As kinda the opposite of onebulb's comment below, for my use case I needed the sprites to transition between being tinted when speaking but left fully untouched at baseline. My modification ended up looking like the following:

if is_talking: # Apply the talking transformation    trans.matrixcolor = SaturationMatrix(1.0 + (curr_ease * sat_change)) * BrightnessMatrix(0 + curr_ease * bright_change)  else:           # Apply the not-talking transformation         trans.matrixcolor = SaturationMatrix(1.0 + ((1 - curr_ease) * sat_change)) * BrightnessMatrix((1 - curr_ease) * bright_change)

Thanks for making this - I customized it for my WIP to make the non-speaking sprites simply "shadowed". This is what I use:

if is_talking: # Apply the talking transformation    trans.matrixcolor = IdentityMatrix()else:          # Apply the not-talking transformation    trans.matrixcolor = TintMatrix("#646464") * SaturationMatrix(1.0)

Fantastic tool. We're using it in out game (Sips and Sonnets) and it's working like magic. Thank you for doing this! 

Hello! First off, thank you so much for this. It's a really neat effect, and I appreciate all the work you did on it.

For the most part, it seems very easy and straightforward. However, I have a few characters who have player-defined sprites. Right now I am handling this with DynamicImage statements.

For example:

image mc base = DynamicImage("images/sprites/mc/mc[avatar].png")

image mc sad = DynamicImage("images/sprites/mc/mc[avatar]_sad.png")

etc

In part 2 of the setup where you demonstrate how to set up the sprites, your image statements rely on the At() statement. Is there a way to make this compatible with DynamicImage, or is that a no go? Right now I don't have the sprites set up as layered, but I could switch to that if that helps in some way.

Thank you for the wonderful tool as always, Wattson! great work. :)

hey wattson!! fantastic tool!

currently working on a project for my thesis, and i'm struggling to understand what went wrong haha

the auto highlight will work for only the prologue, but when i continue adding in the sprites for other chapters, it just stops working (it'll show the sprite but the sprite highlight just doesn't seem to want to work). i've followed the steps you wrote out but maybe i did something wrong...

any ideas of how i can try to fix it? thank you!

Is there a way to get this working with novel mode?

When you define a novel mode narrator, it doesn't support callback arguments, so sprites don't reset to being un-highlighted when narration hits.

Thank you for the plugin, it has helped make our game a whole lot better!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3250420/Talewarden_Riders_of_the_New_Day/

Hi there! I am still having issues figuring this out despite watching youtube videos and the tutorial. I sent you a message on Discord. I'm pretty sure it's something I did wrong.

Nice work! Is there a way to highlight all of the characters in scene?

Hi Wattson, thanks for the content!

I have a question with making a callback to a character when the player has input their own name. I've been trying a few things but nothing is working. Any ideas what I need to put instead of the %(P)s  ? Thanks anyone in advance.

This is my code:  

(WORKING FINE)define t = Character('Topaz', image='i_topaz.png', color="#d2be0a", callback=name_callback, cb_name='t')image i_topaz =At('i_topaz.png', sprite_highlight('t'))

(NOT WORKING DUE TO NOT RECONGNISING INPUT NAME.)
define P = Character('%(P)s', image='i_mc1l.png', color="#e712b2", callback=name_callback, cb_name='%(P)s')image i_mc1l =At('i_mc1l.png', sprite_highlight('%(P)s'))

This is super helpful and works great.
I have a question though, is it possible to manually highlight a character?
Like, if a character is not speaking, but the narrator is describing their action, such as "Then CHARACTER laughed out loud." I want CHARACTER to be highlighted.

Hello! I was wondering if there was a way to adjust a sprite's zoom levels globally, while also using this plugin. I don't mean the zoom_change, but rather a zoom for the sprite overall. For example, I have the following code:

transform small:     zoom 0.8

And I can apply that to any of the character sprites to make them a little smaller. However, once I enable the auto-highlight effect on a character as follows, the zoom stops working and the sprite reverts to it's original size.

show h stunned:    small             function SpriteFocus('haka')

If I take out the "function SpriteFocus('haka')" part, the "small" effect works again and the sprite becomes smaller. Is there any way I can have zoom effects work on sprites while the auto-highlighter is active?

Hello, great plugin, but I encountered a problem, at the beginning of each scene, when the dialogue starts, the picture kind of “jumps”, first a darkened picture is shown, then immediately a normal one, after which the dialogue runs normally, as it should. Any ideas what could be causing this and how to fix it?

Sample code below:

define g1 = Character("Первый Стражник", color="#be4c4c", image="guard1",callback=name_callback, cb_name="guard1")

image guard1 guard1a = At('guard1', sprite_highlight('guard1'))

show guard1 at left2

with Dissolve(0.2)

g1 guard1a "В райских гущах, а ты как думаешь?"

Hey there, I've been trying to get this working for about two hours now and I even followed the zeil learnings video, is there something I might be missing that's super simple and I'm just being dumb?

Hey there! Thanks for this tool, but I was wondering how to apply shaders to this tool. I tried applying it under line 185 as suggested in the comments, but I get a "ATLTransform object is not iterable".

if is_talking:     trans.matrixcolor = ...    ....    trans.shader = outline() # <- this is defined as a transform

Implementing the shader by hand also didn't work...

if is_talking:    trans.matrixcolor = ...    ...    trans.shader = "remix.smoothstep_outline" # there is no outline

Hi there! Thank you for making such a fantastic effect for visual novels. I wanted to ask about an issue I've been running into. 

Following instructions, I placed the auto-highlight file into the game, and changed the definitions to match the instructions. It works like an absolute charm on certain characters (here: mary and vein), but not on others (here: charlie and mona). 

## Define characters
define charlie = Character("Charlie",callback=name_callback, cb_name = "charlie", image="charlie")
define mary = Character("Mary", callback=name_callback, cb_name = "mary", image="mary")
define mona = Character("Mona", callback=name_callback, cb_name = "mona", image="mona")
define vein = Character("Vein", callback=name_callback, cb_name = "vein", image="vein")...

## Image definitionslayeredimage mona: #mona's SPRITES    at sprite_highlight('mona')
    group exp:        attribute base:            "images/MONA/mona.png" default        attribute shadow:            "images/MONA/monashadow.png"        ....

There are brief moments when the character's name is changed ($ mona = "???"), and this might be the problem. Even reverting the name to its original ($ mona = "Mona") still doesn't work. Are there any solutions to this issue?

I've been trying to get this highlight to work, but whenever I call images defined by it, they don't show up. I don't know if it's because the characters are defined within a class?

Hi, thank you for this! I am using it in an upcoming project. I was wondering if you have any idea how you would be able to set this so that a button in settings can toggle it off and on?

What a swell treat! Works like a charm, so thank you very very much for sharing it.

Hello! 
I was trying to run the code with this asset, and it is crushing with error "global name 'Saturation matrix' is not defined".  I'm using individual sprites, not layered one.
Can you please help me to fix this?(( 

i tried changing the anim_length (to 1.0) and for some reason it only applies when the sprite is first shown, it goes back to the default (0.2) setting as i put another sprite over it.

i use individual sprites but all of them are defined.

i even set it to 0.5, wondering if it was too fast to no avail.

i use NVL, if that helps.

wondered if you could look into it.

thank you very much for this btw.

Hello! I'm Zeil fromZeil Learnings, a YouTube channel about Ren'Py. Thank you for this! It was very helpful and easy to implement thanks to your awesome documentation! If you allow me, I would like your permission to upload a modified version of this on my itch.io (not using a layered image and more comments on script.rpy). I'll link it to this page, ofc. Additionally, I'd like to feature it in one of my future videos. (maybe 2-3 months from now). You may contact me on Discord if you have any questions: _zeil 

For more context, an individual approached me seeking assistance with this. So I figured it's not easy for non-programmers to follow. Therefore, I want to make a modified version of it for people without programming experience. 

Sincerely,

Zeil

I'm sorry, I'm kinda confuse, am I only have to drag the file 00auto-highlight.rpy into my file game right?

Hi! How do I have 2 speakers at the same time? I'm only able to have 1 speaker who isn't darkened.

Would anyone know how to make this work with an im.matrix  function? I know it's a deprecated function, but some of my sprites appear darker/less saturated on Renpy than they  actually are, and this has currently been my fix for them until I can replace them. 

Any advice on how to make this work on custom player names? It works for all of my other characters, but because I let the player choose their own name, the sprite doesn't highlight when they speak. Any thoughts?

define mc = Character("[mc_name]", callback=name_callback, cb_name="mc_light")layeredimage mc:    at sprite_highlight('mc_light')    always:        "mc_base"    group expressions:        pos(70,62)        attribute neutral default:            "mc_neutral"        attribute happy:            "mc_happy"        attribute sad:            "mc_sad"        attribute angry:            "mc_angry"        attribute surprised:            "mc_surprised"   
    if blush:        "mc_blush"layeredimage mchbrunch:    at sprite_highlight('mc_light')    always:        "mc_brunch"    group expressions:        attribute neutral default:            pos(163,125)            "mc_neutral"        attribute happy:            pos(163,125)            "mc_happy"        attribute sad:            pos(163,128)            "mc_sad"        attribute angry:            pos(163,125)            "mc_angry"        attribute surprised:            pos(163,125)            "mc_surprised"    if blush2:        pos(165,115)        "mc_blush2"

I cannot, for the life of me, get this to work with layered images. It only seems to work for me if I set the function SpriteFocus('sprite_name') per sprite call/update. Here's an example of one of my images and the associated character. I have no idea why this isn't working properly. It does not highlight at all (unless I manually set the sprite focus per call, which is tedious). Thoughts?

define Richard = Character("[Richard_name]", color="#5c00ff", callback = name_callback, cb_name = "ric", image='richard')

layeredimage richard:    at sprite_highlight('richard')    attribute normal default:        "Richard"    attribute angry:        "Richard ANGRY"    attribute annoyed:        "Richard ANNOYED"    attribute blush:        "Richard BLUSH"    attribute blush2:        "Richard BLUSH 2"    attribute crying:        "Richard CRYING"    attribute crying2:        "Richard CRYING 2"    attribute surprised:        "Richard SURPRISED"    attribute worried:        "Richard WORRIED"

Hello!

Highlight works fine in all places, but it doesn't work here. What could this be related to?

This is really cool. Would it be possible to use this effect along with dialogue bleeps (since both of those effects use the callback parameter)? If so, what would be the best way to combine them? Thanks!

Is there a way to highlight both characters during narration? I am loving this script as a newbie to Renpy, so thank you sm for publishing it.

You're a god for releasing all of these cool stuff, THANK YOU.

how do i set this up?

This is so cool, thank you so much!

holy crap wow

You can also do this by taking your sprite and fading it out in Gimp.  Then when you show your characters, you just show the one that is speaking and the others as the faded out versions.  You can see how I did that in this game = https://rpgmaker.net/games/8212/