Strife's Dialog System - UDMF Flavor

[IwazaruK7]

I had no intention using gzdb dialogue editor, but seems like it was sync with script editor there (at least in my version).

Thank you much, for tut and answers.

[Blake00]

Thanks for creating this. Apologies if it's already here somewhere and I've missed it but I'd love a bonus tutorial on how to add large screen filling images of the character you're talking to like in Strife. Plus if there's any customization that can be done with the image eg what sizes work.. can it animate (eg say 3 frames repeating at a certain tic rate similar to a regular animating wall in doom). I'm also guessing it doesn't have to be a monster actor that triggers the sequence and this can be used for linedef activated mini story pic+text combo event cutscenes as well?

Strife convo with a background image of characters face.


I ask as one of the biggest criticisms of my Star Trek Doom level and Quest for Glory IV 3D Hexen level are that I used primitive 'virtual cinemas' for the NPC conversations and in-level story cutscene events instead of strife style. I tried back in 2014-15 but just couldn't figure it out on my own and this awesome thread didn't exist then so I had no choice but to use the virtual cinema idea. Sometimes my cutscenes were animated by using a animating doom wall with 3 or so frames repeating.

NPC convo via 'virtual cinema' in my Star Trek Doom mod.


In-level story cutscene event via 'virtual cinema' in my QFG4-3D Hexen mod.


Example of one of my animating cutscene event sequences via 'virtual cinema' in my Star Trek Doom mod.

https://youtu.be/Ds_ZKbQe0Zw?t=27

.

[Curunir]

Spent most of today learning how to work with dialogue, including a good portion of this tutorial. I took notes as I went along, then compiled everything into a sort of a cheat-sheet because this sort of thing really helps me, personally.

Thought I'd put it in here. It's an image, because for some reason the code block is having a seizure with the tabulated text.

[Hedda Shakedale]

There's also this now: https://gitlab.com/accensi/acetoolkit/-/releases
Contains a ZSDF editor. Should probably add tooltips to the various fields eventually.

[Zergeant]

Merry early Xmas, I've updated the OP with more Additional Content, some of which has been asked about in this thread. Hopefully most things should be covered by now.
Following stuff has been added:
-Panels
-Pagenames
-Conversation States
-Shared dialogue files between maps

Thanks for creating this. Apologies if it's already here somewhere and I've missed it but I'd love a bonus tutorial on how to add large screen filling images of the character you're talking to like in Strife. Plus if there's any customization that can be done with the image eg what sizes work.. can it animate (eg say 3 frames repeating at a certain tic rate similar to a regular animating wall in doom). I'm also guessing it doesn't have to be a monster actor that triggers the sequence and this can be used for linedef activated mini story pic+text combo event cutscenes as well?

I'm pretty sure you can use any size you desire, however it cannot use an animated texture.
Yes you should be able to activate the conversation through a linedef special, although you might need a dummy actor placed somewhere to refer to.

[Blake00]

Merry early Xmas, I've updated the OP with more Additional Content, some of which has been asked about in this thread. Hopefully most things should be covered by now.
Following stuff has been added:
-Panels
-Pagenames
-Conversation States
-Shared dialogue files between maps

I'm pretty sure you can use any size you desire, however it cannot use an animated texture.
Yes you should be able to activate the conversation through a linedef special, although you might need a dummy actor placed somewhere to refer to.

OH MY GOD!! Thank you so much Zergeant! You are da man! DA MAN!!!

I ask about size as I've seen on youtube and in threads like this how some people like to play GZDoom in good old Doom res 320x200 or other low resolutions so I'm guessing that if I have a say 800x600 size panel isn't going to go too well haha. Not that I plan to as all my cutscenes in my virtual cinemas are standard wall sizes of 256x128 and 128x128. However I was curious so I thought I'd ask.

[Zergeant]

Cheers. I'm not sure how much I'd worry about playing in 320x200, lowest I could go with latest GZDoom revision is 640x480:


Basically it looks fine. If you set viewmode to HUD in SLADE when looking at an image you should see a preview of how it fits in a player's view.

[drfrag]

Where can i download this tutorial or a small mod with conversations? I want to test something.

[ImpieTwo]

I'm at my wit's end trying to get this to work. I can't for the life of me figure out why i got this dialogue system to work in Ghoul School, but haven't gotten it to work since in any other project.

This is a UDMF project in Doom 2. As with Ghoul School, the dialogue trees and chatty npcs are in the "talkers" wad. Dialogues simply do not happen no matter what I do. Any ideas?

[Enjay]

Is the "goodbye" option customisable or removable in any way other than simply changing what the goodbye text says?

The reason is I want to make it so that ending the conversation runs an ACS script. I have been able to set up a conversation choice that runs the script and exits the dialogue but I still have an unwanted goodbye option too. So, if the player picks the goodbye, the script doesn't happen.

I've tried raising the instruction to run the script to a higher level (in the "page" section and the general "conversation" section) but it seems to be ignored there.

So, I either need to be able to remove the "goddbye" totally, or make the script run when (or before) goodbye is selected somehow.

I'm pretty sure it's been asked about before, but I can't find the responses.

Code: Select all • Expand view

conversation
{
    actor = "ConversationPiece01";
    page //Page 1
       {
      name = "Spoopy";
      dialog = "Hi guys, want to run a script?";
      goodbye = "outahere";
      Choice
      {
         text = "Run the script.";
         CloseDialog = true;
         special = 80; // ACS_Execute
         arg0 = 1; // Run script 1
         arg1 = 0; // Run on this map
         }
   }

}


[edit]
OK, I've found a workaround - In my case, I can easily start the conversation using a script activated from a line special. Therefore, my dialogue only needs to include the information I want in text and a goodbye option. The script can handle the rest and I can set it to continue after the dialogue closes*.

*Speaking of which, I noticed that there is a delay (of about 1 second) in the world freezing between activating a conversation (by any means) and the world-freeze actually happening. Purely out of interest, why is that delay there?
[/edit]

[Gez]

There's always an extra "goodbye" option because the conversation interface is actually a menu, and as a menu you can always leave it. Even without the "goodbye", you can leave it just by... pressing "Esc", same as any other menu.

[Enjay]

Fair enough. The script idea is working well enough for me anyway. I'm only using this for simple computer interfaces that put information on the screen for the player to read. There is minimal interactivity, so having the dialogue system put stuff on screen and having a script do stuff in the background once the game is un-paused is fine.


However, I do wonder if there is any way to get the text from a dialogue to appear at the console? That way a player could scroll back in the console to re-find something that they have forgotten.

If that's not possible, what would be the best way to get a Print, or HUDMessage to log something at the console without actually appearing on screen? I had ideas for an invisible font or positioning a HUDMessage off screen but both seem a bit hacky.

[Zergeant]

Where can i download this tutorial or a small mod with conversations? I want to test something.

I have uploaded the full tutorial map for you
http://www.mediafire.com/file/zifexx334 ... e.wad/file

I'm at my wit's end trying to get this to work. I can't for the life of me figure out why i got this dialogue system to work in Ghoul School, but haven't gotten it to work since in any other project.

This is a UDMF project in Doom 2. As with Ghoul School, the dialogue trees and chatty npcs are in the "talkers" wad. Dialogues simply do not happen no matter what I do. Any ideas?

Did you remove the download link? Getting a 404.
Might be missing includes in dialogue files, or it might be because of different file formats.

Fair enough. The script idea is working well enough for me anyway. I'm only using this for simple computer interfaces that put information on the screen for the player to read. There is minimal interactivity, so having the dialogue system put stuff on screen and having a script do stuff in the background once the game is un-paused is fine.


However, I do wonder if there is any way to get the text from a dialogue to appear at the console? That way a player could scroll back in the console to re-find something that they have forgotten.

If that's not possible, what would be the best way to get a Print, or HUDMessage to log something at the console without actually appearing on screen? I had ideas for an invisible font or positioning a HUDMessage off screen but both seem a bit hacky.

No function that I know of, you will probably have to do a "hacky" Print indeed. If you're looking to do more advanced stuff than is already provided by GZDoom you should contact Nash. I know he has opened the system up with ZScript to do more complicated stuff such as randomized responses and removing the goodbye option. But it's way out of the scope of this tutorial.

[Thomas Mabblespear]

First off, thank you for this awesome tutorial, I now managed to get it working on my own map. I only have one problem: Do you know if it's possible to play audio files (voice recordings) in a similar way as displaying the panels? I tried the commands "play" etc., but they all didn't seem to cut it. Thanks a lot in advance and keep up the awesome work!

[Zergeant]

First off, thank you for this awesome tutorial, I now managed to get it working on my own map. I only have one problem: Do you know if it's possible to play audio files (voice recordings) in a similar way as displaying the panels? I tried the commands "play" etc., but they all didn't seem to cut it. Thanks a lot in advance and keep up the awesome work!

There's a property called voice that you can add in the page blocks that should work, as follows:

Code: Select all • Expand view

page
{
    name = "Test"
    dialog = "words"
    voice = "name_of_soundfile_here"
}


I'll be looking into updating the OP with this in the future.