itch.io

Oh, don't get me wrong. I absolutely do see the use case for "more than a couple BGS running", I just hadn't yet set up the plugin for it (still haven't written one that's gone public - I need to work out a way to STOP a BGS from running, since the built-in RPG Maker controls don't expect more than one at a time. Might use an "alias for each one" solution like the Soundtrack plugins use.)

But 16 is overkill, to say nothing of 200. Performance-wise, it worked when I tested it, but... don't.

I made a quick edit to allow multiple focused BGSes at once. (It is NOT ready for release, just a test to see how it would work.) I have sixteen focused BGSes running at once (all triggered by a single event, but in different locations), which do still work as expected with regards to volume and pan, and not a single trace of FPS slowdown.

I could add more, but really, if you have a need to run sixteen BGSes simultaneously, you might want to step back and ask yourself why.

Now, granted, I was running my gaming PC. Might want to be more cautious with mobile-targeted games.

EDIT: I raised that number to about 200 without a problem. I raised it to over 1000, and... well, okay, now it had about half the framerate as usual (I turned the volume on the events and my speakers WAY down before trying any of this!!) Again, you should never ever ever need that many.

I can't imagine that SEs are likely to cause more memory slowdown on their own. The events themselves are more likely to cause slowdown.

As currently written, this plugin only allows one BGS to play at a time. (Soundtrack Layering is the more interesting plugin for this question, as it does allow multiple BGMs to play at once.) I haven't clocked performance, but have yet to notice any visual slowdown.

I have considered tweaking the plugin to allow multiple BGS-es, though.

Okay, using the F2 command, I see no FPS drops at all when loading four SE/BGSes at once in a loop, nor for four BGM layers in Soundtrack Layering, but four isn't exactly very many, is it? I suppose a real stress test of both plugins is in order at some point. 

If you hadn't noticed, BTW, this functionality exists now, in a supplementary plugin to this one.

Slight correction to above: the project must be a game, not a plugin showcase. Latest version of the MZ plugin is a little more clear on the point. (Didn't occur to me to change it when I updated the MV plugin, but consider the terms the same.)

MZ version might need a similar update too. EDIT: And did. And got one.

If you don't provide a location, it presumes the current event IS the location, so no need for this._eventId or anything like that.

So long as you have paid for it and give credit in your game to "Jason R. Godding" for making the plugin, it can be used in any RPG Maker MV/MZ project. Same goes for any other plugin in my shop (two of them don't require payment, but please include the credit for those as well if you use them.) 

For what it's worth, RPG Maker has this functionality built-in, with "Save BGM" and "Replay BGM", though it only stores one track at a time.

Also, if the track you're switching to is fixed-length, you could just play an "ME", which stops the currently-playing track and then automatically switches back when the ME is finished. Obviously, though, this won't work for looping music.

If none of that is what you need, then this plugin DOES have a sort of solution with the "alias" feature. When you load a track, you can assign it an alias and refer to that alias when you play back. But you can reassign that alias and have it point to a different track instead. The track assigned to the alias will just be whichever track you loaded with that alias most recently. You can keep as many aliases at a time as you have loaded tracks, so the alias can be your "variable". 

But... that wouldn't save the sample number. There is a point in what I've written for Jay's Journey Reimagined that pulls the sample number (for a different reason). Let me see... here it is. I set a variable to this, under "script":

AudioManager._bgmBuffer ? AudioManager._bgmBuffer.seek() : 0

Multiply that number by the sample rate (usually 44100) and that should be your sample number.

All right, I fixed compatibility. It might not affect your project any longer, but someone else might want to use the plugins together in the future, right?

Wow, I actually found Weapon Unleash in a download from ages ago, and the issue is not even close to anything I expected. In essence, it's a... bug? maybe? in Weapon Unleash that may or may not affect things normally (still piecing this mess together), and to be honest, I'm a little surprised it works when Dualtechs ISN'T installed. 

I'm still piecing things together, but the Dualtech is being resolved when it isn't supposed to be. Actually, I'm not even sure it's necessarily Weapon Unleash that has it wrong, but something isn't communicating correctly with other things.

EDIT: I'm understanding a little better what's going on here, and... I'm not actually sure it's a bug in Weapon Unleash OR Dualtechs individually, but it's certainly a weird interaction when both are together.

Huh, I wonder what in that plugin specifically was so incompatible with Dualtechs to cause all that. I would guess we modify some function or another in different ways - likely candidates are selectNextCommand or removeCurrentAction.

I'm not seeing either of these bugs with the plugins I have access to. Turn order works as expected, both on the turns the multitechs are used and future turns. Perhaps there's an incompatibility with the two I don't have - Weapon Unleash or Status Menu Core? It's hard to say from here without more information.

When the skills activate, do the skill icons disappear from all involved actors? They should - and do when I test.

One other possibility is a change made to the base RPG Maker MV game code - who knows how old this test project is? - but I'm not expecting that to be a factor. EDIT: Nope, all is fine in a fresh project too.

Okay, sorry for the holdup, but I don't have a lot to report yet. I cannot replicate this bug with the plugins I have, but that's not the entire list of plugins you have, and the version numbers are different. I'll get more plugins and later versions and try to see if I can replicate it with those.

EDIT: I don't appear to have Weapon Unleash or Status Menu Core already, I didn't see them among Yanfly's free plugins, and I'd strongly prefer not to pay for them if I'm never going to use them outside debugging purposes. Hopefully, they're not key to triggering this bug.

Nah, I'm sorry, awkward time for me. I'll look into it when I'm able.

I'm sorry, I wanted a full plugin list, as well as the plugin versions.

May I ask what other plugins you're using, and for the most relevant ones, which versions of them? (Linked turns doesn't work in DTB without Battle Status Window, so I'll presume that and Battle Core are in use.)

As for releasing the original Jay's Journey here, don't think I haven't considered it. But I would only put it on itch.io if it was compatible with the official version of the RPG Maker 2000 RTP, and... well, let's not go into specifics, but it's not. You'd know why if you were a part of the RPG Maker scene during that time period. Updating it to work with the official RTP would require time and money (not a ton of money, but it's money I haven't spent.)

Well, that solution is better than what you had. It could be better though. Recommendations:

1. Maybe I was unclear about the LoadBGM command? The LoadBGM command can happen at any time just so long as it's before PlayBGM by at least a few seconds. It does not need to be in the same event. You should use it significantly before you need it, not use it and throw a forced wait in within a single event. If memory isn't a concern, you could LoadBGM at the beginning of the game; it'll still be there when you need it. Granted, that forced wait is the only real reason it's working now (you were throttling the system without it), but...

2. You should be using Autorun for the "Play" event. In this case, the Wait would just bog down the game. Now, Autorun blocks the game flow until it's done, but PlayBGM is a very quick action in the grand scheme of things; you just need a way to tell it that it's done. There are two good ways to do this: 

2a. Use the "Erase Event" command to disable the event entirely until the next time the map is loaded (good if you want to run the event every time you load the map); or...

2b. Set a switch (preferably a Self Switch), make a second page for the event, and make the Condition of the page the switch that you set. Leave the second page blank with an Action Button trigger (good if you only want the event to run once ever). 

As for the randomness, you could absolutely do that. Set a variable to a random value between 1 and 3, and then use a Branch command. Like so:

A demo feels extreme for this. All you need to do is call the LoadBGM command before you need the music - at least a few seconds before! It can be when you enter the previous room or something, that's fine! It can run in the background while something else is going on! Just don't call the PlayBGM command until you've let it load. And... don't use Parallel or Auto events for this. There is a "Common Event..." command, which will run everything in a common event just once. 

In fact, do you really even need a common event for this?

Just to test, I loaded this in a Parallel common event just to see what would happen. No music played at all, and the game crashed after about half a minute. Yeah, I can't say I'm surprised. What surprises me most was that you said it played from the beginning - at all!

When I changed it to a "None" common event, no more crashing, but yeah, desynching. Like I said, you must give the track time to load. If I space out the loading and playing, I get no desynch issues.

All status effects that prevent a character from using the prerequisite skills really ought to block dualtechs already, even with statuses that don't stop them from moving like Silence, but especially with ones that stop them from moving. Is there a bug in this feature?

EDIT: Works fine for me in MV. I'd like to think I wouldn't have overlooked that!

Without testing, my first thought is: don't run this in Parallel. Parallel events must be used with caution, even outside scripts. In a Parallel event, it's re-running the two commands back-to-back constantly.

Furthermore, the load command takes a couple of seconds, so running Play immediately after it (even if not in Parallel) will likely cause desynching weirdness in variable mix play. You should generally load the music before you need it, by at least a few seconds. In another event, if need be.

"Auto" events block the normal game flow from running, so you need to turn off whatever switch activates it at the end of the event. However, I don't think either one is what you're looking for here. It sounds like what you really want to do is just have a "None" trigger common event, and call it with the "Common Event..." command.

If you're still having problems after all of this, let me know.

Dunno what to say. I definitely hear cross-fading when I run it on my computer. Are you using any other plugins that mess with audio? (And you're setting the fade time to something noticeable, right? A fade time of 0 will result in no cross-fading.)

Need more info, because it works fine for me.

Just to be sure, you're using settings like these, right? (The "20" is just for effect; it takes a really long time to switch, so it's probably not a good idea.)

I do most of my development in MV using Yanfly plugins (which I believe are related to VisuStella plugins) but, if an action sequence involves characters 2 and 4, I use explicit references to actors 2 and 4 in the action sequence. I don't use a common event, and I'm not sure such a thing would work well for varying actors.

It's a feature I've considered, but at this point in time, this plugin cannot do that (short of the cross-fading effect, and I know that's not what you mean.)

At present, only BGM. It's kind of a niche scenario, I'd think.

I do have a plugin that does things with BGS (Focused Sound Effects Pro), but not cross-fading, and it looks like I never updated FSEP for MZ. (Man, why did I never do that? I'm too busy today, but maybe I should in the near future.)

1. Basic functionality should be battle-system-agnostic, and I can make an update if it doesn't work (provided I have access to the plugin, at least). However, turn linking (IOWs, having a dualtech consume the turn of all involved actors) is a more complicated matter. I don't know how Visustella's ATB differs from the built-in ATB, but if it is significantly different, then turn linking may not work; heck, for the built-in ATB, it only currently works with one setting. (I have not used Visustella's plugins outside some testing scenarios; my own main game project is MV, not MZ.)

2. No.

2a. A dualtech is its own skill that has to be used manually. Have you played Chrono Trigger? The functionality of dualtechs via this plugin is similar to how it works in Chrono Trigger. In the case of the first tag, it will require actor 1 to be able to use Slash and actor 2 to be able to use Ice, and the component skills determine skill cost handling, but you use the dualtech by directly using the dualtech.

2b.  Do not assign the "Dual" tag to the same skill twice. You might be better off creating two copies of the dualtech instead - one copy for actors 1 and 2, and another for actors 1 and 3.

Safe as far as I know, but I don't typically use them for testing. This plugin does have a specific option for non-OGG files with unusual sample rates, due to a previous request, but as far as I know even base RPG Maker can handle them just fine if they're OGGs.

EDIT: Oh, right, that was YOUR request!

If you're not using Yanfly's battle plugins in MV, or the correct ATB mode in MZ, then linked turns will not work, and the user of the dualtech is the only one whose turn will be used by the dualtech. The standard battle system simply has too many reasons why it's not compatible with linked-turn dualtechs.

The component skill is only used for determining skill cost and accessibility. When you use the dualtech, the component skill will not be used directly at all. The dualtech can also have dramatically different effects from any component skills.

Ohhhhhhh.

Linked turns aren't currently compatible with Wait mode. Sorry about that.

No repro; I saw the bars for both characters empty with a linked dualtech. Granted, I'm not using some of the plugins you have active; let me try those and see what happens. EDIT: Nope, works fine for me.

(The newest version of MZ does not address your issue, since I couldn't actually reproduce your issue at all. It just addresses something I discovered while trying to look into it.)

Lastest version for MZ is 1.2, not 1.0.2. Was that just a typo?

Not sure from here. I'll investigate.

That's exactly what this plugin was originally designed for! Use the "variable" playback option to get that effect. You can use optional fade-in effects when you do it, or just have it instantly switch.

Span: Battle means the event will trigger once per battle, which seems like what you're most likely going for. Span: Turn means it will trigger every single turn. If the boss's HP can rise above the limit and go back to the original battle theme, then perhaps "Turn" is what you want, but I would recommend "Battle" in the general case. ("Moment" should certainly not be used for this, at least not without some tweaks.)

Screenshot uses MZ so it's more obvious what's happening, but it would work the same in MV.

...Okay.

I didn't even get a notification about this topic until you posted your solution, but you do appear to have figured it out, so... I'll just put out that bug fix, I guess. And yes, this plugin is meant to override the regular music commands when you've got a preloaded track, specifically so that you can override things like battle music. I use MV more, so I guess an MZ bug would have flown under my own radar, so sorry about that.

I wonder why I even capitalized it in the first place. My MV plugin has it as playLoadedBgm in all cases. *shrug*

EDIT: Though, looking at it, I found another bug in MZ. Might be a similar bug in MV? I'll look into it.

Huh, I guess either ATB got an update or most of my users haven't used ATB, if there are issues like these. (Truth is, my own project uses CTB.)

One way for a dualtech to have a "unique cost", as you put it, is to have a dualtech be its own "component" for at least one of the actors involved. (Exactly one, if you're using Party Limit Gauge, because it's a shared pool.)

(There are other solutions, but they would require edits to the plugin itself, and they would not be quick fixes.)

I can guess what happened. Maybe not exactly WHY it happened, but what the immediate cause is. Try the update.

I'm not sure why it wouldn't be able to use the Party Limit Gauge - I've heard of others using it - so long as the plugins are in the correct order: everything that modifies skill cost should be above this plugin. But then, I also haven't really tested with it much. (There would be a valid reason why it would not be compatible with multiple party members spending Party Limit in the same dualtech - I have warnings against that very thing! - but one party member spending it should work fine. Also, do remember: the dualtech costs the skill cost of the component techs, not the dualtech itself!)