Cutscene Assistance!

Well, from what I know, you just have to set up some screens that are blank (maybe all the tiles are black, and not the black with an "X" on it, mind you), and check the "Invisible Link" screen flag on each cutscene screen. Also, make the black tiles on layer 3, so you can't see the guys OR the fires. Next, set up some strings to go with the cutscene (if you're going to have it tell a story). If you want, you can make your own tiles for cutscene pictures, kind of like what you see in the story cinema in A Link to the Past. Set everything as needed on each screen of the cutscene, and there you go. Oh, and if you're going to start the game with a story or title screen, don't forget to tell the game to start on the title/story Dmap and check the DMap you continue on the rest of the game with "Continue Here".

They are really difficult, are you sure you want to make them?

Yeah, I have yet to make an actual cutscene with pictures! So far, all I have is one with a story...

They arent that hard, it just takes a while to make. Just tell us what you want it to look like so we can help.

Would you like an example? I can provide you with one from a quest of mine.

Just remember a few things:

1) The vast majority of your cutscenes will be composed of combos. Since combos can be anything at all, they'll be pictures of the events transpiring in your cutscene. You'll slap down a combo (With a transparent background.) of Link on a layer to superimpose onto your screen to show an image of Link doing something on the screen. You'll put down terrain, you'll put down cool backgrounds. All of these are combos, using layers where necessary so they don't appear to be sprites with weird pink backgrounds right on the floor. NEVER do that. 😛 Always use layers for sprites. (More on that later if you want.)

2) Link, the player, will almost always be invisible and in one of the corners of the screen so he can trigger a sidewarp to warp to the next screen of the cutscene by pressing right.

3) You can also set up a timed tic warp (One Second = 60 Tics.) to guide the player along in the cutscene without having to press anything. That's up to you though.

Remember, a Cutscene is just like any piece of gameplay. It's all just about how the pieces are laid out.

Has anyone made ZC crash from having too many consecutive screens with timed warps? I tend to have that problem on my laptop (XP, 512MB RAM). I haven't tried to test it anywhere else yet though. If ZC crashes on me on my wife's machine, I may be forced to make raft paths instead!!! :googly:

*busily calculating the speed of Link's raft in tiles per second*