RPG Game Maker Resources

Custom window skins in RPG Maker VX!

Ever wanted to figure out how the custom window skins work in RPG Maker VX? Well now you can!

Alright, so many of you may be wondering exactly how can you create a custom window skin? Well, it gets really easy once you know what you are doing so here’s a quick guide to get you understanding!

First, your windowskin would need to be sized to 128 x 128 pixels. To get the best quality from them you’ll want a 32-bit PNG format.

You’ll need to use a graphic editing program to do this. You could use MS Paint or paint.NET. Both are free programs.

Or if you have it, you could use Adobe PhotoShop ! The choice is up to you.

After doing this you are ready for the next step.

Of course, this is for RPG Maker VX and RPG Maker VX Game Projects only. You won’t be able to do this with RPG Maker XP nor RPG Maker 2003/200o because they use different window skins.

If you meet the requirements you are ready to proceed.

The Steps

To be able to create a successful Custom Window Skin using correct colours, you’ll need to learn the 6 letters. Once you learn these, you’ll be able to create your own Custom Window Skin for RPG Maker VX Games in no time!

RPG Maker VX Game Project Custom Window Skin Large

Letter A. Window Background

This part would be 64 x 64 pixiels. You’ll be putting this in the top left section of your window skin. You’ll want to use solid colours for this. To get the best effects out of it, try experimenting with gradients and other patterns. E.g. You could try putting star shades onto it and see how that turns out. Be creative and have fun!

Letter B. Window Frame – Effects on the Background

I love this part! You would want this part to be 64 x 64 pixiels and put it at the bottom left corner. It will put effects over your background. You could put any pattern you wish on this and see how it looks. E.g. this default windowksin will put lines over the background giving the message a better overall effect. So it works like another image onto the background.

Letter C. Window Frame & Scrolling Arrows

Alright. The tricky part. You’ll need the corners to be 16 x 16 pixiels yet keeping the frame size at a width of 16 to give it that curvy effect. This would cover the border of the windowskin. The inside would cover the arrows shown when the window is scrolling up, down, left or right in-game. I usually leave this alone and just change the colours, but you can try to customise it and change the arrow shapes. You never know you might make something really special!

Letter D. The Flashing Border

This would be the thing that shows a flashing border on your window skin in-game. It flashes whatever you are selecting. If you have not noticed this before, open up a VX game and look at your menu. You’ll notice whatever you’ve selected is flashing. Again I usually leave this, but if you want you can customize to fit you.

Letter E. Arrow Boxes

These arrows are the arrows that animate moving upwards and downwards right in the centre bottom of the windowksin each time you are reading a piece of text. My recommendation would be to make these arrows the same at the ones in Letter C. But again it’s all up to you.

Letter F. Colour Message System

Ah….finally! The final letter. These will show you the 36 colours used in your RPG Maker VX Game Project. The first colour would be the default colour. To change the text colour in game you’d use the “c[colournumberhere]” command. More detail of this will appear on the blog in the future. You can change these colours to what you want, but I highly recommend leaving them as they are. =)