Empty square appearing on screen for a few moments after a Conversation is over

[LostTrainDude]

[Unity 2019.4.9f1 - Dialogue System 2.2.9 - Adventure Creator 1.71.8]

Hello!

I'm currently experiencing this issue: whenever a conversation ends, a tiny square UI appears and fades away.



My Dialogue Manager UI currently has 2 identical Standard Subtitle UI Panels for both PC and NPC.
They both simply are stripped down versions of those who come included by default:



This is their Standard Subtitle UI Panel configuration (for the NPC one simply imagine that its relative Panel)



I initially tried setting (as you can tell from the above screenshots) Clear Text on Close to false but to no avail. I also tried switching the Visibility to Only During Content but that introduced a lot of different issue (and didn't really solve my original problem).

I also tried fiddling with the Canvas Group Animator Controller, removing exit times, removing Animation Clips altogether. What I didn't yet try is to alter the original Animation Clips, but I don't really think that the issue lies in there (of course I may be wrong).

Any ideas on how to tackle this?

Not sure it's any useful, but I'm using Adventure Creator and the conversation is started by an "OnStart" ActionList.

Thanks a million in advance!

[Tony Li]

As a test, can you make each panel's background a different color, including the alert panel? This will help you identify which panel is showing the empty content at the end.

Alternatively, you can pause as soon as the empty square appears. Then check the hierarchy to see what panel is open.

You can also temporarily set the Dialogue Manager's Other Settings > Debug Level to Info. This will log activity. As the conversation ends, look for any reason that might cause that empty square to appear, maybe a line like:

Dialogue System: NPC says ' '.

[LostTrainDude]

Thanks for the answer, Tony!

You're right, I forgot to mention: to test this I was using 2 NPCs (both existing in the scene as a GameObject with an Actor script attached).

But even with switching to an actual PC/NPC conversation this doesn't change.
Actually it even adds a slight glitch to it at the very beginning, apparently: the first line (PC's) looks like it's fading in twice.



When I pause the game as it's fading in, I notice nothing unusual: the PC Subtitle Panel is the only one that is enabled and it doesn't turn off and on again.

Also, when it reaches the end ("Conversant speaking!") the PC Subtitle Panel is inactive while the NPC Subtitle Panel is active, as it probably should, and it's still like that when the black empty box appears. So the black box should belong to the NPC Subtitle Panel.

This is the console output with the Debug info enabled (Characters names redacted):



This is the Conversation flowchart. None of the nodes has a Sequence, except the Start, which has None()



This is the ActionList node that triggers the Conversation. Nothing changes if I manually assign the Actor (by default my Player character moves across scenes as a Singleton, so I couldn't really do this manually anyway) and Conversant.



I hope nothing's missing!

Thanks again!

EDIT:

I haven't assigned an Actor script to the Player (that's why it doesn't appear in the Debug) but nothing changes even if I do it.

EDIT 2:

To test, I also tried switching Actor and Conversant. Whoever speaks last, their respective UI will be the one who turns into a small empty box at the end.

[Tony Li]

What kind of dialogue UI script are you using? StandardDialogueUI? The older, deprecated UnityUIDialogueUI?

Can you pause at the point where the small black square is visible? If so, is the NPC subtitle panel's subtitle text element's Text field blank?

[LostTrainDude]

Yes: I'm using StandardDialogueUI.



Pausing when the small square is visible, I can confirm the Text field is blank.



I've purposely placed the caret cursor in the field to showcase that there also are no whitespaces in there.

I hope this is enough information!
Thanks again!

[Tony Li]

It does appear to be an animation issue. If you'd like to send me a reproduction project, I'd be happy to take a look.

It looks like you're only really animating the fade-in and fade-out when conversations start and end. If this is the case, then you can simply remove the Animator components from the subtitle panels. I think that will take care of it.

Also make sure Clear Text On Close is unticked on all subtitle panels, not just the one you suspect.

[Tony Li]

Quick note for other readers: This is fixed in the upcoming version 2.2.10. If you need a patch immediately, just let me know.