Pixel Crushers Forum

Hi Tony,
I'm trying to have conversations that can run in the background uninterrupted and separate to actual dialogue (it's a TV, usually) There are several unexpected behaviours atm, sometimes as soon as a second one begins, they'll both stop after their current line. If it continues, one will often end up taking over both (usually the one in the yellow - the Override UI) will be on both (with alternating lines?). I downloaded Simultaneous WRPG Example to check it out, and the settings don't seem any different, I don't have any "exclusive" or "replace"s set. I'm not using the Player character, could that be a problem? It's just four characters talking (2x on tv, 2x in person).

It has me wondering if it'd be easier to have a separate Dialogue Manager for those background voices, especially as there's no interaction between the two different types. Would that be possible?


Pete.

Hi,

There can only be one Dialogue Manager.

However, each simultaneous conversation should have its own dialogue UI. Are you using separate dialogue UIs for each one?

I am, yes. The yellow one is being spawned on demand by the Override UI component.

Hi,

Here's a simpler example:

DS_SimultaneousConversationExample_2024-07-15.unitypackage

Ann and Bob play a conversation using the Dialogue Manager's default dialogue UI.

Maria and Juan play a conversation (in a small black box in the middle) using a different dialogue UI.

For simplicity, both dialogue UIs are based on the Basic Standard Dialogue UI. The default one is just the plain Basic Standard Dialogue UI. The one for Maria and Juan is a copy that I just put in a smaller box and changed the subtitle text color.

Hi Tony,
The example you included worked perfectly.
But then when I added the Ink Integration to your manager and used Ink Triggers with my conversations once again one conversation will take over both Dialogue UIs (alternating lines).
Individually they work on their respective UIs. When I delay the second one starting the first will never show a line again and the second one will take over both.
Here's a screenshot - A should be a monologue of Janet, B should be Jam and Andrew. Instead, both are Jam.



Pete.

Hi,

Use separate actors for each conversation. The same actor shouldn't be in two conversations at the same time.

Hi Tony,
Janet is one conversation, and Jam and Andrew are in the other. There is no overlap of actors.

Pete.

Hi Pete,

I'm not sure how to reproduce that. Here's an example scene that can play two conversations simultaneously. If you click the top button, it starts an Ink conversation in the top dialogue UI. If you click the bottom button, it starts a non-Ink conversation in the bottom dialogue UI.

DS_TestInkAndOther_2024-08-18.unitypackage

Also, feel free to send a reproduction project to tony (at) pixelcrushers.com

Hi Tony!
Thanks for that. Looks like the Ink assets didn't come through, but the fact that you had two types of database (ink and DS) made me try it myself.
It's not ideal, but I found that if I have one type of conversation in DS's built-in database, and the other type in Ink they do now stay in their own Dialogue UIs.
So it must be something about two simultaneous Ink convos.

Pete.

Hi Pete,

Yes, that's probably it. The Ink integration is written to play one conversation at a time. Since Ink works so differently from the Dialogue System, the integration lets Ink run the back-end part of the conversation, and then it filters the Ink input and output through a single fake Dialogue System conversation to handle the UI. The issue here is that the integration uses that single Dialogue System conversation for all communication with Ink. I can look into changing the integration so it can support multiple simultaneous Ink stories, but this won't make it into the upcoming v2.2.48 update.