Arranging Fields- Not Visually Showing Up

[SummonerHolly]

Hey!

I bought this asset a while back and finally started using it today in my project ^^

Really getting to grips with this, and a huge part of this is how responsive Tony is! So a huge thanks for that! I've tried building my own dialogue system and it's a monumental task, so this is going to help so much!

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I had a question about the inspector field list order, I've changed the template for the dialogue entries to feature a third conservant, and noticed that while they do appear in the bottom dropdown for the fields, they don't appear as a dropdown next to the other default conservants. Is there a way I'm missing to make this show up?

Thanks!

[Tony Li]

Hi,

If you tick the "Main" checkbox, the field will show up in the main section. It won't be right below the original Conversant, but at least it will be in the main section and not just tucked away in the All Fields foldout.

showInMainSection.png (54.42 KiB) Viewed 269 times

p.s. - To avoid possible typo confusion in the future, you might want to rename the field to "Conversant 2" so it matches the original "Conversant" field name better.

[SummonerHolly]

Thanks for the speedy response!

That's definitely sorted it!

(I can make a new thread if preferred for a related question I had below)

I had another question after getting this sorted, so I'd like the option to have up to 4 characters appearing at once, I've been trying the functionality out here with more than 2 conversants active at a time.

I followed the Youtube tutorial where you have the dragon appear between the two characters in terms of the game object setup but I must be missing something here, I've added Conservant Actors 3 and 4 to each of my Dialogue Entry fields.

Do they have to say something to show up, or be a direct conservant? Or if not is there an easy way to ensure a listener conservant appears beyond the initial 1?

Thanks!

[Tony Li]

Hi,

The dialogue UI that you're using (VN Template Standard Dialogue UI) has four subtitle panels. Each subtitle panel has a portrait image. This means you can show 4 characters' portraits, unless you add more portraits by adding more subtitle panels.

Each panel is numbered, starting from 0, as indicated in the Standard Dialogue UI component's Subtitle Panels list.

Each panel also has a Visibility dropdown that specifies when it should be visible. The first two panels (Subtitle Panel 0 and Subtitle Panel 1) have the Visibility dropdowns set to Always From Start. This means they will open and show a character's portrait as soon as the conversation starts. I believe the others are set to Always Once Shown, which means they will appear the first time a character uses that subtitle panel. If you want Subtitle Panel 2 to appear when the conversation starts, change its Visibility to Always From Start.

Create a GameObject for each character. If a GameObject doesn't already exist for a character, just create an empty GameObject.

Add a Dialogue Actor component to the character's GameObject. Select the character's actor from the dropdown. Then set Standard Dialogue UI Settings > Subtitle Panel Number to the subtitle panel in which the character should appear.

Leave Subtitle Panel Number set to Default to use panel 0 if the character is an NPC or panel 1 if the character is the player. Typically this is the primary Conversation Conversant (NPC) and Conversation Actor (player).

For the third character, set Subtitle Panel Number to Panel 2. If you want this character's portrait to appear as soon as the conversation starts, set Subtitle Panel 2's Visibility to Always From Start.

Then do the same for the fourth character. Set Subtitle Panel Number to Panel 3, and set the Subtitle Panel 3's Visibility to the setting you want to use.

If you want a character to change subtitle panels, you can use the [panel=#] markup tag for a single-line change, or SetPanel() sequencer command for a permanent change.

[SummonerHolly]

Thanks for posting the answer here!

Apologies though, I'm still having a bit of trouble! D:

I've tried setting up panels in a simple VN Template without changing any of the UI Prefabs and having a back and forth with 6 different characters using up to 4 slots.

So far I've found that using a GameObject for each Actor forces a certain Subtitle Slot for them, whereas I'd be looking for more freedom between which ones they appear in - I've also come across issues where using [panel=X] doesn't seem to be helping me plot these panels right, so I'm probably misunderstanding this, I also tried SetPanel(Player, X) in the Sequence bit and found it didn't set these Panels even on the next dialogue entry.

I've attached a pair of screenshots showing my setup for a few panels and the output, in some cases when I set the actor to slot 0, they stay in slot 1, my conversants for Slot 3 and 4 don't appear either, so I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing there too?

Apologies to come back with this, I've really tried to figure this out but I'm really not sure where I'm going wrong T_T

Thanks!

[Tony Li]

Hi,

Perhaps an example will help. Please download and import these two packages (also available on the Dialogue System Extras page):

DS_DialogueUIPatch_2021-03-23.unitypackage
DS_VNFocusStyleDialogueUI_2021-03-23.unitypackage

I updated an older VN-style example scene so it also demonstrates SetPortrait() and [panel=#]. The last 2 NPC nodes use them. The package also includes a mobile example that you can check out if you're curious, but it works pretty much the same way.

A few notes on how I set it up:

• I assigned the VN Template Standard Dialogue UI to the Dialogue Manager's Dialogue UI field and selected 'Add Instance' so I could customize it.
• I added another subtitle panel and assigned it to the Standard Dialogue UI component's Subtitle Panels list.
• I also ticked 'Wait For Close' on the panels. When a character switches panels, it will wait for the old panel to close before the character appears in the new panel.

I'm including the dialogue UI patch above (the first of the two download links) because it adds some back-end convenience code to make the setup a bit smoother.

If that doesn't help, please feel free to send a reproduction project to tony (at) pixelcrushers.com. I'll be happy to take a look.

[SummonerHolly]

Hey Tony!

Just got a couple of errors after importing both of those packages:

Assets\Plugins\Pixel Crushers\Dialogue System\Scripts\UI\Standard\Dialogue\StandardDialogueUI.cs(97,40): error CS1061: 'StandardUIDialogueControls' does not contain a definition for 'waitForClose' and no accessible extension method 'waitForClose' accepting a first argument of type 'StandardUIDialogueControls' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

Assets\Plugins\Pixel Crushers\Dialogue System\Scripts\UI\Standard\Dialogue\StandardDialogueUI.cs(110,36): error CS1061: 'StandardUIDialogueControls' does not contain a definition for 'ClearCaches' and no accessible extension method 'ClearCaches' accepting a first argument of type 'StandardUIDialogueControls' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

Thanks again for all the help!

[Tony Li]

Sorry, I thought I was being helpful by making a fresh, clean package of the dialogue UI patch, but I missed a file. Please try this one:

DS_DialogueUIPatch_2021-03-24.unitypackage

[SummonerHolly]

You are being super helpful in fact!

This latest patch does it so I'm going to explore this and learn a little more, I really appreciate you going the extra mile here!

[Tony Li]

Glad to help! If you compare the setups and can't find the difference, please feel free to send a reproduction project to tony (at) pixelcrushers.com.