Maxy: You can bet your bacon this is another old tutorial. This time, it's by RPG Palace founder, Kamau. Here he explains the fundamentals of events.

				
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RPG MAKER 2000 TUTORIAL

:: Event FAQ ::

By Kamau
RPG Palace - www.rpg-palace.com

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This tutorial has been created to explain various uses of events in RPG
Maker 2000.

-- CONTENTS --
1.	Basic event information
2.	Setting up your event
3.	Making your event come to life
		a. Commands
		b. Page 1
		c. Page 2
		d. Page 3

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1.	BASIC EVENT INFORMATION

Events are what make your RPG come to life. They will cause thing to
happen in your game world. They can be activated by the player, or they
can start by themselves. They can take the form of a human or monster
or they can be invisible. Basically, if you want to make a good game
in RPG Maker 2000 you have to use events.

If you look in the toolbar in RM2k you will see three squares. One of
them is green, one blue, and one yellow. We are interested in the
yellow one which is Event Editing Mode, so click on it or press F7 on
your keyboard. You should see a grid placed on your map. Events must be
placed on ONE square of the map. Most Charsets (graphics for your
events) will be two squares high, but that doesn't matter because the
bottom square is the main one, or 'feet' of the event.

To create a new event you can use one of three methods...

	1.	Double-click on a square of the grid.
	2.	Click on a square and press Enter.
	3.	Right-click on a square and select New Event.

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2.	SETTING UP YOUR EVENT

The Event Editor box should appear. This is where you decide how your
event will operate and what it will do. First type a name for it if you
want. This will just help you when you control events later. You should
see some buttons referring to 'Pages'. Ignore them at the moment. They
make your event do different things depending on various aspects of
the game.

The next thing to look at is Event Conditions. If you use one or more
of these it means that the condition must be met before this event will
become active. For example, the Item box allows you to only activate the
event if the player is holding a particular item. I won't go into detail
about the different conditions yet.

The Graphic sets what your event will look like. The default should be
a plain pink square, or whatever the transparency colour is for the
chipset you are using. If you don't know what I mean don't worry, it's
not really important. Click the Set button and choose from a Charset
in the list, then select an image from the 8 different sets in the box
on the right. Select a direction and click OK. The box should change to
show the new image. Check the Transp. box if you want it to be semi-
transparent (see-through).

Event Start Condition determines when the event will start to do what
you set it to do.
	Push Key		The player must stand beside (or on top of) the
				event and press the Enter key.
	On Hero Touch	The player simply touches the event.
	On Touch (Event,Hero) Actually I couldn't find any differences
				between this one and On Hero Touch. If anyone
				knows what this does please let me know.
	Auto Start		Automatically starts the event as soon as the
				player enters that map. All other events stop
				and the player loses control of the hero. It
				must be stopped by teleporting to another map
				or switching to a different page (see below).
	Parallel Process	Same as Auto Start only it works 'in the
				background'. You can still move the hero and
				other events will continue.

Position sets where the event will appear in relation to the hero.
	Below Hero		Player can walk over upper and lower squares of
				the image.
	Same Level as Hero Player can walk below the upper square but the
				lower square will block the player's path.
	Over Hero		Player can walk under upper and lower squares.
The 'Allow Event Overlap' box means the event can occupy the same square
as another event.

Movement Type determines how the event will move around the map.
	Stay Still		Event stays where you put it.
	Random Movement	Event moves around randomly. Frequency
				determines how long it will wait until it moves
				again. The lower it is the less time it waits.
	Cycle Up-Down	Event walks up until is reaches an obstacle,
				then goes down and repeats.
	Cycle Left-Right	Same as above only left to right.
	Step Toward Hero	Event constantly moves towards the hero.
	Step Away from Hero Same as above only it moves away.
	By Its Route	Click the 'Edit Route...' button to set how the
				event will move. This means you can make it walk
				around in circles or whatever. See the 'Move
				Event' command below for details on moving it.

Animation Type allows you to alter what the event will look like, but in
a different way to the Graphic. Each charset has different frames of
animation for the characters.
	Common/Without	Event shows the normal standing position and
				will face the player if activated.
	Common/With		Event shows the walking animation and will face
				the player if activated.
	Without Stepping	Event shows standing position unless it is
				moving. It will always face the set direction.
	Fixed Direction	Event constantly shows walking animation and
				only faces set direction.
	Fixed Graphic	Event only shows set graphic and standing no
				matter what.
	Turn Right		Event will spin clockwise but will stop if the
				player activates it.

Movement Speed speaks for itself. It determines how fast the event will
move and also how fast the walking animation is played. 1 is the slowest
and 6 is the fastest. It is impossible to go beyond these speeds. The
hero will move at 4 I think.
	1: x8 Slower
	2: x4 Slower
	3: x2 Slower
	4: Normal
	5: x2 Faster
	6: x4 Faster

Before I go on to explain Commands, you may notice the little yellow and
red musical note in the bottom left-hand corner. Click this to listen to
any music in the RTP Music folder or in your project's music folder.

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3.	MAKING YOUR EVENT COME TO LIFE

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a.	Commands

See the large white box on the right-hand side of the window? That's
where you will tell your event what to do. You can add in a list of
commands which RM2k will go through and complete. The little <> symbol
means the start of a new command. For the majority of this FAQ I will
be explaining what each command does, and there are a lot of them. They
are split into 3 pages.

Create a new command in the same way you created a new event, but click
on the <> instead of a square and select Insert instead of New Event.
Remember that you can always go back and edit any commands by clicking
on them and pressing the space bar.

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b.	Page 1

- Show Message -

Brings up a box in which you can enter text. This box will appear at the
top, bottom or middle of the screen depending on where you set it to
with a different command. Don't forget that you can only see 28 letters
in the actual game (19 if you use a face graphic) but you will be able
to type in more, so check in your game to see if it fits.

- Message Style -

Window Format
	Norm			Displays the colourful style of the text box
				which is set by a System graphic in the System
				tab of the Database.
	Trans			Does not display the text box but only the text.
Window Position
	Up			Puts the text box at the top of the screen.
	Mid			Puts the text box in the middle of the screen.
	Do			Puts the text box at the bottom of the screen.
Options
	Prevent Hero from hiding	This should actually say "Prevent
				from hiding Hero". If this box is ticked the
				text box will reposition itself if it is
				covering the hero.
	Allow other events to continue	Normally you must press Enter
				to close the text box and carry on with the rest
				of the command but this allows them to continue
				while the box is open.

- Select Face -

A face image will appear in the text box. Click Set to pick one or Erase
to go back to no face. Unfortunately you can only have one face at a
time so no Grandia-style multiple faces.

Display Position
	Left			Shows the face on the left.
	Right			Shows the face on the right.
Options
	Flip Horizontal	Click it and see. It mirrors the face.

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More to come...
Maxy: Oh, Kamau! You and your lies! Several years later and still no more! Oh well, this will do nicely, anyway :D

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