Lazy Sprite Auto Positioner in Ren'Py

So you know when you have to place the sprites using at left, at right or at center which immediately stops working when you have more than 3 characters?

And then you have to come up with a bunch of new transforms like left2 or rightish which don't always work perfectly because the spacing has to change depending on how many characters are on the screen at once and if there's an even or odd number of them...

You just want the sprites to be spaced out sensibly!

 

MIT License is included in the file, and must be kept in there. Credit back to this page is appreciated.

 

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I recommend watching the video that shows the instructions.

 

How to install

1. Put the file in your game folder
2. Enter your sprite names into the list at the top of the file
3. Adjust the other settings as you see fit

 

How to use

Whenever you write something like show sayori in your script, the sprite will automatically place itself somewhere sensible on the screen.

Basically, a transform called auto will automatically apply itself to every sprite you added to the list earlier.

show sayori
 
"I'm Sayori!"
 
show monika
 
"We're automatically placed."

If you wanted to override it for a specific scene, any other transform will do it.

show sayori at x(0.2)
 
"I'm Sayori on the left!"

  

Compatibility

There is a fancy transform called auto which figures out the xcenter values for each sprite depending on who's on the screen. It also sets yalign to 1.0, offset, and zoom values according to the settings at the top.

This transform is automatically applied to each sprite you put in the list by assigning config.tag_transform. If you also plan on using this config variable, please append to the at_list associated with your character's tag or you might accidentally override the assignment. The file you download starts with 01, so it should happen before anything you do.

init python:
    # Either of these are fine.
    config.tag_transform["sayori"].append(your_transform)
    config.tag_transform["sayori"].extend([t1, t2, ...])
    
    # Do NOT override the assignment.
    config.tag_transform["sayori"] = a_transform

 

Due to the nature of how this tool changes the scripting workflow, I recommend only using it on new projects rather than trying to retroactively fit it into existing ones.

If you have to delete the file for some reason, it is safe to do so (no crashing or trash left behind) but since it no longer automatically positions your sprites, your sprites will default to center and overlap on top of each other so you will have to manually place them like before.

 

 

 

If you have any questions that don't have a quick answer, please join the DevTalk Discord and ask in the Renpy channel.