It's nearly the holidays, and here's your early Christmas present: AC v1.41. Lots of stability issues taken care of this time, but there's some nice additions here all the same - the biggest one being what everyone's been wanting: Unity UI integration! Let's have a look..
Unity UI integration
If you make a UI using Unity's new tools, you can control it with AC by linking it to the Menu system. Menus now have a "source" property - change it to Unity UI, and all display properties will be replaced by a Canvas field. Same thing for elements: the Label element takes a UI Text field, and so on. Simply link each element / menu to it's UI counterpart, and AC can control it. It will handle it's display, translation, click processing etc automatically. See the manual for more, but to get a quick idea: each of the Menus in the Demo game's Menu Manager have a UI alternative. Just change the source to "Unity UI prefab" (before running the game), to see it in action.
ActionList Editor improvements
Taking a cue from
@PixelArtist's excellent suggestions, the ActionList Editor has undergone further refinements. We now have a proper toolbar, Actions can be collapsed, multiple Actions can be dragged at once, selections can be added together by holding "Shift", and Actions now flow vertically by default. (If you prefer the old horizontal flow instead, though, just go to the Actions Manager - you can change it back there.)
Cinema Director integration
Cinema Suite's
Cinema Director is a great timeline-based cutscene tool, and Adventure Creator now supports it. Cutscenes made with Cinema Director can be called (and properly skipped) with the new "Third-party: Cinema Director" Action.
Comments
Upgrade notes
-"Transition speed" property for Menus has been changed to "Transition time" - it's value must be changed to a time, in seconds
-Label
menu elements of type Dialogue Line will be cleared once the dialogue
ends unless "Update if string is empty?" is checked in the properties
list
-To show a "walk" cursor icon, "Provide walk cursor" in the Cursor Manager must be checked
-If your game uses InteractiveCloth components and you are not using Unity 5, comment out the marked lines in SceneSettings.cs
-Dialogue Portrait graphics are now displayed in Menu Graphic elements, not Menu Labels
-Actions in the ActionList Editor are now arranged vertically (horizontal arrangement can be set in the Actions Manager)
Menus
-Added: Support for Unity's new UI system - when creating Menus, choose between Adventure Creator and Unity UI
-Added: Ability to start building your game with a Unity UI-based interface with the New Game Wizard
-Added: Sample Animator Controller for animated Unity UI menus - find in Assets / AdventureCreator / UI
-Added: Option in Menu Manager to supply an Event System prefab - will be loaded into scene if one is not already present
-Added: Option to Label menu elements of type Hotspot, Dialogue Line and Dialogue Speaker to update even if it would turn empty
-Added: Performance boost to regular Menus
-Changed: InventoryBox elements now all have a "maximum number of slots" cap
-Changed: Dialogue Portrait graphics are now displayed in Menu Graphic elements, not Menu Labels
-Changed: "Transition speed" in Menus is now "Transition time"
-Fixed: Menu previous outlines being slightly off
-Fixed: Text scroll audio effect no longer playing
-Fixed: Menus not crossfading correctly if a menu with an instant transition is enabled at the time
-Fixed: Pausing menus freezing scene if turned on at start of scene
-Fixed: "Ignore Cursor clicks?" setting not working correctly for Menus set to appear During Gameplay
Cinema Director
-Added: Support for Cinema Director, a timeline-based Cutscene tool for Unity (www.cinema-suite.com)
ActionLists
-Added: Actions in the ActionList Editor can be collapsed in the same way they can be in the Inspector
-Added: Toolbar to ActionList Editor, with buttons to delete, copy, paste and arrange Actions
-Added: Dragging one Action in the ActionList Editor will drag all selected Actions together
-Added: If the shift key is held while selecting Actions, previously selected Actions will remain selected
-Added: Option in the Actions Manager to arrange Actions horizontally or vertically in the ActionList Editor window
-Added: Option in the Actions Manager to hide Actions from the Inspector window
-Changed:
Actions in the ActionList Editor are now arranged vertically
(horizontal arrangement can be set in the Actions Manager)
-Changed: Option to name active ActionLists in the Game window is now listed in the Settings Manager under "Debug settings"
-Fixed: Minor issues with ActionList Editor window
-Fixed: Various issues related to skipping ActionLists
Speech
-Added: Support for cross-platform Papagoyo lip sync files (www.lostmarble.com/papagayo/)
-Added: Speech text in "Dialogue: Play speech" Action can be set dynamically using parameters
-Added: Option to "Dialogue: Play speech" Action to disable speaking animation (useful for "thinking" effect)
-Added:
Ability to use Player prefab's name, rather than "Player", for speech
audio and translation files (Only if "Player switching" is disallowed)
-Fixed: 2D Characters requiring the Shapeable script to be attached before they can lip-sync
-Fixed: Speech playing from a Cutscene set to Run In Background inappropriately blocking gameplay
-Fixed: Speech lines replaced with variable tokens not displaying for the correct duration
Inventory
-Added:
If Inventory Items can be selected outside Context Sensitive mode,
interactions can distinguish between "giving" and "using" items on NPCs
-Added: Ability to exclude Inventory items from Interaction menus and cursor-cycles in Choose Hotspot Then Interaction mode
-Added: Drag and drop Inventory interface is now compatible with Choose Hotspot Then Interaction mode
-Added: Inventory items of interaction type "Multiple" can now be selected if a particular Interaction icon is unhandled
-Added: Inventory items of interaction type "Multiple" can now be selected using "Inventory: Select" Action
-Added: Ability to give Inventory items to specific player characters when game starts (Only if "Player switching" is allowed)
-Fixed: Inventory interactions of type "Multiple" not making use of unhandled interactions declared in Cursor Manager
-Fixed: Syntax for combining Inventory not being translated
-Fixed: Not all available Inventory interactions showing in Interaction menus if "work in reverse" is enabled
Variables
-Added: "Variable: Pop Up switch" Action - use to run other Actions based on any value of a Pop Up Variable
Choose Interaction Then Hotspot mode
-Added: Ability to map Cursor icons to Input buttons when in Choose Interaction Then Hotspot mode
-Added: "Single 'Use' Interaction" Hotspot option now works for Choose Interaction Then Hotspot mode, too
Choose Hotspot Then Interaction mode
-Added: Option to halt player when clicking Hotspot to bring up Interactions in Choose Hotspot Then Interaction mode
-Added:
If Interactions are selected by Cycling Cursor And Clicking Hotspot,
Inventory items can be auto-cycled through as well as Hotspots
-Fixed: Many bugs related to Inventory items in Choose Hotspot Then Interaction modes
Cameras
-Added: The X and Z position of GameCameras can be affected by their target's height
-Added: The Y position of GameCameras can be affected by more than their target's height
Direct control
-Added:
If the camera cuts during gameplay while in Direct control, the player
will continue to move in the same direction until the input direction
changes
Cursors
-Added: Option to prefix the cursor label with a "Walk to" text when in walk mode
-Added: Option in Cursor Manager to hide Hotspot label if an Inventory item is selected but the cursor is not over a Hotspot
-Fixed: Cursor remaining locked after using "Engine: Manage systems" Action to end First Person movement
-Fixed: Various cursor issues
Hotspots
-Added: Option to highlight Hotspots based on cursor proximity, when Hotspots are detected by Mouse Over
-Added: Option to not show Hotspot icons if a Collider is between them and the camera
-Fixed: Highlight script brightening objects even if "Brighten materials" is unchecked
-Fixed: Minor issues with displaying icons for Hotspots that have been instantiated mid-game
Other
-Added: Option to let player trigger Dialogue Options with number keys
-Added: "Engine: Change timescale" Action can use a curve to control flow of time
-Added: LimitVisibility script now affects GUITexture components as well
-Added:
If a Player is present in a scene when it is loaded, it will override
the Player set in the Settings Manager (Only if "Player switching" is
disallowed)
-Changed: References to scripts and managers are now stored as static variables for greater efficiency
-Fixed: Unexpected behaviour when rotating around any of the three main axis with "Object: Transform" Action
-Fixed: Unnecessary error messages sometimes appearing when jumping using Ultimate FPS
-Fixed: Error messages during scene transitions if a loading screen is used
-Fixed: Unity 5 compatibility issues
best,
B.
@shredingskin: Cinema Director fits better with AC's framework that uSequencer does, but with custom actions anything's possible.
Variables
-Added: "Variable: Pop Up switch" Action - use to run other Actions based on any value of a Pop Up Variable
A new tutorial on using the new Unity UI integration can be found here. It covers the fundamentals while making an inventory bar.
I also forgot about another development: additional downloads. Something I'm keen to add to over time is a number of optional freebies that demonstrate a few more advanced techniques. New to the downloads page are:
1) The new UI options are totally optional. The regular Menu system underwent some love, too - it's faster than it was before, and you can continue to work with that if you prefer. You can use both, for sure - it's a per-menu setting, so you can have a UI pause menu, and AC options menu, and they'll all work together.
2) The Event System is a Unity UI concept - it's an object that's required by the UI system for mouse clicks etc to register. AC will basically handle this for you, unless you want to use specific settings.