Show Character doesn't work in screens?

[olddog]

Hi!

I'm starting with Ren'Py and getting into a bit. I've got a basic world set up with a map and rooms (placeholder image since I'm not an artist) and am now going through to start working on dialogue.

At the start of my game, I show characters chatting back and forth.

To handle the rooms, I show screens that contain the background, imagebuttons and imagemaps. And then I start a ui.interact loop to wait for the user to do something. I'm not sure if this is the proper way these days but I found the code for it and it's working.

However, after loading one of the rooms. "show <character>" no longer seems to work. So "show mary happy at right" does nothing, for example. The same command works fine before I start doing anything with screens (in the intro) but after that, it fails.

Help, please!

[Donmai]

You can not use the "show displayable" statement inside a screen, but you can use "add".
https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/screens.html#add

[olddog]

Is it not normal to use screens for rooms and such during a game? I thought that's how it was done due to the imagemap and imagebutton usage?

Also, is there a way to remove an image manually once added via "Add"?

[envixer]

The way I do it is to use the scene command for the background, and then show screen for the UI, and show for the character.

Code: Select all

scene livingroom # Needs an image defined, or an image file called livingroom.
show screen calendar # Or whatever screen name you're using
show character

You can then use shows and hides to your heart's content.

[Imperf3kt]

Is it not normal to use screens for rooms and such during a game? I thought that's how it was done due to the imagemap and imagebutton usage?

Also, is there a way to remove an image manually once added via "Add"?

You could do this a few ways, but I think the best approach is to use a variable to set whether the image shows, and change it within your script.
Then in the screen, the image shows orhides depending on the variable.

[olddog]

Is it better to use screens/Add to show characters or better to use envixer's recommendation to get the actual official "show" function working? I'm still at a point where I can make changes to the code and placeholders I'm using but I really don't want to get too far and have to overhaul everything.

I'd just like to try and nail down the recommended method.

Also, if I go envixer's route, how do I get characters (shown with the "show" command) to appear in front of imagebuttons?

[envixer]

You might want to have a look at how layers work: https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/displaying_images.html

Usually, I just make sure my UI elements don't block the area where my characters will appear, but that's just me looking for an easy life. In the rare occasion where I need a character to appear above the buttons, I use a custom layer between screens and overlay (More info in the link above).