Hi,
Is there any sort of guide to make 2D NPCs?
I guess i can make a decal... in this case, which programs i need? photoshop it's ok for .dds file i think, but what about .x, .fpe, .bin and dbo files?

thanks for help in advance!

.X are DirectX (9) files.
.fpe are automatically generated when you import a model into GameGuru, or, you can copy and paste an existing .fpe file and edit it with notepad.
Not sure about .bin, I think it's also automatically generated.

You export models as a .X file, then open it up with Animer 2.2 to animate it, then save it as either a .X or .dbo animation file.

I'm actually trying to get my custom weapons and animations working, but I don't know how to get custom guns working.

I'll be honest, I don't think Game Guru would work very well with 2D sprites for enemies, then again it struggles with 3D ones as well

It's a novel idea, but I'm not sure how practical it would be. If you can set the anim ranges up in the FPE and write a script to control them, I imagine you may well get something working. Not the easiest task, but possible, with a bit of work. It would some time and trouble to test if this was possible, or not. At a basic level at the very least, I imagine it is quite possible. Just not easy. I've never made an animated decal and so, am not 100% of course.

Animer will not help for a 2D animation by the way, that is only for 3D models. Making 2D sprites into enemies would require a fair bit of scripting to get working. Also, a lot of animations

Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Paint. All would suffice to make the art. It's up to you which you use I just wish Deluxe Paint still existed and had a decent PC version. Ah well, not to be

thanks guys!
2D npc aren't intended to be "active": i just need something good enough to work as npc. It will never moves, it will only prompt text to tell a story.

obviously i need "them" graphically identic to me and my friends
that's why i choose sprites: simple to create (just 16/64 pics in sequence) and to manage

changing a decal is really easy, just copy paste an existing one and then change the texture (and update the references in the fpe to suit the new names)

hmm this is an interesting idea. You may have to disable the physics for it though to work properly. I may give this a try sometime.

Here is a 2D NPC test. You can make him always face the player. Much like games like Doom, Daggerfall and Elder Scrolls Arena.

Its very easy to add interactive dialogue via pressing the E key with him to continue his conversations. Even make him give you quests for fetching items, buy, sell and trade. However I'm not very skilled with LUA so I cannot create an interface for dialogue or even know how to make it so the player can choose different options. GG is very severally limited at the moment in terms of scripting so there is only so much you can do.

You can easily make him move. However to animate him , im not sure how to make LUA affect the effects given. To tell it which frame in the animation to choose from. And by animation I mean within the decal.

Rather than using 3D software you have to get pretty comfortable using sprite editors for this to work. You can reference the other decals in GG or FPSCx9 to see how they are set up. Basically you have a single DDS file with all your frames for your character in it. Like a spread sheet. How on earth you make GG choose which frame to load based on interaction I have no idea. It is however easy to make an NPC animate on a loop.

In terms of making dialogue... Its depressing trying to do something SO simple in GG... is always a headache or impossible. Guess we'll have to wait (more) and see what more developments come in the future to make things like this easier or even possible to do. I currently do not know how to make it so you can choose between options in a dialogue box. For now all I know is how to make it so you can press E in order to advance his dialogue.

There are ways to make his pixels more sharp and less blurry. This is mainly a test.

Here is the FPE: