Dialogue player portrait flickering

[Thistis]

Hello Toni,

sorry to bother you again. While testing your patch for the portrait change, I noticed that the player image does seem to flicker for a very short moment, even when the image is not changed.
I also noticed this in your example scene (DS_FocusAndPortraits_2019-12-05.unitypackage) from my previous, solved by now topic:

Whenever the player is talking, the portrait appears to be a bit more transparent for a second and returns to the previous saturation thereafter. This only seems to happen when the player is talking, the NPC portrait seems to be fine.
You can notice it around second 8, 10, 15 and 16 in my video below:



All the best,
Evelyn

[Tony Li]

Hi Evelyn,

That's because a cross-fade is going on. The response menu is fading out, and at the same time the player subtitle panel is fading into focus.

In your game, do you plan to show the player response menu followed by the same line in the player subtitle panel? Or, similarly, the dialogue entry's Menu Text in the player response menu followed by the same dialogue entry's Dialogue Text in the player subtitle panel? If so, I'll try to suggest a good way to avoid the cross-fade. However, if you're not planning to do that in your actual game dialogue UI then it shouldn't be an issue.

In the meantime, you can try setting the Dialogue Manager's Camera & Cutscene Settings > Default Response Menu Sequence to:

Code: Select all

SendMessage(Focus,,Subtitle Panel 1 (PC))

If your PC subtitle panel is named something other than "Subtitle Panel 1 (PC)", then use that name in the sequence instead. This will focus the player subtitle panel (the portrait image and name) at the same time that it focuses the response menu panel. So when the response menu panel fades out, the player subtitle panel will already be focused so it won't have to fade in while the response menu panel fades out.

You can also change the subtitle panel's focus animation so that it only fades the portrait image, and not the entire panel including the portrait name, in and out.

[Thistis]

Hello Toni,

In your game, do you plan to show the player response menu followed by the same line in the player subtitle panel? Or, similarly, the dialogue entry's Menu Text in the player response menu followed by the same dialogue entry's Dialogue Text in the player subtitle panel? If so, I'll try to suggest a good way to avoid the cross-fade. However, if you're not planning to do that in your actual game dialogue UI then it shouldn't be an issue.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that, sorry I would plan to show the response menu, the player selects an answer and then the next line will be spoken by the NPC (the response of the player is not repeated if you mean that?).
I added the SendMessage command to the Default Response Menu Sequence, but it keeps flashing unfortunately :/ I tried it with your provided sample scene, it feels like for a short moment, there is the other character image flashing through.
I have exported your testscene with my adaptions (different character graphics, Dialogue Manager settings like my own project, adjustments provided by you) and sent it to your email address, maybe this helps more? :/

All the best,
Evelyn

[Tony Li]

Thanks for emailing me the reproduction project. I replied back with an updated animation clip that I think should fix the issue.