Adaptive dialog area

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

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.

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

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.

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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

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