any version Simple Guide to Picture Text Boxes 1

This guide will show you the very basics of using Show Picture to make customized text boxes via pictures and eventing, feel free to deviate from this guide as you see fit.

Graphics
You will need in your game folders:

• a blank 96x32 image in Graphics\Icons (named 1a in this guide)
• a blank 80x80 window skin in Graphics\Windowskins (named clear in this guide)
• your character graphic preferably 128x128 in Graphics\Pictures (named 1a in this guide)
• your text box graphic sized 512x84 saved to Graphics\Pictures (named speech in this guide)

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The Event
The commands to handle the text box is fairly simple and easy to understand but you can use the help function in RMXP for more detail about commands than I go into here.

The Character Graphic
@>Show Picture: 2, '1a', Upper Left (0,240), (100%,100%), 255, Normal

Number: 2 means this picture will be drawn above any picture with Number: 1, higher numbers means it will be given higher priority over those with lower numbers and so show above them.

The Upper Left origin means the coordinates picked are relative to the upper left corner of the image chosen.
The X coordinate is 0 to keep the image against the left side of the screen and the Y coordinate is 240 to bring the image down to a bit above the bottom of the screen.


The Box Image
@>Show Picture: 1, 'speech', Upper Left (0,240), (100%,100%), 255, Normal

The coordinates bring the text box picture right to the bottom of the screen.

Text Box
Text: \w[clear]<icon=1a>Hello! I am Brenden! : : <icon=1a>You can see what I look like!

In Essentials \w[x] is used to change the window skin for the following text until its ended or changed again, and <icon=x> is used to draw the an image in Graphics/Icons.

\w[clear] changes the window skin to my blank window skin to allow the pictures to be seen.
<icon=1a> inserts the blank icon graphic to push the text over so it doesn't overlap the character image. This isn't perfect and you may need different icon sizes for different images.

Erase Pictures
@Erase Picture: 2 @Erase Picture: 1
These commands simply erase the pictures after you end the text box.

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Notes
Always check your text boxes because they could roll over into another text line and cover the character sprite if you do not plan carefully.
For ease of use one could make a common event to call and end the appearance of the text box and chosen graphic, which would make more complex text boxes easier to manage.