...

[manikus]

I don't believe that you are doing anything wrong (necessarily).

A few years back, when sprites were only allowed in combat events, someone begged and begged CocoaSpud to add the functionality to all events that could take a smallpic. He eventually did, but didn't add the mechanism (more correctly the pointer to the mechanism) for sprites to auto-advance

I know that sprites do not work properly for the talk event, but I guess I haven't used the encounter event, as I use the question list event so I can make my own encounter chains - and CocoaSpud never got around to adding sprite capability to that event.

I'm looking at the encounter event now, and I guess I could just use it, but I'm essentially doing the exact same thing with the other event. Anyway, in the "Pic Data" window (where you choose the sprite) the only number that may be of concern is "milliseconds between frames" number which is by default a 0, but should be set to something above 30 I believe. The monster speed number in the main encounter window appears how fast the monsters approach, but without some testing, I've no idea how it effects the sprite.

[Uatu]

Hmm - I guess what I am looking for is the mechanism to let the sprites auto-advance (after all, I did draw 3 frames for them... )

I think I remember Dinonykos mentioning that the auto-advance worked for the Encounter event, at least... but I guess I have yet to figure it out...

[Uatu]

Well, I found the "Auto Approach" checkbox in the Combat event... which seems to be the key, but what does this do? Checking it does not seem to do anything (whether I have animations set up or not, nothing happens)...

[manikus]

When I get on the machine where I can test DC, I'll take a look at get back to you tonight or tomorrow morning.

[Uatu]

That would of course be great

Until then, I will work on other parts of my game...

[Dinonykos]

What I did get to work was that - according to selected buttons - the sprite approached.

So what I did was e.g. making a button in the "button choices"-section saying "Threaten", resulting in a range decrease (because threatening should not work with the ankylosaur... )

But, as Manikus pointed out, it seems only possible to make the sprites work correctly in the Encounter-event. I have not found an auto-advance option there...

BTW, I did not post very much during the last month since there was some additional work to do, but I will find some time for DC in June, I hope...

[Uatu]

Hokay... Fiddling around, I have managed to make the "Effect of Button" "Decrease Range" option for Encounter events work, but that only moves the sprite one step (the party does not move).

The above seems rather limited - I would rather do what you did in your animated GIFs (where the monsters step 3 steps toward the PC before combat)

I still cannot get the "auto approach" button to work in the combat event...

[manikus]

I also got the encounter button-approach working. Yay for us! But, I didn't get to try ing combat auto-approach b/c I got distracted by other DC stuff (the help documentation in html and trying to figure out logic block).

I'll give a go today (I hope) and let you know.

Welcome back Dinonykos.

[Uatu]

Hmm - interestingly, the sprites seem to automatically move to close range when facing walls (but not doors - so you get a weird effect with far sprites on top of door overlays). One strange thing is that the closeness of the sprite seems to not affect range of combat (or at least consistently) - or perhaps I am doing something wrong...

Looking forward to hearing how you fare, manikus!