Pixel Crushers Forum

Lengthy player/NPC responses. Is there a tutorial on how to control the various ways you present information? If for example an NPC or the player has a page of text we want to present in short segments, how should this be done? (Think of the player giving a monologue or some such). What are all the available options? Thank you.

Hi,

It really depends on how you want it to work. Some designers show lengthy text in one go, typically using the typewriter effect to type it out into a scrollable Subtitle Line text component. The typewriter effect will automatically scroll to the bottom of the text component as it types.

Other designers prefer to break it up into individual dialogue entry nodes and present each node one at a time. If you've already typed your dialogue into a single lengthy node and want to split it into multiple nodes instead, you can insert horizontal pipe characters ( | ) where you want to break it up, and then select Menu > Split Pipes Into Nodes.

When showing multiple nodes, you can ask the player to click a continue button to progress past each node, or you can just show it for the default duration based on the length of the text and then automatically progress to the next node. Another option is to intersperse player responses like "What next?", "Is that so?", "You don't say.", etc. to help engage the player. You can also use sequencer commands to move the camera around and perform other actions to help keep the player's interest.

If that doesn't cover what you're asking, please give me an example or more details, and I'll try to come up with something that better covers your needs.

When showing multiple nodes for the player, at the moment, it wants me to select it as an option before proceeding. When I set up an array of nodes for an NPC as you describe, it seems to work. How would I have player nodes behave the same way where only certain ones prompt for a selection?

I'm going through more tutorial videos and I see a number of options in the dialogue system controller which handle customizing behaviors I've described. Thanks for your time, and I'll let you know if anything new comes up.

I see Input Settings -> Always Force Response Menu is set true by default. I'm going to disable this for now. I imagine there will come a time where I want to have the option menu shown even if there is only one option to display though. In that specific case, how can I accomplish this?

Thanks!

For NPC nodes, it always shows the first node whose Conditions are true (or blank), at the highest available priority level.

For PC nodes, you found where to untick the Always Force Response Menu checkbox. To force a specific node to be a menu option, add the "[f]" (force) markup tag.