I am thinking about creating my first ever RPG and this program seems to be what I want to use. The game will be called Saving Private Smiles It's a game that will re-create every scene in Saving Private Ryan but add quite a bit of humor and weirdness. Some things I need to know...

Can you make NPC's defend you and follow you around?

Can you make NPC's fight NPC's?
(This is to simulate the war going on around you)

Can you "give orders" to NPC's?

Can you create moving backrounds? (Like moving water or swaying trees)

Any help would be GREATLY apprechiated.

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The wise man once
said "Ask the idiot."

Hi and welcome to the board.

I think you can make npc's follow you around; there was some talk about this a while back.

You can not officially have npc's fight npc's....but I think you might be able to simulate this with various npc animations and event scripting. Basically the npc's would reach a certain location and then the NPC animation could change to show them fighting.

I don't think that you can give NPC's orders, but it might be possible through event scripting and animation control. I mean using events to change the npc animations and locations.

Moving backgrounds might be possible through animation control, but could (would) take up a whole ton of space, unless you broke the various animations into smaller sections. I've never actually tried this....

I hope this helps.

Pedrith

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trespasser-

The way I see it, the answer to all but your last question is:
No. But you can fake it.

As for your last question, yes. You can use animation and transparencies in your backgrounds.

Some other things you might want to know right off, and I'm just guessing based on your WWII theme, are that both cover and ammo would also have to be faked. So would grenades and automatic fire. Now that I've told you all this, I encourage you to see what Coldstone can do for you anyway, cause your idea sounds pretty keen.

myshkyn

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"I'll give the fans just what they want, and nothing else at all."

Can you make NPC's defend you and follow you around?
No.

Can you make NPC's fight NPC's?
(This is to simulate the war going on around you)
No.

Can you "give orders" to NPC's?
Maybe, but any possible way would be hard as hell to make and a limited substitute. If you're willing, you should start by exploring the program.

Can you create moving backrounds? (Like moving water or swaying trees)
Yes. If you can draw it frame by frame.

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"The doctor is full of it."
—spl_cadet
"Lincoln was a murderous bastard."
—Soviet Mikee

You can't give orders to NPCs by way of "casting a spell" because the engine can't read which NPC you're giving orders to. Not even with globals. If you try it with globals, then if you move on to another NPC without actually killing the NPC, things get mixed up, even when you reset the globals, which you can't unless you kill the NPC. Anyway, I worked on this for a couple of weeks before I dumped it.

You CAN do it by way of dialogues. That means that you make a passive NPC (stamina at 0) so that you can talk to the NPC. Allow the dialogue to let you give an order. Then when the Player clicks on the order, you call up the NPC Control to delete that passive NPC and substitute (add) it with a different NPC (looking the same but with different attributes). Add the new NPC at &&Player;_X and &&Player;_Y. That way, you can place your original NPC randomly on the map. Your second NPC will be created according to what you want him to do, either passive or aggressive. Let's say that you want the second NPC to go to a particular place on the map and once it gets there to blow up a building. I believe that is quite possible.

Good luck!

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-- Debra
Danillitphil Productions