a few questions on dialog and character placement

[Calamity]

I'm not fully sure if this has been covered before but I scanned the manual and didn't come up with much.

My first question being, I have my first diablog set up just as the tutorial told me to, yet for some reason sometimes the script doesn't stop and give the player the option of what to choose, it just runs from the opening dialog to the frist question and then gets locked in a never ending loop. Any idea on what's causing this? Also if I try to set the main character to walk somewhat never the person he's talking to it does the same thing. Mind you sometimes it works properly but other times not so. I'll post the first dialog code though I believe it's alright:

// dialog script file
@SÃ,  // dialog startup entry point
burger: Hey there BC.
bc: How're you doing Fred?
return
@1Ã,  // option 1
bc: I was kind of hoping you could tell me that one.
return
@2Ã,  // option 2
bc: I'm not completely sure there either.
bc: The last thing I remember was I was curling up for some shut eye and now I'm here.
return
@3Ã,  // option 3
bc: All right but if you make any headway come back for me.
stop

My next dialog question is that I set the talking animation for my main character to be sideways but as soon as he finishes talking he goes to the normal standing forward view which just looks awkward. I was thinking that the way to change it might just be to add on to the view (as it's only one loop with the talking animation in it) but I wasn't too sure. Is there anything other than that that I should try?

And lastly (my goodness this is long and I'm sorry for it but I'm trying to be as detailed as I can so it's clear as to what I'm talking about) I want to use a secondary character in more than one scene but it only gives you one box for where they start out in and I was wondering how to get them in more than one.

Thank you for your time and I'm sorry if this all has been asked recently.

[Ashen]

First question:
I have no idea what's wrong, that script works fine for me. How are you triggering the dialog?

Second question:
Was the main character facing forwards before he started talking? If so, try putting a FaceCharacter (BURGER, BC); before the dialog starts (I'm guessing BURGER is the main char, and BC is the one he's talking to). If you're using the interaction editor, you'll need to use the Character - Face location command, and type in BC's co-ordinates. You'll also need to have the sideways talking animation in the sideways loop of the view (i.e. set up the talking view up/left/right/down the same as the normal view).

Third question:
In scripting, you'd use, for example, character[BC].room = 5; to move the secondary character BC to room 5. The interaction editor has the Character - Move NPC to a different room command, which does the same thing.

Hope at least one of these is some use.

[Scorpiorus]

Hmm, the first problem is rather odd. As Ashen says, how do you start a dialog, with an interaction editor's Run dialog action or by calling a RunDialog(int topic) script function?

Additionally, is the dialog in question is triggered during a normal gameplay or is there a cutscene (using StartCutscene/EndCutscene script commands) you have?

By the way, what AGS version are you using? Make sure you run the latest official 2.61 at least (just in case).

As for the character "goes to the normal standing forward view" issue, think I know what's wrong. You meationed that you created a talking animation with a single loop. But the thing is, a talking view (when used for lucas-arts speech style) have to be set up just like a normal walking view, i.e.:

Loop 0 - talk facing down (towards screen)
Loop 1 - talk facing left
Loop 2 - talk facing right
Loop 3 - talk facing up (away from screen)

You used only one loop (I guess Loop 0) which is assigned for the down direction.

So, yes as you said before add all the appropriate loops, make sure they correspond to their directions.

[Calamity]

I want to thank both of you for clearing the issues up. I'm not completely sure why the script kept doing that but ever since I added the speech animation they've worked just fine.

And creating the full loops fixed the previous problem. You were right Scorpiorus since it had been in the down function of the loop it went back to the real down view after every bit.

I am using 2.61, sorry that I forgot to add it in the first place. I really appreciate your help.

[Scorpiorus]

No problem.

P.S.
Btw, just noticed that I suggested the very same thing about talking views that Ashen already had. Sorry Ashen, I should have read your post more carefully.