Effekseer - Wicked Tree Special Attack

While I intend to have the enemy attack animations set using the MV format, involving sprite sheets with multiple frames I can play around with at once, some enemies are too big to fit in the available template. That's why, for the larger monsters like the Wicked Tree (I may change the name of this monster at a later date), I will use Effekseer to create their attacks since I remembered how to use it properly.

Process

Back when I started out, I attempted to use this with 2D sprites; solely for attack animations. When RPG Maker MZ updated to allow the MV format for animations I switched to that, but now I do have an incentive to use Effekseer for the bigger enemies. This might cause an issue later on regarding storage, which is why I'm hoping to reserve this for only such occasion. In any case, how it works is I can set the view to 2D, so it sets the plane up to where when played, it is exactly as it is viewed here. From there, I would create a Node, which lets me add an image (in which case, one of many frames used for a single attack) that I can manipulate accordingly.

Now, each individual image I would need to input when exactly they appear (in frame count), and how many frames they last for. This is due to how different the animations are compared the MV. This one for instance, uses 172 frames, where as something like Aki's Demon Fang uses 18. It might just be due to a time difference when either is played, but because of this, I have to make each image play for about 5 frames before it goes to the next one. This allows for the smoothest playback possible, which will be reflected in MZ itself.

Also, because the images are small to begin with, I have to increase the size of each image to a reasonable size so it can be seen in MZ. From there, I can further increase the size as needed. Then comes the more difficult part, which is offsetting the animation so that when it played, it will be sure to hit the battle party accordingly. This requires a lot of  back and forth with the Battle Test and forcing the move to play so I can see it in action. Afterwards, I make adjustments based on estimates on how it will look the next time it's played. In the above image, it doesn't look like it would be near where the target will be, but in the video below, it shows otherwise.

Of course, there's still a couple things to fix, notably the fade-in and fade-out stuff. I am still having it where actors/enemies disappear before reappearing to do their attack, because I can't really get the battle animations to flow well with the Dragonbones animations without having an empty frame between transition; and of course, Dragonbones is very limited on what animations I can use with MZ. It's part of why I made the change to using the MV-style animations in the first place.

Wrap-Up

At some point, either before this month is over or partway into July, a new update for the Arena Demo will be released to where many of the enemies will have new animations and attacks based on what I have available. This will require a lot of work on my end, especially since I have to time when to apply damage mechanics in the Common Event sequence. At the very least, this will result in having more lively enemies, even in the current format this game is using.