Adaptive dialog area

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• #1, by Gog0 Thursday, 22. January 2015, 22:56 12 years ago

  Hi!
  
  I'm working on a project with lots of dialogs (who's not in an adventure game? ). The dialog area is fine, but I'd like to do something without scrolling system and with a dialog area having the right size considering the number of dialog options (I want to avoid big void space when I only have two dialog options).
  
  That's what they are doing on deponia, but I wonder how they did that. Is it possible to change the dialog area image dynamically using a script, depending of the number of options? Or should I have no background for the dialog area and execute actions during dialogs to show the right image from a set of all the possible sizes for the area ?
  
  What would be the cleanest and simplest solution ? Any idea ?
  
  Do not hesitate to ask more informations if I'm not clear with what I'd like. My english isn't perfect
  
  Thanks
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• #2, by afrlme Thursday, 22. January 2015, 23:54 12 years ago

  I've only played the first Deponia game - so far. Hmm I believe they used a script that determined the offset of the background image or maybe another image/animation inside of an interface based on the active dialog options found in the VGameDialog data structure table.
  
  Exactly how they did that, I can not tell you off the top of my head; not without testing it out myself, but... that's not my job.

• #3, by SimonS Friday, 23. January 2015, 01:18 12 years ago

  They actually made a script that counts the dialog options and sets the dialog area accordingly. Takes quite a hassle, because you must evaluate the condition and hierarchies. Maybe I'll look it up later today

• #4, by Gog0 Friday, 23. January 2015, 01:23 12 years ago

  Haha, of course it's not. Was just asking for tips or ways to explore just in case anyone already worked on this, not a ready-made solution.
  
  Reading the Lua docs since few days but havent tried anything yet with it, it will be my first attempt. I'll share my solution there if I manage to do something not too dirty ^^
  
  Edit : missed your post by few minutes SimonS ^^ That's the idea I had in mind too, so I'll have a look too Anyway, thanks to the two of you for your answers.

• #5, by afrlme Friday, 23. January 2015, 01:40 12 years ago

  “

  They actually made a script that counts the dialog options and sets the dialog area accordingly. Takes quite a hassle, because you must evaluate the condition and hierarchies. Maybe I'll look it up later today

  „

  
  
  I looked & it looks bloody awful. I'm wondering if they made it more complicated than it needed to be...