Create Your Own Characters

If you've ever wanted to create your own charsets for RM2K/3, but (like me) are not an artist, there are several resources available for doing just that. These are the best ones I've found:

• Chara.EX - This is probably the best known site in the RM2K/3 community. Not only can you design characters online and save them onto your hard drive, you can also download an offline version too. Creating charsets with either method is quick, easy and fun.
• Character Maker 1999 - With this neat program, you can edit any resource for RM2K/3, including adding status effects (if you know about transparencies). This program can also be used for producing resources for RMXP and RMVX.

Other programs that are useful for creating resources are:

• Irfanview - This program is useful for cropping images and correcting transparency issues. In some games, it is possible to take snapshots, pasting and cropping them in Irfanview, then copying the cropped image and pasting the result in Character Maker 1999 to be further modified.
• Paint Shop Pro - Now owned by Corel, Paint Shop Pro is the editor to use for more complex designs, but I'd recommend using version 7.04 (if you can find it) rather than the latest version, as it is cumbersome and unnecessarily complex. I usually use this program to design the Title and Game Over screens, then use Irfanview for final size modification.