Dialogue box question

Thank you Esmeralda!   I will dive into that thread.

I have a question that delves into some basic elements, after searching about on the forum, am still at bit of a loss.   I  had no problem creating my custom dialogue boxes as their own interface, and know that I can use conditions (or values, but I'd like to keep it simple with conditions at the moment) to bring up the new interface...  That said I am at a loss at how to do so.    I understand the concept, but not how to execute it.   Clearly I have no Lua experience, so would like to stick with work arounds through interfaces in the basic Visionare Studio 5 workspace.  And I have watched through some conditions tutorials, but only those on basic items, not controling interfaces.  Appreciate any  input or simply a link to a feed that talks about controling various interfaces through conditions (I'll keep searching for one!).   May be a long shot, but thank you kindly for any input!

   Looks like it's time to roll up the sleeves and dig into this.   Thank you for the in depth response Afrlme!

function setTextPosHook(text)
 -- if text owner is a character then...
 if text:getLink(VTextOwner):getId().tableId == eCharacters then
  text:setValue(VTextPosition, {x=358, y=281})
  return true
 end
end

-- let's create the event listener for handling position of displayed text
registerHookFunction("setTextPosition", "setTextPosHook")

Thanks Afrlme,   sorry for these basic questions!   I had been tinkering with it but was using the assigned  number not the names.    Thank you again.   I appreciate all the help, and the help you clearly give to so many on this forum.   I will try to further wrap my head around this to not have to ask such basic questions.   Thank you and take care.

I would recommend using Lua script & specifically the event handlers for textStarted & textStopped, why? because it will let you automate the whole thing instead of having to manually show/hide the interface & change conditions/values.

Let's say you have created an interface & called it "dialog_portraits". You want to go into the properties for it & tick the "show interface permanently" option - this will allow the interface to be shown during cutscene events.

Now assign the interface to your playable character via the "interfaces" tab.

Next open up the main game settings section of the editor, & open up the "at begin start following action" as we need to add a line of code to hide the interface when the game starts. So create an execute a script action part & add this line of code to it.

Interfaces["dialog_portraits"].Visible = false

Now open up the script section of the editor, & add this to it - edit it to suit your needs.

-- * table to store character names & portrait_index value (case sensitive) * --

local portraits = {



["Tom"] = 1,

["Barry"] = 2,

["Angela"] = 3



}



-- * text started event listener * --

function sText(text)



 if text.Owner:getId().tableId == eCharacters then -- check text belongs to a character



     Interfaces["dialog_portraits"].Visible = true -- show the dialog_portraits interface

     Values["portrait_index"].Int = portraits[ text.Owner:getName() ] -- specify which character portrait to show



 end



end



-- * text finished event handler * --

function eText(text)



 if text.Owner:getId().tableId == eCharacters then -- check text belongs to a character



     Values["portrait_index"].Int = -1 -- reset portrait_index value back to -1 to hide all portrait images

     Interfaces["dialog_portraits"].Visible = false -- hide the dialog_portraits interface



 end



end



-- * event handlers * --

registerEventHandler("textStarted", "sText") -- event handler for begin text

registerEventHandler("textStopped", "eText") -- event handler for end text

Now go to the dialog_portraits interface you created. Click on the "values" tab & create a new value & call it "portrait_index".

Now you need to start creating buttons, 1 per character (rename each button so that it has the same name as the character) & start adding images or animations to each of them (add images to inactive image section if you plan on using static sprites instead of animations). If you plan on using animations then don't forget to set them as active in the properties section for the button. Also don't forget to set the button types to "action area". You also need to link the portrait_index value to each of the buttons you have created ( use operator type = ) & make sure they reflect what values you added inside of the "portraits" table in the script.

What should happen is that whenever text is started it should show the dialog interface & update the value based on which character is talking, which should display the correct portrait image/animation. Then when text ends it should hide the interface & portrait image/animation.

I know this is a massive wall of text, but I don't have any examples setup to screenshot/record, so this will have to do.

Anyway, good luck.

Hi,

Only one instance of the textStarted & textStopped event handlers can exist per project. You will need to merge one script into the other, or alternatively manually call the functions inside of the event handler functions belonging to the speech bubble script. What I'm saying probably doesn't make a lot of sense & it's kind of difficult for me to explain what I mean in a few words.