GUI CAMERA This can be found in the Prefabs under Camera. This is a ready to go GUI camera solution that has all the required scripts already attached to make use of the majority of the system.
CHARACTER Requirements – A plane, texture image.
A character is defined by Name, speech colour and its texture image.
The easiest way to create a new character is to drag the ‘Blank’ prefab from the ‘Character’ folder and alter the default values from there.
BACKGROUND 6 Requires – A camera, child plane.
A background usually consists of a camera and a plane that holds the background image.
Like a character it is worth creating a new background from the ‘Blank’ prefab in the ‘Backgrounds’ folder in the prefabs.
DIALOG BOX Requirements – A plane per component, textures for each plane. Components-
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Auto Button – Sets the text to automatically continue without user input. Save Button (Optional) – Launches the save function. Load Button (Optional) – Launches the load button. Next Arrow (Optional) – A visual aid for skipping text. Skip Button – Skips to the next choice/breakpoint.
Dialog – TextMesh Used to show the text in a conversation. Name Panel – Where a character’s name goes.
The best way to get used to how the dialog box works is to drag one of the samples out from the Prefabs>Dialogs folder.
SOUNDS Sounds can be either Voice or Music. It is ideal that you place sounds in the resources and NAME THEM EXACTLY WHAT THE CONVERSATION SCRIPT IS REFERENCING.
MANAGERS There are a few managers that handle most of the data you will utilise when building a conversation system with this product.
IMPORTANT – ALL OF THESE MANAGERS SHOULD BE ATTACHED TO THE GUICAM.
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Background Manager – Controls all the different backgrounds available. Character Manager – Controls all of the characters in a conversation.
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Dialog Manager – This is probably the most important part of the system. This controls the handling of conversation scripts and keeps the dialog box in control. Music Manager – Controls sounds and music.
Save Manager – Handles save and load functionality.
SAMPLES
I have provided three samples in the ‘Scenes’ folder. Open these to get a feel for the different ways of using the system.
IN GAME SAMPLE – This shows the system in use in an RPG like mannerism, a player character can move around the game world and interact with the various NPCs. Controls:
W, A, S, D – Move character. Spacebar – Speak.
Mouse – Control conversations.
SAMPLE CUTSCENE – This sample showcases a more traditional Visual Novel style usage of the system. Controls: All mouse based.
TESTER - Like above but with different visual styles. Also shows the inline style of answers over the traditional.
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TUTORIALS
Below are a series of tutorials designed to familiarise you with using this system and provide you with a good foundation to produce a Visual Novel styled game or use this in any traditional game mannerism.
TUTORIAL - SETTING UP A TRADITIONAL VN STYLED SYSTEM
This tutorial will take you through setting up the system in the quickest time possible using the assets provided. This method teaches how to make a more traditional Visual Novel styled dialog system. Let’s Begin!
Step 1 – Create a new Scene within Unity (File> New Scene).
Step 2 – Make sure you have imported the package of this tool into Unity (See Getting Started). Step 3 - From the Project tab navigate to Prefabs>Camera and select ‘GUICamera’. Drag this into the Hierarchy tab.
Step 4 - Delete the ‘Main Camera’ this is optional, but recommended as it will ensure that only the GUICam will render which for this style is ideal.
Step 5 – Select the newly created GUICamera and look in the inspector, expand the Dialog Manager scipt foldout so it looks like below.
Step 6 - In Dialog Box apply the following settings.
NOTE – you can override the default dialog box style by placing any dialog box into the scenes hierarchy. Step 7 – In Answers you need to set up the answer button prefab:
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? ? From the Prefabs>Buttons>Answer folder, select either AltAnswer or Answer and drag it into the Answer Button Prefab field.
Set the gap to around 200 like shown below.
Step 8 – Lets set an XML script to load then shall we.
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From XMLScripts/SampleScript select ‘Sample1.xml’ and drag this into the Script File(XML) field.
Step 9 – From Resources>Backgrounds select ‘Classroom’ and ‘School’ and drag them into the Hierarchy.
Step 10 – Hit play, you should now see the system working as intended. Play around with the different buttons and see for yourself.
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