How to set up Putt-putt-like dialogue?

siskavard

Hi, I'm trying to do some Humongous Entertainment type dialogue, something you'd see in a Putt-Putt game where you don't select what you want to say, your character just talks when you click on an NPC, & the conversation just sort of plays out until it's done, minimal to no dialogue options.

I've been trying to set this up in my game with the Conversations & Actionlist editor, but I'm running into issues -

1. When I start a convo, it always makes me click on a dialogue option instead of just playing right away, how do I set it up so when I click an NPC, the player or NPC immediately starts talking?
2. I don't know how to set up the Actionlist editor to have a character play a sound clip & play an animation simultaneously 

I'm using AC v1.65.1
Any help is appreciated!

ChrisIceBox

If you need no response from the player other than clicking on the NPC in the first place, you don't need to use the Conversation prefab.  Conversations are a way of displaying options for the player on-screen, so if you don't want to show those there's no need for it.

Having a character speak is just a case of using the Dialogue: Play speech Action, meaning dialogue between two characters can be made by arranging these together.

You can use the Sound: Play Action to play an audio clip on a Sound object.  To have a sound effect come from a character, attach a new Sound component onto a child object of the character, and you can then reference it with Sound: Play.  Alternatively, you can use the Sound: Play one-shot Action to play audio without the need for a Sound component.

An Action will move onto the next immediately after triggering unless you check Wait until finish?.  To have two "chains" of Actions run simultaneously, you can use the ActionList: Run in parallel.

You may also be able to use Unity's Timeline feature, which makes it easier to sync up animation and audio together.  Timeline tracks can be controlled with the Engine: Control Timeline Action.

siskavard

Hi Chris, sorry for such a late reply on this, got caught up with work, but I'm back & trying to figure this out.
So I'm attempting to ActionList: Run in parallel so that my character loops his 'talking' animation for the entirety of the time that the recorded dialogue plays. However I can only seem to get it to either loop the talking animation once, or it loops forever even after the recorded dialogue is complete. Any way to have it loop my talking animation for the duration of the recorded dialogue?

Thanks.

siskavard

(posted something but figured it out) Still need to solve the above though

ChrisIceBox

You shouldn't have to resort to animating the character separately to him talking. Is he set up or display in some non-standard way? What's his Animation engine set to?

Though the exact method will vary based on the animation engine, a character's Inspector can be configured to have him play a talking animation automatically whenever he speaks. See both the included 2D and 3D Demos - all talking animation occurs as a result of Dialogue: Play speech Actions.

When it comes to speech audio, once you gather your dialogue text in the Speech Manager, you can have AC play an associated voice audio file automatically when the character says that line. For more information, see the Manual's "Speech audio" chapter, as well as this tutorial.

siskavard

The animation engine is set to Sprites Unity.

"gather your dialogue text" - how do I do this, I have no dialogue text in the game so far, only audio files. Do I have to set up Conversations first? The tutorial says it will "search your game for displayed text" - is it referring to the conversations? If so, that doesn't work for me because I don't want any dialogue options. I just want the audio conversation to play out automatically.

Thanks

siskavard

I found a way to do what I want just using Actions, it's clunky but at least it works.

ChrisIceBox

The tutorial says it will "search your game for displayed text" - is it referring to the conversations?

No, it's referring to Dialogue: Play speech Actions. The text itself can be anything if you don't want it to be displayed on-screen, but such an Action is necessary if you want AC to automatically handle voice audio / talking animation duties.

A "Conversation" in AC is really just a list of options displayed on-screen. That they're primarily used to let the player choose what the character says is the reason for its name, but on a technical level it's totally separate from the dialogue system.

For a working example of speech audio playing with speech Actions, see the 3D Demo.

siskavard

Great, thanks Chris, I can see how that would be very useful.