Character animations for stationary objects.
Okay then. Since the poll was inconclusive (three-way tie) I guess I'll just alternate between things.
I'll start with a mini-clarification on event animations since that's sort of two categories at once (graphics and events).
So we know from making a character with the character generator that all character sprites animate a certain way...
by Stepping and by Turning.
That is to say that the columns represent the character's stepping animations. When on a character like our vampire, this means it'll animate so the character will put a foot forward (a) when moving from one tile to the next, display the standing animation frame (b) when on a tile, and put the other foot forward (c) when taking the next step. The pattern repeats itself each time the character moves: B-A-B-C-B-A-B-C.
This is also how certain stationary events animate in place.
If you go through the "Characters" that come with RPG Maker, you'll notice some of them, such as the example below (!Other2 under characters)...
... appear to not quite fit the typical three column/four row format at first glance. For example, the smoke plumes that make up the 7th "character" in this set.
That's because they're meant to be stationary objects that move by "stepping" only.
You can place character events like this on the map as decoration to liven things up with motion. Select "Stepping" and even though the event is stationary on the map it will cycle through the a-b-c-b-a frames of animation to appear in motion.
If this smoke plume character "turned" it would cycle through the white, brown, bluish, and fiery smoke plumes, so you also want to turn on "Direction Fix" in any cases where the player might touch the event and cause it to turn to face a new direction (though it's a good practice to just select it for a stationary event even if there's no way for the player to touch it).
This Stepping event animation is used for flickering candle flames, the splash at the bottom of waterfalls, and any other number of three-frame animations you might want on a still object. If you want to make your own graphics for any such events just remember that you can make up to four different (same-sized) events in one sheet this way. They'll animate across the three columns without whatever is in the row above or below them ever showing up if you use stepping/direction fix to just let them do their thing.
Turning works the same way with the four rows.
Most often used for doors, chests, and switches, the turning animation tends to be used when the player interacts with a stationary object.
For events like this, "stepping" would cycle through three different door images which isn't what you would typically want. Instead when the player interacts with them you want to set the move route of the event to turn different directions. Even though the graphic shows a door opening, the game reads each graphic as a turning animation the same way it reads the humanoid characters. A closed door is "turned" up. "Turning" that door to the left changes the graphic to slightly open. Another "turn" to the right causes the game to display the door as more open. Finally being "turned down" shows it fully open.
For something like a door you'd probably want to have the event set to being triggered by the player touching it. For a chest you'd want the player pressing the action button.
You can technically have it sit idle and cycle through the turning animations with a custom move route under autonomous movement as well - something like the geyser/lava plume in the character set I got the smoke from might use both stepping and turning to animate while otherwise staying decoratively in place on a map.
Direction fix is your friend for making sure items like chests and switches don't animate in unwanted ways, too. You can turn it on and off as part of the Set Move Route options.
When making animated background objects just remember:
Across columns - animates by stepping.
Up and down the rows - animates by turning.
One last thing: You may notice that the "characters" used in this example have a ! before their names. This tells the game to put them directly on the ground as objects/items. Otherwise they'll be treated like a normal character and be placed a few pixels up from the edge of a tile to look more naturally like they're standing on it.
! = the letter I = Item is how I remember it.
You can also combine the dollar sign for single characters with the exclamation point for items, such as with the large gate that comes with RMXP.
If you do the ! comes before the $.
