Actor Slots

Actor slots display characters in VN-style scenes with positioning, animations, and transitions.

How It Works

Features

Actor slots support:

Adding/Removing Actors

Using Actions

Example - Two characters talking:

{actor: "alice->left(enter=fadeSlideRight), bob->right(enter=fadeSlideLeft)"}

Example - Character leaves:

{actor: "!alice"}

Example - Move character to different slot:

{actor: "alice->center"}

If a character is already in the scene, using my_character->other_slot moves them smoothly to the new position.

Slot Templates

Create reusable slot positions in Characters > Actor Slots.

Common slot setup:

Templates define default values. Inline properties override template values.

Transitions

Enter Transitions

Exit Transitions

Same types available with directional variants (e.g., slideOutLeft, fadeSlideDown).

Easing Options

linear, power1, power2, power3, power4, back, elastic, bounce, circ, expo, sine

Idle Animations

Continuous looping animations while the character is displayed.

Switching idles eases through the rest pose instead of snapping, so a slumped actor sinks down and rises back up.

Example - Floating character:

{actor: "ghost->center(idle=float, idle_intensity=0.8)"}

A character's own idle

Give a character the idle trait and it plays that loop wherever it is staged – set float once on a bat, a ghost or a winged girl and every staging line lifts it, with no idle= on the line:

{actor: "bat1->pos6"}            // floats: its idle trait is float
{actor: "bat1->pos6(idle=none)"} // stands still this time

So a cancel sticks: idle=none on one line stays through later moves that set no idle. The trait's loop varies its length a little per actor, so several of them don't bob in step. Battle plugins may read the same trait – rpg_battler uses it for a battle slot that has no battle_idle.

One-Shot Animations

Play once, then the actor returns to rest; the idle loop keeps running underneath. One-shots are events, not state: they are never saved, and loading a save never replays them.

lunge and recoil read the actor's side of the stage, so the same word points the right way on either side. intensity (default 1) and duration (seconds) tune any of them.

{actor: "chimera->right(anim=lunge)"}               // stage and lunge once she has entered
{actor: "chimera(anim=lunge)"}                      // an actor already on stage
{animate: "chimera lunge, mc recoil(intensity=1.3)"} // several at once

Events

Actors use the same character visual template as Character Sheet and Character Face. The character_render event applies to all contexts where a character is displayed.

Use character_render to dynamically modify character.renderedLayers before display.

Quick Reference

Next Steps

• Overview - Character system basics
• Assets - Background assets for scenes