The defining aspect of a visual novel, lending its name to the form, are the visuals. Ren'Py contains four statements that control the display of images, and a model that determines the order in which the images are displayed. This makes it convenient to display images in a manner that is suitable for use in visual novels and other storytelling games.
The four statements that work with images are:
image
- defines a new image.show
- shows an image on a layer.scene
- clears a layer, and optionally shows an image on that layer.hide
- removes an image from a layer.As abrupt changes of image can be disconcerting to the user, Ren'Py
has the with
statement, which allows effects to be applied
when the scene is changed.
Most (if not all) of the statements listed in this page are checked by Lint, which is not the case for their python equivalents.
An image is something that can be show to the screen using the show statement. An image consists of a name and a displayable. When the image is shown on a layer, the displayable associated with it is displayed on that layer.
An image name consists of one or more names, separated by spaces. The first component of the image name is called the image tag. The second and later components of the name are the image attributes.
For example, take the image name mary beach night happy
. The image
tag is mary
, while the image attributes are beach
, night
,
and happy
.
A displayable is something that can be shown on the screen. The most common thing to show is a static image, which can be specified by giving the filename of the image, as a string. In the example above, we might use "mary_beach_night_happy.png" as the filename. However, an image may refer to any displayable Ren'Py supports, not just static images. Thus, the same statements that are used to display images can also be used for animations, solid colors, and the other types of displayables.
A layer is a list of displayables that are shown on the screen. Ren'Py
supports multiple layers, including user-defined layers. The order of
the layers is fixed within a game (controlled by the
config.layers
variable), while the order of displayables within
a layer is controlled by the order in which the scene and show
statements are called, and the properties given to those statements.
The following layers are defined as part of Ren'Py:
Additional layers can be defined by updating config.layers
, and
the various other layer-related config variables. Using
renpy.show_layer_at()
, one or more transforms can be applied to
a layer.
There are two ways to define images. You can either place an image file in the image directory, or an image can be defined using the image statement. The former is simple, as it involves placing properly named files in a directory, while the latter a allows more control over how the image is defined, and allows images that are not image files.
Images defined using the image statement take precedence over those defined by the image directory.
The image directory is named "images", and is placed under the game directory. When a file with the .jpg or .png extension is placed underneath this directory, the extension is stripped, the rest of the filename is forced to lowercase, and the resulting filename is used as the image name if an image with that name has not been previously defined.
This process takes place in all directories underneath the image directory. For
example, all of these files will define the image eileen happy
:
game/images/eileen happy.png
game/images/Eileen Happy.jpg
game/images/eileen/eileen happy.png
The image
statement is used to define an image. An image statement
consists of a single logical line beginning with the keyword image
,
followed by an image name, an equals sign =
, and a
displayable. For example:
image eileen happy = "eileen_happy.png"
image black = "#000"
image bg tiled = Tile("tile.jpg")
image eileen happy question = VBox(
"question.png",
"eileen_happy.png",
)
When an image is not directly in the game directory, you'll need to give the directories underneath it. For example, if the image is in game/eileen/happy.png, then you can write:
image eileen happy = "eileen/happy.png"
The image statement is run at init time, before the menus are shown
or the start label runs. When not contained inside an init
block,
image statements are run as if they were placed inside an init
block of
priority 500.
See also the ATL variant of the image statement.
The show
statement is used to display an image on a layer. A show
statement consists of a single logical line beginning with the
keyword show
, followed by an image name, followed by zero or
more properties.
If the show statement is given the exact name of an existing image, that image is the one that is shown. Otherwise, Ren'Py will attempt to find a unique image that:
If a unique image cannot be found, an exception occurs.
If an image with the same image tag is already showing on the layer,
the new image replaces it. Otherwise, the image is placed above all
other images in the layer. (That is, closest to the user.) This order
may be modified by the zorder
and behind
properties.
The show statement does not cause an interaction to occur. For the image to actually be displayed to the user, a statement that causes an interaction (like the say, menu, pause, and with statements) must be run.
The show statement takes the following properties:
as
as
property takes a name. This name is used in place of the
image tag when the image is shown. This allows the same image
to be on the screen twice.at
The at
property takes one or more comma-separated
simple expressions. Each expression must evaluate to a
transform. The transforms are applied to the image in
left-to-right order.
If no at clause is given, Ren'Py will retain any existing
transform that has been applied to the image, if they were
created with ATL or with Transform
. If no transform
is specified, the image will be displayed using the default
transform.
See the section on replacing transforms for information about how replacing the transforms associated with a tag can change the transform properties.
behind
onlayer
zorder
Assuming we have the following images defined:
image mary night happy = "mary_night_happy.png"
image mary night sad = "mary_night_sad.png"
image moon = "moon.png"
Some example show statements are:
# Basic show.
show mary night sad
# Since 'mary night sad' is showing, the following statement is
# equivalent to:
# show mary night happy
show mary happy
# Show an image on the right side of the screen.
show mary night happy at right
# Show the same image twice.
show mary night sad as mary2 at left
# Show an image behind another.
show moon behind mary, mary2
# Show an image on a user-defined layer.
show moon onlayer user_layer
As shown above, attributes can be set, added and replaced.
They can also be removed using the minus sign:
# show susan being neutral
show susan
# show susan being happy
show susan happy
# show susan being neutral again
show susan -happy
A variant of the show statement replaces the image name with the
keyword expression
, followed by a simple expression. The
expression must evaluate to a displayable, and the displayable
is shown on the layer. To hide the displayable, a tag must be
given with the as statement.
For example:
show expression "moon.png" as moon
The show layer
statement is discussed alongside the camera statement,
below.
The scene
statement removes all displayables from a layer, and then
shows an image on that layer. It consists of the keyword scene
,
followed by an image name, followed by zero or more properties. The
image is shown in the same way as in the show statement, and the scene
statement takes the same properties as the show statement.
The scene statement is often used to show an image on the background layer. For example:
scene bg beach
Scene Expression. Like the show statement, the scene statement can take expressions instead of image names.
Clearing a layer. When the image name is omitted entirely, the scene statement clears all displayables from a layer without showing another displayable.
The hide
statement removes an image from a layer. It consists of the
keyword hide
, followed by an image name, followed by an optional
property. The hide statement takes the image tag from the image name,
and then hides any image on the layer with that tag.
Hide statements are rarely necessary. If a sprite represents a character, then a hide statement is only necessary when the character leaves the scene. When the character changes her emotion, it is preferable to use the show statement instead, as the show statement will automatically replace an image with the same tag.
The hide statement takes the following property:
onlayer
For example:
e "I'm out of here."
hide eileen
You should never write:
hide eileen
show eileen happy
Instead, just write:
show eileen happy
The with
statement is used to apply a transition effect when the scene
is changed, making showing and hiding images less abrupt. The with
statement consists of the keyword with
, followed by a simple
expression that evaluates either to a transition object or the special
value None
.
The transition effect is applied between the contents of the screen at the end of the previous interaction (with transient screens and displayables hidden), and the current contents of the scene, after the show and hide statements have executed.
The with statement causes an interaction to occur. The duration of this interaction is controlled by the user, and the user can cause it to terminate early.
For a full list of transitions that can be used, see the chapter on transitions.
An example of the with statement is:
show bg washington
with dissolve
show eileen happy at left
show lucy mad at right
with dissolve
This causes two transitions to occur. The first with statement uses
the dissolve
transition to change the screen from what was
previously shown to the washington background. (The dissolve
transition is, by default, defined as a .5 second dissolve.)
The second transition occurs after the Eileen and Lucy images are shown. It causes a dissolve from the scene consisting solely of the background to the scene consisting of all three images – the result is that the two new images appear to dissolve in simultaneously.
In the above example, there are two dissolves. But what if we wanted the background to appear instantly, followed by a dissolve of the two characters? Simply omitting the first with statement would cause all three images to dissolve in – we need a way to say that the first should be show instantly.
The with statement changes behavior when given the special value
None
. The with None
statement causes an abbreviated
interaction to occur, without changing what the user sees. When the
next transition occurs, it will start from the scene as it appears at
the end of this abbreviated interaction.
For example, in:
show bg washington
with None
show eileen happy at left
show lucy mad at right
with dissolve
Only a single transition occurs, from the washington background to the scene consisting of all three images.
The show, scene, and hide statements can take an optional with
clause,
which allows a transition to be combined with showing or hiding an
image. This clause follows the statements at the end of the same
logical line. It begins with the keyword with
, followed by a
simple expression.
The with clause is equivalent to preceding the line with a with
None
statement, and following it by a with statement containing the
text of the with clause. For example:
show eileen happy at left with dissolve
show lucy mad at right with dissolve
is equivalent to:
with None
show eileen happy at left
with dissolve
with None
show lucy mad at right
with dissolve
The camera
statement allows one to apply a transform or ATL transform to an
entire layer (such as "master"), using syntax like:
camera at flip
or:
camera:
xalign 0.5 yalign 0.5 rotate 180
To stop applying transforms to the layer, use:
camera
The camera statement takes an optional layer name, between camera
and
at
or :
.
camera mylayer at flip
The show layer
statement is an older version of camera
, with some
differences, that is still useful.
show layer master:
blur 10
The differences are:
show layer
are cleared at the
next scene
statement, while camera
transforms last until
explicitly cleared.show layer
requires a layer name, while camera
defaults to the
master layer.The window
statement is used to control if a window is shown when a character
is not speaking (for example, during transitions and pauses). The window show
statement causes the window to be shown, while the window hide
statement hides
the window.
If the optional transition is given, it's used to show and hide the window.
If not given, it defaults to config.window_show_transition
and
config.window_hide_transition
. Giving None as the transition prevents
it from occurring.
The window itself is displayed by calling config.empty_window
. It defaults to
having the narrator say an empty string.
show bg washington
show eileen happy
with dissolve
window show dissolve
"I can say stuff..."
show eileen happy at right
with move
"... and move, while keeping the window shown."
window hide dissolve
renpy.
can_show
(name, layer=None, tag=None) linkDetermines if name can be used to show an image. This interprets name as a tag and attributes. This is combined with the attributes of the currently-showing image with tag on layer to try to determine a unique image to show. If a unique image can be show, returns the name of that image as a tuple. Otherwise, returns None.
renpy.
change_zorder
(layer, tag, zorder) linkChanges the zorder of tag on layer to zorder.
renpy.
check_image_attributes
(tag, attributes) linkChecks to see if there is a unique image with the given tag and attributes. If there is, returns the attributes in order. Otherwise, returns None.
renpy.
copy_images
(old, new) linkCopies images beginning with one prefix to images beginning with another. For example:
renpy.copy_images("eileen", "eileen2")
will create an image beginning with "eileen2" for every image beginning with "eileen". If "eileen happy" exists, "eileen2 happy" will be created.
renpy.
get_attributes
(tag, layer=None, if_hidden=None) linkReturn a tuple giving the image attributes for the image tag. If the image tag has not had any attributes associated since the last time it was hidden, returns if_hidden.
Returns a list of image tags that have been defined.
Returns the set of image tags on layer that are currently hidden, but still have attribute information associated with them.
renpy.
get_image_bounds
(tag, width=None, height=None, layer=None) linkIf an image with tag exists on layer, returns the bounding box of that image. Returns None if the image is not found.
The bounding box is an (x, y, width, height) tuple. The components of the tuples are expressed in pixels, and may be floating point numbers.
renpy.
get_ordered_image_attributes
(tag, attributes=(), sort=None) linkReturns a list of image attributes, ordered in a way that makes sense to present to the user.
renpy.
get_placement
(d) linkThis gets the placement of displayable d. There's very little warranty on this information, as it might change when the displayable is rendered, and might not exist until the displayable is first rendered.
This returns an object with the following fields, each corresponding to a style property:
renpy.
get_registered_image
(name) linkIf an image with the same name has been registered, returns it. Otherwise, returns None.
renpy.
get_say_image_tag
() linkReturns the tag corresponding to the currently speaking character (the image argument given to that character). Returns None if no character is speaking or the current speaking character does not have a corresponding image tag.
Returns the set of image tags that are currently being shown on layer. If sort is true, returns a list of the tags from back to front.
renpy.
get_zorder_list
(layer) linkReturns a list of (tag, zorder) pairs for layer.
renpy.
has_image
(name, exact=False) linkReturn true if an image with name exists, and false if no such image exists.
renpy.
list_images
() linkReturns a list of images that have been added to Ren'Py, as a list of strings with spaces between the name components.
renpy.
mark_image_seen
(name) linkMarks the named image as if it has been already displayed on the current user's system.
renpy.
mark_image_unseen
(name) linkMarks the named image as if it has not been displayed on the current user's system yet.
renpy.
seen_image
(name) linkReturns True if the named image has been seen at least once on the user's
system. An image has been seen if it's been displayed using the show statement,
scene statement, or renpy.show()
function. (Note that there are cases
where the user won't actually see the image, like a show immediately followed by
a hide.)
renpy.
showing
(name, layer=None) linkReturns true if an image with the same tag as name is showing on layer.
renpy.
start_predict
(*args) linkThis function takes one or more displayables as arguments. It causes
Ren'Py to predict those displayables during every interaction until
the displayables are removed by renpy.stop_predict()
.
If a displayable name is a string containing one or more * characters, the asterisks are used as a wildcard pattern. If there is at least one . in the string, the pattern is matched against filenames, otherwise it is matched against image names.
For example:
$ renpy.start_predict("eileen *")
starts predicting all images with the name eileen, while:
$ renpy.start_predict("images/concert*.*")
matches all files starting with concert in the images directory.
Prediction will occur during normal gameplay. To wait for prediction
to complete, use the predict argument to renpy.pause()
.
renpy.
stop_predict
(*args) linkThis function takes one or more displayables as arguments. It causes Ren'Py to stop predicting those displayables during every interaction.
Wildcard patterns can be used as described in renpy.start_predict()
.
Statement Equivalents : how to use most of the features described here in a python context.
Displayables : other objects to display, more diverse than basic images.