RenPy: Defining Characters
One of the first things RenPy does upon initialization (the boot-up period before the start label executes the game) is read your custom-made character strings to determine what character dialogue will look like.
Although defining usually takes place under the init block, I've chosen to make a separate pre-start label for organization purposes. Really, any time is fine as long as you make sure the pre-start label runs before the game actually executes, or else you're going to encounter errors.
Let's take a look at the code piece by piece.
$ a = Person(Character("Arthur", who_color="#F4DFB8", who_outlines=[( 3, "#2B0800", 0, 2 )], what_outlines=[( 3, "#2B0800", 0, 2 )], what_color="#F4DFB8", who_font="riseofkingdom.ttf", what_font="junicode.ttf", ctc="ctc", ctc_position="fixed", what_prefix='"', what_suffix='"'), "Arthur", "images/arthurtemp1.png")
$ is a common symbol used by both Python and RenPy to define custom-made variables. Here in the pre-start label section of our script, we're using it to define our characters.
For the sake of propriety, it's probably better to define characters using define, but for ease of use, I've chosen $ instead.
It would be tiresome to have to write "Arthur" every time I wanted to call him in the script. Luckily, by assigning these parameters before initialization, RenPy will read "a" as Arthur.
Most scripts will suffice with assigning a Character object class to your character. If you open the script for The Tutorial, you'll find a basic string that looks like this:
$ e = Character("Eileen")
As you can see in my batch of code, however, I've done something different by nestling the Character object class within a Person object class. The reason why will become apparent in future posts.
For now, let's focus on the fundamentals.
who_color tells RenPy the color of the character's name, determined by a hexadecimal code (either three, four, or six digits). Its sister parameter what_color tells RenPy the color of a character's dialogue text.
If no values are given for these parameters, RenPy will look at your project's GUI file to determine them.
who_font tells RenPy the kind of font you want to use for your character's name, and likewise, what_font determines the font you want to use for your character's dialogue.
Note that these fonts do not have to match. They can be whatever font you wish.
The size of character names and dialogue text can be customized in the GUI file of your project:
who_outlines=[( 3, "#2B0800", 0, 2 )], what_outlines=[( 3, "#2B0800", 0, 2 )]
who_outlines and what_outlines add outlines or drop shadows to your text (character name and character dialogue, respectively). This string is expressed as a tuple, or four values enclosed by parentheses.
The first value expresses the width of the shadow in pixels.
The second value is a hexadecimal value for your chosen color.
The third value offsets the shadow along the X-axis (pixels to the right or left of the text). Because it's set to 0, my drop shadows do not appear to the right or the left of the text.
The fourth value offsets the shadow along the Y-axis (pixels beneath/above the text). In this case, shadows appear 2 pixels beneath the text.
My outlines are a bit hard to see because they're only 3 pixels wide and 2 pixels offset.
Font files
RenPy recognizes TrueType font files. You can download TTF fonts for free online - just be sure to unzip them and put them in your game folder.
If you intend to monetize your project, you absolutely need to make certain your fonts are royalty-free or, ideally, public domain. Most font families come with licenses telling you whether they are free use.
To be on the safe side, I would put the following code before the start label in your script, just so RenPy knows which files to look for:
define config.preload_fonts = ["fontname1.ttf", "fontname2.ttf", "fontname3.ttf"]
ctc stands for "click to continue." It's a small icon commonly seen in visual novels, usually in one corner of the text box, that indicates the player has reached the end of a line. It's called "click to continue" because the program waits for the reader to interact to continue.
To make a custom ctc icon, make a small drawing in an art program and save the image to your GUI folder. As seen above, I'm using a tiny moon as the ctc in my current project.
ctc_position="fixed" means the ctc icon will stay rooted in whatever place you specify in the code. Like with most everything else in RenPy, you can apply transforms to the ctc if you so wish.
Fun fact: because the ctc is determined on a character-by-character basis in initialization, you can give different characters custom ctcs!
what_prefix="" and what_suffix="" add scare quotes to the beginning and end of a character's dialogue.
One thing you'll notice as you work with RenPy is that "the computer is stupid." That is to say, the program will not execute code you don't explicitly spell out. Things which seem intuitive and a given to us are not interpreted by the program unless you write them into the code.
That is why, in this case, you need to specify both prefix and suffix, otherwise RenPy may begin lines of dialogue with " but not end with ", or vice-versa.
Note that unless you apply these parameters to the narrator character, ADV and NVL narration will not have them.
** Note: the next two tags following these ones are extraneous and therefore ignored.
