Suggestion: Combining LucasArts and Sierra Background speech

[proximity]

 Most people thinks like me. LucasArts speech style sometimes may be annoying because text is written on character's head. in complicated backgorunds, it's hard to read and also outline can not save it and it hurts people's eyes. On the other hand, Sierra style speech with backgrounds decreases the atmosphere and you can't see character's talking animation actually.

  i have an idea. What would be the result,in LucasArts speech, if text is written as subtitle with black backgorund at the bottom of the screen ? So player can read all text peacefully and see in-game talking animation at the same time. Most of commercial adventure games do like this and it's really perfect i think. What do you think ?

[nihilyst]

I didn't find the LucasArts way of speech too annoying. But realizing your idea should'nt be that hard to script in AGS, though I never tried it.

cheers
nihilyst

[hedgefield]

I use that to some degree. Normal speech is displayed Lucasarts style, but for thoughts/narration I use
DisplaySpeechAt(5, 220, 310, CHARID, "STRING MESSAGE");
That creates a nice subtitle-like text. Not sure how you could script dialogs to do so aswell. Maybe on a GUI.

[Radiant]

I use that to some degree. Normal speech is displayed Lucasarts style, but for thoughts/narration I use
DisplaySpeechAt(5, 220, 310, CHARID, "STRING MESSAGE");
That creates a nice subtitle-like text. Not sure how you could script dialogs to do so aswell. Maybe on a GUI.

Nah, easier than that. Create a new character with an invisible (transparent) sprite, stick it at the location where you want the text to appear, and have that character talk.

[Mr Flibble]

You mean something like in Last Crusade where text appeared in a caption bar at the top of the screen?

Actually, neat idea, but existing workarounds probably negate a need for a specific feature.

[Pumaman]

So what you're asking for is for the Lucasarts-style character animation, but with a Sierra-style text box with the speech in it? Sounds like a reasonable request.

[strazer]

And already on the tracker, if I'm not mistaken: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/tracker.php?action=detail&id=154

[Pumaman]

Thanks for finding that -- I was sure it was on the tracker but I had a look and didn't spot it!!

[strazer]

Yeah, the title is not very good. If only I could change it... *hint* *hint*

[GarageGothic]

This isn't too hard to code around (although it does mean that all actully mean that all lines must be called in dialog_request). I wonder actually whether it wouldn't be more effective to expand AGS' general dialog functionality than adding more single-purpose features: What if it was possible to specify a (user made) function that all lines of dialog were parsed to automatically as the line was said? This would allow for much customizability without use for constant dialog_requests.   Something like on_dialog_said(String dialog, int characternumber). This would allow us to show the dialog String in any way we want, change the color according to the character saying it, showing dialog portraits wherever we want etc.  Of course dialog_request would still be used for running any dialog-option-specific action.

As for Radiants suggestion for a solution, the main problem is that LucasArts speech doesn't allow antialiasing.

[Alun]

Oh, yes...I definitely vote for that idea.  For the game I'm working on, I was planning on displaying dialogue in a special way that would require me to explicitly call a custom function for each line of dialogue spoken rather than using the built-in dialogue tools.  If GarageGothic's idea about the specifiable function were implemented, it would make things much simpler.

[xenogia]

Definetly, what I have had to do is because my text is in a custom gui box so it can move all around the screen at will by using the SetPosition command, I have to use dialog_request for every single line of speech.  It gets a bit overwhelming

[Pumaman]

Yes, improving the dialog system is something that's been on my list for ages.

[xenogia]

I was wondering for a future release, if you could make custom narrator/dialog box like the following in the screenshot below, and also make sure you can either make blocking or non blocking dialog boxes.  I want to add speech to my game, but it will be too difficult with using a custom gui for all dialog interactions.

[lemmy101]

In a similar vein (sorry for hijacking the thread, but pretty relevant) while the discussion of improving the dialogue system is going:

We are using full screen talkies in our game for major plot conversations, and it would be wonderful to have Lucasarts style speech on the full screen talkies. Just so it fits in the style of dialogue use in standard dialogue in game.

Also, in our fullscreen talkies we have one character on the left talking to another on the right (on alternate screens), so what happens is since our main character is on the right, the dialogue box covers her.

Some way of having Lucasarts style dialogue text on a full screen talkie, where the text can appear on a side (or better still any position) of our choosing would be great if possible.

Cheers CJ!

[proximity]

So what you're asking for is for the Lucasarts-style character animation, but with a Sierra-style text box with the speech in it? Sounds like a reasonable request.

  Yes Chris, i am absolutely asking for it. Actually, i am asking for editable LucasArts speech style. in my opinion, user should have options to set position of Dialog Text,visibility and color of text-background etc. 

     i hope, editable dialog system will be available on later versions. Thanks for understanding

[frogfrost]

This isn't too hard to code around (although it does mean that all actully mean that all lines must be called in dialog_request). I wonder actually whether it wouldn't be more effective to expand AGS' general dialog functionality than adding more single-purpose features: What if it was possible to specify a (user made) function that all lines of dialog were parsed to automatically as the line was said? This would allow for much customizability without use for constant dialog_requests.   Something like on_dialog_said(String dialog, int characternumber). This would allow us to show the dialog String in any way we want, change the color according to the character saying it, showing dialog portraits wherever we want etc.  Of course dialog_request would still be used for running any dialog-option-specific action.

This is an ancient thread, but just wondering if anything like this ever got implemented? I couldn't find it anywhere?

Something like on_dialog_said, or render_dialog_text would be really handy.

I guess now that you can just embed script in dialogs you could just use SayAt or do whatever you want there.

But it's more about a workflow thing, because it's great to use the NAME: say stuff - formatting rather than calling script for ALL lines of dialog.

Sort of a minor thing really, but if you have a lot of dialog, it's a lot nicer to read through without all the code.