[CGMZ] Event Names (Patreon)

Show text above events, including text code support and some text effects like a float effect.

! SEE BOTTOM OF POST FOR UPDATES !

Hi all, introducing [CGMZ] Event Names!

This plugin allows you to show text above events. This does support text codes, but most likely not text codes added by other plugins with the exception of text codes from [CGMZ] Message System. The icon text code is supported. You can optionally have text change opacity with distance to the player, and you can also give the text a float effect. The float effect looks like this:

You can use this to draw the player's attention to a specific event, and it also helps add some movement to the screen so things aren't so static.

This plugin is pretty basic still, as it ended up being a bit more work than first thought to create the foundation of the plugin. As a result, there will be a lot to add throughout the Alpha process. The things I have planned to add in future updates include:

1) Add a way to draw a background behind text2) Plugin command to hide / show specific event name

There will also be further optimizations made to the plugin with future updates. Do you have anything else you'd like to see added? Please leave a comment below or in the #suggestions channel of the Casper Gaming Discord! I add all suggestions to my to-do list.

Happy RPG Making!

This update adds the option to display a full window background behind your event names. To cause the window background to display, use the new text code <CGMZFULLWINDOW>. There are still more background options coming in future updates.

This update also changes the way the plugin handles text, as previously it was not able to handle third party text codes from other plugins. The issue was that sprites do not normally have the text drawing functions windows do, so handling text codes was difficult. The plugin now draws the text in a hidden window object that can handle text codes as normal, and then takes the bitmap of that text for use in the event name sprite. This should allow any text code to function as normal, whether from [CGMZ] Message System or other plugins that add custom text codes. 

This update focuses on two things, the first being a new float direction as you can now have your event name float horizontally. The event setup is the same as the normal vertical float, only you need to add the word "horizontal" as an additional argument. Events with vertical floats should not be affected by this update. Below is a gif of how it can look:

The second part of this update focuses on greater control over the opacity by distance feature. Previously, some aspects were hard coded such as the distances over which an event name would be full opacity or invisible. You can now set these distances in the plugin parameters.

The opacity change also used to be instantaneous, which could look a little odd. You can now control the maximum amount of opacity changed per frame, and the plugin sets a target opacity instead of setting the opacity directly. It will attempt to move the opacity towards the target opacity every frame by the amount you set in the plugin parameters. Keep in mind that setting a low value for max opacity change per frame will cause the opacity change to take longer. 

 This version adds some more control over when event names are visible. You can now set a switch that must be ON before event names are visible.

This update also added a local x/y offset so you can just offset one event name without affecting others. This is part of the comment to set up the event's name, see added documentation for how to set this up.

This version adds a blink effect to event names. You specify in the comment how long you want it to be visible and invisible for, and then it will blink on and off for those intervals (in frames). You can combine this with the other effects, such as floating text. See below gif for an example:

This update also added a way to allow the player to turn event names on or off via the Options menu (requires plugin to add custom options such as [CGMZ] Options). To set this up, make a custom option that checks for the symbol cgmz_eventnames that stores a boolean value.

This version adds the option to read the event name field from your event setup instead of needing to use comments. You need to turn this ON, since it could get somewhat annoying if you are not using event names very often. When ON, a comment will override the event name, and you can also start your event name with a specific character to override showing the name from the name box. The default event names (EVxx) are also ignored automatically.

This update also added default float and blink options, so if you want most of your event names to have a float or blink effect you can just set it up once in editor instead of needing to do so in comments throughout your game. Default values can be overridden by comments.

The global y offset was changed, it is now added to the y position instead of subtracted.

This version adds an option to set the blend mode of the event name, including to change the default blend mode in case you want most event name sprites to have a different than normal blend mode. Otherwise, you can set it per event by using a new comment.

Default Color and Font Size options were also added, to make it easier on you to create a standard event name format without needing to use a bunch of text codes every time.

This update also fixes a bug with event names where they would remain visible even if the page is no longer valid and there is no valid page to use.