Dialog system questions and troubles

  • #1, by James WoodallSaturday, 17. December 2016, 15:52 8 years ago
    Hey there.  I'm trying to get my character to change his mood according to whatever statement he's presently making.  However, I don't see any means to change which talking animation the character is using.

    I also searched the manual and wasn't able to find anything for it.  

    Also, semi-related, I'm having trouble with conversation strings displaying well outside the dialog area.  I've already defined it so I'm not sure why they're not wrapping as I would expect?



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  • #2, by sebastianSaturday, 17. December 2016, 17:52 8 years ago
    create a different outfit fir the character or change the character index (both action parts)  to let him look different. the index is used to define which animation is used when you have e. g.  two talk animations for facing down. 

    regarding the text problem: inside the font you are using for the character you can define a width. Texts which are longer are continued in the next line. 

    hope this helps
    smile 


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  • #3, by James WoodallSaturday, 17. December 2016, 19:15 8 years ago
    create a different outfit fir the character or change the character index (both action parts)  to let him look different. the index is used to define which animation is used when you have e. g.  two talk animations for facing down. 

    regarding the text problem: inside the font you are using for the character you can define a width. Texts which are longer are continued in the next line. 

    hope this helps
    smile 


    Very much so!  Thank you.  I'm sorry for all the newb questions all of a sudden but this is my second day using the engine and I'm hoping to finish the remaster of the game I'm working on by end of month.

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  • #4, by afrlmeSaturday, 17. December 2016, 19:32 8 years ago
    Remastered version of an entire game in a month? Is it a short-ish game?

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  • #5, by James WoodallSaturday, 17. December 2016, 20:24 8 years ago
    Remastered version of an entire game in a month? Is it a short-ish game?

    Presently it's about 35-60 minutes per run.  For a point and click though, it's pretty easy to make.  It's a first person adventure/puzzler, so I don't need to care about much of anything other than what folks can click on and the art and the logic needed to make the game's puzzles function.

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  • #6, by afrlmeSaturday, 17. December 2016, 20:28 8 years ago
    Not too bad then. I'm assuming it's a Visual Novel of sorts going by the screenshots you posted? If that's the case then it would be easy enough to make your own dialog system or even directly add the choices to each scene as scene objects (images or animations). It would allow you to get more creative with how you display them.

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  • #7, by James WoodallSaturday, 17. December 2016, 20:30 8 years ago
    Not too bad then. I'm assuming it's a Visual Novel of sorts going by the screenshots you posted? If that's the case then it would be easy enough to make your own dialog system or even directly add the choices to each scene as scene objects (images or animations). It would allow you to get more creative with how you display them.

    It switches back and forth between adventure game and VN/Choose-your-own-adventure-novel.  The dialogue sections are pretty VN while the adventure game portions are fairly traditional - albeit more logic-based than most adventure games tend to go more item-based.

    I'm avoiding doing any custom scripting if at all possible at any point.

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  • #8, by James WoodallSaturday, 17. December 2016, 22:02 8 years ago
    The more I work with it though, the more I see it's less and less possible to make it happen without additional code.  Augh.

    If I use a background in the dialogue, the background vanishes whenever the player isn't selecting a choice.  If I use an interface, it obscures the player's avatar.

    At this rate I might have to just give up and move conversations into their own screen so I can ensure the background continues to be shown throughout the conversation.  I'm also going to have to figure out some way to cache whatever message was displayed before.  I'd like that text to remain up on screen in context to make choice-making more natural.

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  • #9, by afrlmeSaturday, 17. December 2016, 22:28 8 years ago
    The dialog background is an easy fix. Either add it to an interface or include it as a object in the scene, link a condition to it so that you can toggle it on & off as needed. If you use interfaces, then you would need to create the player avatars in the interface too, so that they get displayed above the background because normal behavior dictates that all interfaces should overlay both scene & character content. This is it would be in most game engines.

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  • #10, by James WoodallSaturday, 17. December 2016, 22:34 8 years ago
    The dialog background is an easy fix. Either add it to an interface or include it as a object in the scene, link a condition to it so that you can toggle it on & off as needed. If you use interfaces, then you would need to create the player avatars in the interface too, so that they get displayed above the background because normal behavior dictates that all interfaces should overlay both scene & character content. This is it would be in most game engines.
    Aye, that's what I ultimately found I had to do to get it to run (mostly) properly.  

    Full disclosure, I'm coming from AGS so a lot of this stuff was tailored to how that system ran. (e.g. http://i.imgur.com/iTZIDpO.png )

    Edit: I've spent more time on it and though now I can set the background text (manually), I'm unable to find a way to change the background image of the object I'm using as a placeholder for the player's speaking avatar through action parts.  I might have to just put the background in the scenes as a toggleable object as you say - though I'm not sure how to manage z-depth so that I'm sure to only cover the background and not the player's avatar.

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  • #11, by James WoodallSaturday, 17. December 2016, 23:19 8 years ago
    Also, thanks to everyone who's replied so far.  You're making this journey to producing this game a lot faster and easier on me.  Once I can get these core systems down I'll hopefully be full steam ahead for the rest of the game's recreation.

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