FEATURES
Makes actors use their own charactersheet and changes their graphic to different character animations for when the player is idle, walking, running or jumpin.
You can also set a common event to run after the player is idle for a set amount of time.
VERSION 1.9 – RPG Maker MV
Download Plugin file
Download Demo
MIX DEMO
Additionally a demo containing 3 plugins: ‘Diagonal Movement’, ‘Character Frames’, ‘Character Animations’ all working together can be found here:
Download Mix Demo
Galv's RPG Maker Scripts & Plugins 
Hi Galv! Do you have any plan on converting the older system of yours to MV, the one in which we could have 3 different spritesheets for the 3 different animations (idle/walk/dash)? =)
It would be awesome in that it would allow people using multiple frames spritesheet to also have the different character animations options the plugin way!
If you can’t, nevermind, I still enjoy all the other scripts you’re putting online for us to use! Keep the good work coming! Thanks!
Unfortunately no plans as of yet but if there’s enough interest I’ll do it :)
Glad to hear it from you! Let’s hope enough makers will feel the need for such a plugin :P
Thank you Galv! :)
Hi Galv,
i’m sorry to look for you here about this.
I’m looking for a script wich let me run event based on time. I’m looking for a script that can run differents clock(for example 1 for time of play, 1 for quests), all increasing time because on rpgmaker it is decreasing. And want to be able to run an event based on 1 of those time. Can you do it please? And if yes when do you think can be downloable? I’m talking about MV of curse and i can pay for it. Thanks for reading, sorry for request, and thanks again for an eventually answer.
I’d ask about this in a forum as it might be something you could event – depending on what you wanted to accomplish :)
Is there a way where i can contact you directly instead of comments? :)
Yeah PM me on forums.rpgmakerweb.com or rpgmakervxace.net :)
Is it possible using this plugin to make a carrying sprite, for if the hero, or character is carrying an object or anything they can lift really?
If you change the actor’s charactersheet to one that is holding something, I suppose so, yes
I noticed that when you run onto a event with a “Player Touch” Trigger, that your characters continue to run in place throughout the event commands. Is there some way around this?
Thanks for letting me know – definitely a bug. Have updated to version 1.2, please let me know if any issues :)
Lovely! This was one of my favorite scripts of yours back in the Ace days!
I use this in conjunction with your 6 frame animation.
Is there a built-in way to only have the idle animation going and nothing else? That is all I ever want to play – 6 frames of animation looped forever no matter if the player is standing or moving.
Thanks.
If you don’t need idle/walk/run animations, I wouldn’t use this plugin and turn “Stepping” on for your player
Oh. I see. Set a autorun event with set movement route for the player to stepping animation on. I never thought of that. Thanks.
is there a way to change it that my character stay in the running pose while standing still? Set the first sprite of the running animation to an idle frame is not an option, cause it would break the looks of the animation.
thanks for any help
If you don’t need idle/walk/run animations, I wouldn’t use this plugin and turn “Stepping” on for your player
hi mate, my character stays in the running pose after she stops running, is there a way to set her to an idle frame asap she stops? I cant set the first frame of the animation to an idle pose cause it would break the nice running animations look.
cheers
I am not sure what you mean by stays in the running pose? If the plugin is working incorrectly, it might be due to plugin conflict. Here’s a checklist of error trapping ideas:
sorry im not good with explaining,
imagine my character running over the map and than he stops, he doesnt change into a standing pose he stays in the last running frame
It sounds like you either have a plugin conflict (ideas to try to find this out in the link I posted previously) or you have not set up the charactersheet properly with idle/walk/run poses like in the demo.
so I tried deactivating every other plugin except the animation plugin and the character frame plugin, also I use your premade character sheet with the arrows.
The problem is still there, at start position the arrow is normal black and points down, than I move to the right and after the arrow stops he doesnt change back to black he stays red.
Also the arrow doesnt move smooth to the right, it kinda twitches around up and down while moving, like the frames ar enot perfectly syncronized.
The arrows jitter around because of their position in the characterset… they were made as an example to show positions and purposefully ‘twitching’ to show the animation frames working.
Also, I have a demo to download using both the plugins you mention with it working (linked to in all relavant plugin pages). One of the points in the list I linked you to (https://galvs-scripts.com/errors-using-plugins/) is: examine the demos to try to see what you have done.
The demo demonstrates the plugins working together – so if you only have those two plugins in your project – you’ll need to try and work out what you’ve done different to the demo and use the plugin error list to help you error trap.
thanks for the effort mate =)
Also every time I try to start your demo I get this ”.json not found” error dunno whats wrong with that
Start it in your RPG Maker MV to look at it.
I think that happens when you start it in a browser that can not run the game locally (eg. chrome).
everything works as expected now, I changed the settings of CharaAnimations to Common Event ID 1 and the other 2 to 0 and now she stops and changed into idle automaticly.
One last question, there is no way to deactivate the idle animation completely but leave walk and run as they are?
I mean except matching every idle frame exactly over each other.
Not with this plugin, sorry
thanks for all the help you gave me I look forward to use your amazing work more in the future, have a very nice day
Hey Glav, awesome plugins! Found one quirk which is while using this plugin it’s impossible to Change Actor Images on the fly with events. Doing so holds the new actor for a frame then swaps back as soon as the player moves. My guess is that your plugin isn’t being updated with the new sprite ID. Would appreciate any direction in fixing this.
Keep it up!
How are you changing it? Make sure to use the “Change Actor Images” event command and remember, actors must have their own spritesheet as it automatically switches between the first, second and third characters in that spritesheet.
If you want to temporarily stop this behavior then you can use the CHARANIM false plugin command
Yeah, that’s how I was doing it. No luck. The CHARANIM FALSE did the trick for what I needed. Appreciate it.
How do you get NPC sprites to change while they are walking around and waiting? They only choose either one of the animations.
This plugin only works for player characters. I don’t have any plans currently to make it work for events
Updated to 1.3 – added ability to change character graphic during jumps
Oh my gosh! Thank you!!
Hello Galv :D I was looking for a plug in exactly like this and it seems like I finally found one. Sorry to ask this since I noticed you have a shit ton of questions but. I took your template with the arrows increased their size and now it shows 2 arrows instead of one. Is there any reason for it to do that? I changed the size from the default 5.33 to 7.33 then 9.33 all the way up to 22.33. No matter what size I changed it to it always shows two arrows instead of one. I read above that if you changed it to !then the file name it changes the default you should keep it the same? I tried it with :
$Filename, !Filename, Filename, $!Filename, !$Filename.
Also you mentioned you can have any many frames as you wish for horizontal frames? Does it just automatically pick up on X number of frames or do you need change that in the plugin manager? I was looking in it and under GALV_CharacterFrames there’s an option that’s named Frame Speed Modifier. I am going on a limb and saying that if you change it from f*0.8 to say 1.6 you would need 16 horizontal frames?
Thanks for any help. If I can get this working I will become a patreon :D
This plugin doesn’t change the number of frames, but with what you said it sounds like you are also using my Character Frames plugin.
That plugin controls how many frames each character in a charactersheet should have. Have a read over the instructions again – then have a look at the demo (in particular the /img/characters/ folder to see how a characterset with more frames needs to look).
Remember a default characterset has 8 characters with 3 frames each. Using my Character Frames you must still have 8 characters each with as many frames as you set in %(x)
I’m sorry to bother you Galv, but I just had a question. First off, this is a fantastic plugin that does exactly what I need, so thank you very much for creating it! =)
However, I’ve been trying to figure out how to change the default from TRUE to FALSE. I only want to use an idle animation in a handful of specific areas (e.g. a mountain top where wind is blowing through character’s clothes and hair), so I need to find a way to make this plugin set to FALSE by default. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to figure out how to do this. I almost got it working, but whatever I did made the plugin go from using specific character sets (as intended) to simply enabling Stepping =P
I wasn’t sure if this was a good place to contact you or not, but if you have any ideas, I’d sincerely appreciate it!
I’m not sure what you mean by change the default. You can use the script call any time, even at the start of your game?
Sorry for not being clearer!
I know that I can use the plugin command to disable and enable it at any time. However, while testing the game prior to release, it means that I’ve got to repeatedly turn the plugin off and on in the plugin manager – otherwise my characters will be perpetually doing their idle animation every time I test play, even when I don’t want them to. It’s just a bit more fiddly.
In the help section, you describe the plugin commands like this: * CHARANIM FALSE // Disables the character animations
* CHARANIM TRUE // Enables them again. They are enabled by default
So I was just trying to modify the plugin (I presumed some small change to a line or value) to make CHARANIM FALSE the default, instead of CHARANIM TRUE. It’s my understanding that doing this would prevent the idle animation from being initially active. Hopefully that makes sense haha =)
Find the line in the plugin:
Game_Player.prototype.initMembers = function() {
Make a new line directly under it add:
this.disableCharAnims = true;
this._stepAnime = false;
You’re a life-saver! That works perfectly (I never would’ve figured it out haha). Thank you so much for the help, and again for your fantastic plugin work. I sincerely appreciate it =D
hi! love this mod, it’s one of my favorites. are there any plans to bring this functionality to working with events, as well? i’d love for my NPCs to be able to seamlessly change from idle to walking animations just as player characters do.
thanks for your time and hard work!!
No plans at the moment, sorry
ahh, that’s too bad. thanks for the quick response!
Hey Galv,
Does this plugin support 2 tile high characters? I’m also using your character frames plugin with a 6 frame sprite sheet. The file is named $[name]%(6).png. What happens is the character is showing up as 3 characters side by side, and I’m pretty sure its treating the entire sprite sheet like one stepping animation sequence, where the idle animation takes its first frame from the idle section of the sheet, then its next frame comes from the walking section. If you could help me get this sorted out it would be great. Thanks.
As long as your charactersheet is set up correct with the right number of characters, frames and directions it supports any size (just like normal rpgmaker supports any size). Please view the help file and demo to try to work things out.
So I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to figure this out, and I still haven’t gotten a clue why this is happening. I’m going to seek help on RPG Maker forums as to not bother you specifically, thanks for the explanation.
Make sure another plugin isn’t conflicting with it perhaps if it isn’t doing what it should
I’ve got a real problem making use of the multiple frames. I did exactly the correct order for a 8 frames characters, named it correctly and it don’t work, the animation just move to the left. It was made correctly in the order for 8 frames, and the name was Character%(8).png. I have no clue why it’s not working. Also I tested the same character in the demo, which did not worked too.
You may have set up your charactersheet incorrectly if it doesn’t work in the demo.
Unfortunately I don’t think I can help without more information (like seeing your charactersheet).
Remember Character Animations plugin and Character Frames plugin are different. You are comment on my Character Animations plugin and talking about Character Frames plugin so make sure you’re using the right ones.
Thank you, it was just like you said. The pattern of the problem, the animation moving to the left was indicating that the image size was not right for the system to correctly compare it size and make the 8 frames. Since it was 8 grids of 144 pixels, my image should have the size of 4608 width, it had 3456. After I corrected the width size, it worked like a charm, Thanks again for the tips.
Is it possible to use the common event function to make the chara do a gesture?
(for example the chara yawns after being in the idle animation for 30 second)
Yes, you would have to use the script call to turn off the animations and then you could use move routes to change your character graphics to do the wave.
I recommend asking in a forum if you’re not sure how to do things like that.
Hello ! Is it possible to disable the idle animation please ? I don’t need it. :)
I didn’t add that as a setting, sorry
Can you please?
I’m very busy right, I do not have time to do changes at this time, sorry.
I was wondering if I could change the timing of the animation e.g.
when the character is idling for a few seconds then the animation plays for a sec. All I need is the instructions of where to change it in the plugin.
I’m sorry I don’t know exactly what you mean but I recommend asking in a forum as I very busy lately.
Updated to v.1.6 – an update that a bunch of people asked for to allow events to use the character animation functionality.
also updated to v.1.7 I broke followers dashing hehe…
Hey i’m having a very weird issue, i’m using the only sidescroller plugin I could find (http://hikimoki.sakura.ne.jp/plugin/jump_action.html) and I got your plugin because i wanted a jump animation. But whenever I try to use it with the jump active it says ‘cannot read property ‘1’ of undefined’
Unfortunately it sounds like the plugins are not compatible, sorry.
Hey there Galv, this is a great plugin. But I am really curious about something. Is there possibly some way where I can use this with another plugin that changes the number of frames used for walking. I want to give my characters a smoother walk cycle, but at the same time separating the idle animations so that they feel more alive.
You can use my character frames plugin with this.
Save the game before applying the plug-in,
If you load the save file after applying the plug-in
There is a bug where the error “Can not read property ‘1’ of undefined” appears.
That is correct and is normal for most plugins. Whenever you add a new plugin, make sure to start a new save file.
Hello Galv, thanks for you work. But i have a question. How can i use this plugin with CharacterFrames for animate big-size sprites?
Cause i tryed different options:
Names with $, charsets with only 1 4×8 in this CharacterFrames works correctly, but idle animation use frames that been used at lasttime, and i can’t choose this animation, if i try to use charset with 3 colums 4×8 or 3 colums and 2 rows 4×8 in game i have tripled sprite, but idle animation works correctly,,,
Names without $ use some intermediate frames, and it’s looks like half of 1 frame + half of 2 frame, but not a full frame.
It’s a really important for my project do a good animations (8 but probably i can’t )8 help me please (8
Use the template that comes in the demo and change the size using a graphics program… charactersets can be any size.
I was try many ways to create a correct charset with template. But can’t do.
Mby u can answer to me, what i should to do if my character is 96×96 pixels and have 8 frames? I will try more, but yesterday i was try to do it some about 4-5 hours in row..
I found it! Found a solution (8 Now it works !
Thanks one more time!
Hello, nice to meet you.
I too would like to move a character frame with a name containing $, but the display is not correct.
How did you solve this problem?
There seem to be a bug. When I disable the the plugin via CHARANIM FALSE, It does not fully diable my main actor. My default Tile for my Main Actor is Tile 5, but it still using Tile 1. Unless I use the teleportation that is when it updates it back to TILE 5. Also, it does not diable the CHARANIM in other member of the parties: ACTORs 2, 3, 4. Even if I use the teleportation, it still enabling the CHARANIM and using all 4 Sprite Tile set. THis is for 1.7
Ah, you are correct. I have updated to v.1.8 fixing the bug with followers not disabling animation. I do not understand the Tile 5 / Tile 1 issues you had, however.
Hey Galv!
Your plugin has been working nicely so far. The only problem I have is the idle animation that should play after being inactiv a certain amount of time because I have a ‘still idle’ in my original sheet and an animated idle that should play only once every so and so seconds of standing still
So I set up a common event and changed my actor image to a different one. And that works fine. My char is standing around and after a while he switches to that different sheet to play an animation where he fumbles with his sleeve.
Now… the thing is he’s playing that animation non-stop and when I move, it just stays in that sheet. I tried setting up a moveroute and put a wait in it after which it switches back to its original sheet and that works but the ‘wait’ stops all movement so the player can’t move until he’s done with that animation.
If I put that idle animation in the original sheet where my other idle,walk,run animations are, it only plays for one frame and immidiately switches back to the original non-animated idle, making him look like he’s having a seizure!
Sry for the wall of text I wanted to be as specific as possible ._.
That might require different eventing. Perhaps using a loop? I recommend asking in a forum.
Hey Galv, thank you very much for your script, but I found an annoying issue, care to tell me if I’m doing something wrong?
When I try to use the charset for my 218 x 500 spritesheet the idle animation in game has a little glitch in the right edge of the animation, I did the same test with a single spritesheet later on the video for comparision > https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lPJONtnygspjVSeww4IIu6NZkzIb9pyK/view?usp=sharing
Are you sure that’s not in the actual graphic file? If not, make sure the pixel dimensions of your spritesheet are correct for the number of character rows. That’s the only thing I can think of that might cause that.
what’s the difference between plugin and demo?
The plugin has the plugin file in it. The demo is a full MV project that gives examples of how to use the plugin.
how to make this work with bigger $ characters, would it be possible to add a template for it too if possible
It won’t work with $ characterset as that only looks for one character. Use a normal characterset layout and increase the size of it.
thank you so much dude, bless you
Can the number of frames for walk and idle be specified differently?
I want to use 6 frames for walk and 4 frames for idel.
That functionality is not in this plugin, sorry.
thank you for answering!
Hi Galv, there seems to be an incompatibility between this plugin and the Yanfly Event Morpher. Specifically, when I have a morphed event on a map and I load into the map (such as transferring from another map) I get an error “Cannot read property ‘charAnims’ of undefined’. Here is your demo with just the yanfly morpher plugin added, to show you what I’m seeing.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TzmbPKorV8PjTiVCdXM7Htfi2qDWmdop/view?usp=sharing
I really hope you can help. I have to use the Yanfly Morpher plugin for what I’m trying to do, and I really want to keep using your awesome character animation plugin.
Unfortunately I don’t have the time to look into plugin conflicts, sorry.
Hiya Galv! I’m not sure if you’re still offering support on this plugin or not, I was curious if there is a way to disable the Common Event from triggering during cutscenes or events? Right now my character Common event triggers after about 1 minute of being idle, his sprite changes and he plays panflute music but it keeps triggering during longer cutscenes.
Hmm, it should set idletime to 0 while the interpreter is running, which is when event commands are playing out. Are you using a single autorun even for your cutscene? Or doing it another way?
Almost always it’s a single autorun and then other events being manipulated by that autorun. Usually it’s fine with no issues, but I find that after my first cutscene if it runs too long, after the cutscene is over and the main character is revealed, the idle common event gets triggered.
Hmm, must not be working as intended. Can you confirm you’re using the latest version of the plugin? (1.8)
Does this plugin also have 8 directions of movement?
When used alongside my Diagonal Movement plugin, yes.
Hi galv! Im super new to MV and using plugins, so excuse me if this question is super elementary. I am trying to use a sprite sheet I made where each walking direction is 5 frames long. How do I format this in the charsheet, and is this possible to do this with the plugin?
You’ll need another plugin “Character Frames” to make that happen. Then I recommend learning how charactersheets work and downloading the mix demo for examples. For help on charactersheets and using a more frames plugin, I recommend visiting a forum or searching online.
Hello, I don’t know if you’re still offering support for this, since it’s been a long time, but I don’t know if I did something wrong, but I’ve tested it with an event and I’ve put the note <charAnims> in an event, and given it a sprite. It works, but then, when I interact with the event, and a self switch activates, the sprite isn’t animated any longer on the second page of the event. I’ve tested it by modifying a few parameters, and it seems like it does the same with a test event, until the event moves with a custom or random route, then it’s animated again. Is there a way to solve this when the event I want animated doesn’t have a route to follow, and is set to the map ? If I’m unclear I can try to give more description, tell me if you still offer support and if you can help with what I have. Thanks in advance !
Unfortunately, I am not sure what you need to happen or what you’ve done. If you need the event to animate, does checking the ‘stepping’ box on the new page do what you need?
Checking the stepping box doesn’t do anything. I’m going to try to explain it again, but on the new page, the animation doesn’t play and the sprite is static, even with the note in the event.
I could replicate the issue – going to update the file
Updated to version 1.9, hopefully fixed the issue.